Summertime Series: My New Eating Lifestyle

Welcome back to my summertime series. The summer is continuing and my non-scrolling life off social media is too with some worthwhile, exciting new changes. I wanted to share it with you and tell you about it and why I’ve made this huge change in my life. So what is the big news?

I have decided to go whole foods plant-based eating. Now this may not be a big deal to you, millions of people eat this way. But, it’s very big deal to me and since this is my blog I wanted to share my decision because it has been quite a journey for me.

My Journey to the Plant-based life!

Sometimes, life changing journeys are worth noting. We make decisions for various reasons without fully knowing the impact of what we decided. I wanted to share my journey in interview style format. Enjoy!

Well, I had been looking at all types of eating plans and lifestyles for some time now. Actually, many years. I was struggling in my body with some health issues and I wanted to feel better. I had entered the season of menopause and it was wreaking havoc in my body. I had spent years in pain all over my body. Everywhere hurt all the time, but all my bloodwork was normal. I had the worse sleep and would wake up exhausted. I had increase stress from being a single mom and going through a painful divorce. It felt as if my body was taking it all in and I was suffering.

I had gone to naturopaths and had a wonderful woman that was treating me. I had high blood pressure and had gained a few extra pounds. I wasn’t unhealthy but had a lot of stress that I knew was effecting my body. I craved comfort food and would eat some out of stress and loneliness. I knew I needed to make a change but didnt have the energy because the intense fatigue was unbearable and preventing me from living my best life.

I was fascinated with how much the body would heal from auto immune diseases, cholesterol, blood pressure issues, diabetes and even reverse heart disease and more. It was a very healing type of eating. I began to see that these plant based foods were medicine for the body and that fascinated me greatly. Besides, anything I was doing wasn’t really working. And I was doing a lot too much to name here. My pantry looked like a natural based pharmacy.

I am not one that believes in a lot of pharmacy meds. I barely take them unless its am emergency. It just seemed to me to be the best plan medically and from research and watching a lot of plant-based documentaries I was drawn more and more to it. Some things that finalized it for me were the changes it would make in my body…

1. I wanted to get off my blood pressure med
2. I wanted to come out of the range of pre-diabetic
3. I wanted to lose some menopause weight
4. I wanted to feel better in my body

I searched the lifestyle of eating for about 8-10 years, sadly. I actually even tried it several times in those years. I would start and make it about two weeks and quit and go back to my old eating ways. It was hard.

Wow that is loaded question and the answers are many. This way of eating really needs to be an all in type of lifestyle and that was one of my main issues. I wasn’t all in. But to be all-in you need to have some things in place to help you switch over. For me it was challenging because …

1. I needed to get the other food out of the house that I was tempted to eat
2. In those years, I was too depressed mentally to make such a drastic change in my life.
3. I couldn’t cook two ways. Plant-based for me and different food for my kids. So I would give up.
4. I needed support in the beginning to do it and talk to someone when I hit a wall.

Ooh, my sons were actually a little upset at first. I tried to get them to eat this way and they were flat out not giving up meat. See, learned that meat actually is the cause of high blood pressure. I know shocking. Remember I did a lot of research and when I tested this out and ate this way I had no blood pressure issues. So, I quit pressuring them and just started.

Well, I began by getting the plant-based book called The Forks Over Knives Plan. It is a 4 week eating plan to help me or guide me. I began picking six recipes I knew I could make. I would rotate them and then I began to add one or two and route them. Then, I got rid of a lot of the wrong foods in my house and told my sons, if you want the junk food you have get it yourself. They were good with that. The last thing I did, I went out and prepared by buying all the healthy food I could so it would be accessible to me. I washed it and prepped and set my mind. I could do this!

I am really feeling pretty good. In one week I have lot 3.8 lbs and sleeping better. I feel more clear in my thinking and lookin forward to getting off the one med I take. I have considerably less pain which is blessing since I have been in pain for years. Actually, the life-style is not as hard as I thought. I just have to pre-plan and take it one day at a time.