In June 2021, I experienced an episode of Gout:
In the picture above, notice the difference in size between my right foot (with gout) and my left foot (without gout). If you haven’t experienced it, Gout causes your foot (most often) to swell up and become painful to the slightest touch – even a bed sheet resting on your foot can cause a lot of pain. So, I visited the doctor who explained to me that this is a diet related condition. She gave me steroids to get over this incident and recommended I go on a Mediterranean diet. I started looking into it and found out that one common cause of Gout is too much red meat. At the same time, I had been browsing posts of a Facebook page that I found interesting:
https://www.facebook.com/AnneAdamsRN
This page is owned by a person that I don’t know, but some of the themes she posted on were interesting to me (Conservative Politics and Christianity). She posts a lot of memes and links to articles which I like. However, one thing she also posts on, which I had absolutely no interest in, was the benefits of eating a vegan diet. But I would tolerate those posts to be able to see the other posts that I liked. However, one day on her feed, there was a post about a story of a woman in her 70’s or 80’s who was a poster child for everything that can go wrong when eating the S.A.D. diet (Standard American Diet). It was interesting to me, because she was able to completely turn around her health and stop taking all medications (for cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and other things). So, I researched her story and found out that she was following something called the McDougal diet. So, I purchased the book:
In the book, he advocates following a Whole Food Plant Based diet containing no animal products, processed foods or oils (even vegetable-based oils). In reading the book, I became convinced that if I could follow this diet, I would greatly improve my health. I think the book recommends trying it for something like 2 weeks. So, I spoke to wife and she agreed to try it with me. The next day, we ate the way prescribed in the book and it was very difficult to prepare the food as well as get used to the bland taste. After one day of it, the next morning, I did some soul searching and realized that the diet was simply too extreme and I wouldn’t be able to follow it. I informed my wife and she agreed. So we stopped.
A few months passed by, and AWANA had started for the year. Our AWANA director was in our room at the church and noticed that we were going to be rewarding the kiddos with candy for participation and getting their work done. We offered her some of the candy and she kind of matter-of-factly mentioned that she doesn’t eat that stuff. So, I inquired about her diet. She informed me she was following a Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) way of eating. So, I told her about the experience I had a few months ago, when I tried to go on the same diet, and how I found it too extreme to follow. She mentioned that she learned this way of eating from a book called “How Not to Die”:
She recommended I get the book on Audible and listen to it, because the author reads it and does a great job. So, I purchased the book, since I already get one Audible book a month. Additionally, she asked about my attempt at eating WFPB, and having heard about my experience, she recommended I just get a Ninja and make smoothies for breakfast. She informed me that the benefit is that you can put all sorts of healthy stuff in there and you don’t even taste it if you put strawberries and dates in the smoothie. So, I got that too.
I started listening to the book “How Not to Die” and it completely changed my outlook on eating meat. The first half of the book covers the top 15 causes of death in America and how not to die from those. The second half of the book covers what to eat on a daily basis. I was so helped by it that I even bought the Kindle book and a paperback of it. On November 29, 2021, I started making smoothies every morning with frozen fruits in them as well as all sorts of other ingredients. Here is an example of the ingredients (not pictured is Unsweet Almond milk):
Also, I started eating Oatmeal in the morning with various things being put in it:
(note – I’ve since removed the Monk Fruit sweetener because of the recent news about erythritol)
Additionally, I increased my walking every morning from 1.5 miles to 3.5 miles (~ 50 – 55 minutes). While on the walks, the first half of the walk is spent practicing/meditating upon/praying through Bible memory verses. For the second half of my daily walk, I was listening to the book “How Not To Die”. Early on, I found the diet difficult, so I bargained with myself that I would only follow it every other day. Every day, I would eat the good breakfast, but every other day, I would eat meat for lunch and sometimes for dinner. Currently, I don’t eat dinner, or eat only healthy snacks, but not meals.
Eventually, as time went on, I started to find plant-based alternatives to eat for lunch such as:
- Chipotle veggie “bowl” with brown rice, black beans, fajita vegetables, Pico de Gallo, guacamole, corn, lettuce
- Salad and Go build your own salad with:
- Spinach
- Black Beans
- Carrots
- Celery
- Dried Cranberries
- Corn
- Red Peppers
- Sweet Potatoes
- Tomatoes
- Simple Truth Plant Based Caesar dressing (from home)
- Or even at Famous Dave’s I found that I could eat vegetarian:
So, now, I would say I eat meat about once a month (only on special occasions). On a typical week I eat vegetarian (include eggs, cheese) about 4 days, WFPB about 3 days. I’m very satisfied with it.
After eating this way for a year, my total cholesterol dropped from 240 (October 2021) to 144 (October 2022)! Although it wasn’t my main goal, I also lost a good amount of weight and am finally in the “ideal” range for BMI. Here is a history of my weight since I started this way of eating (notice there was some backsliding in late summer 2022):
Overall, I’m very happy with this life-style change. I was motivated by seeing my mother, who had many health problems as well as others in my circle of friends and family, whose lives we’re dominated by doctor visits, surgeries and taking numerous prescription medications, which have side-effects and are expensive. Though I believe that God has a day on the calendar at some point in the future when I’m out of here and there’s nothing I can do about the (Psalm 139:16), I felt that I can choose to live out the rest of my life in as healthy a way as I can, so I don’t have to live suffering due to behavioral issues which I can largely control. I’m 60 years old and I don’t see myself going back to my former way of eating. I hope this has helped you. I would highly recommend reading the book “How Not to Die” (it would be a great title for a Christian book as well J). It is an eye-opening book and truly changed my mind and then my life for the better.
1 Peter 4:12-16 