First Steps

How did I get to this journey...

Sometime last fall a friend loaned our family the movie Forks over Knives. Always interested in how to provide better nutrition for my family, I was anxious to see the movie. My eyes were opened to the benefits of a plant based diet. The movie featured a doctor by the name of Caldwell Esselstyn (among others) and I immediately checked his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, from the library. That was the beginning of my education.

A bit of background, I had been working several years to convert my family from the SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating to more healthy and natural options. I LOVE to cook and I really enjoyed experimenting with new and different as well as "healthier" dishes for my family. Something they didn't always appreciate. For the most part, I thought of myself as a fairly healthy eater.

When the truth came out about trans fats I carefully read labels refusing to purchase any products with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated "anything" on the list of ingredients.

My research showed me that real foods, the way God designed them, was better than anything man could do to "improve" something and so I only ate "real" foods. While I knew that organic was better than non-organic, severe financial constraints didn't allow for that move in our food budget. I made every attempt to as as many fruit and vegetables as I could to our meals. I cut out "red" meat, for the most part, and ate very little pork...just boneless, skinless chicken breast and turkey. Advertisers told me that low-fat dairy was good for me so I ate yogurt (none with artificial sweeteners of course) and keifer and used butter somewhat sparingly. I used butter because it was natural and did not contain trans fats. Olive oil was good for my heart so I used it generously. I fought the hardest battles trying to convert my family to only whole grains.

I was on the right track, or so I thought. Ok, I needed to loose some weight. A 20 pound weight loss would put my BMI back in the normal range. I tried to diet, I really did, but it was just too overwhelming to measure proportions and track calories...I homeschool a middle school student and a high school student -- I'm really busy!!!

In August I had my first complete physical in two years. I told my daughters, even before my blood work came back that I was going to adapt a vegetarian lifestyle and that I would not eliminate dairy unless my cholesterol came back high. You must understand how much of a prophetic statement this was. I have NEVER had high cholesterol in fact, until 2009 my total cholesterol was always in the 150 range and in 2009 it was still very "normal" at 173.

When I received my test results my total cholesterol was 200, the "bad" cholesterol was 104 and my A1c (something I had never even heard of) was 5.9. As for the A1c, 6.0 means you are diabetic. My doctor immediately pronounced me "pre-diabetic" told me to cut back on starch and have the blood work repeated in 3 months.

I came home from the doctor's office every bit as alarmed at the cholesterol levels as I was the A1c levels. In his research (and the research of his contemporaries), Dr. Esselstyn showed that when total cholesterol is below 150 and LDL (the "bad" stuff) is below 80 there is virtually no heart disease. I did not want to be a diabetic with heart disease. While I am 55 years old, I didn't have my children until later in life and with them having just turned 12 and 16 I have a lot of life to be around for!

On September 9, 2011 I began a complete colon cleanse in preparation for my baseline, screening colonoscopy. I also began a completely vegan, low fat, plant based diet.

More on the results, so far next time...