Eating a plant based diet has completely changed my life, It sounds dramatic but I mean every single word. It has changed my health, my attitude, even my perspective.
I have grown up eating a processed standard American diet from the South so lots and lots and fried food and take out. My family is riddled with health issues, everything from auto-immune diseases, to cancer, and heart attacks. Almost everyone in my family is on at least one medication for something that I now understand can be completely controlled by diet change.
My health story begins with constantly having digestive issues as a child and that continued to follow me all the way into adult hood. During my teen years I began to struggle with my weight and I felt as if I was always just a little heavier than everyone else so I then developed a horrible relationship with food. Yo-yo dieting, binge eating, diet pills you name it and I did it. All of those things made my digestive issues that much worse. In 2007 at 18 years old I married my high school sweetheart and our eating habits consisted mainly of microwaved meals and drive thru foods, oh and a ridiculous amount of pizza. A few months before we married I tore my ACL and meniscus in my right knee, Later I would tear and have that ACL replaced 3 more times for a total of 4 reconstructions. I had my appendix removed following the first ACL surgery then later would have my collar bone reconnected with a plate and 5 screws and then finally in 2017 I had a procedure on my back due to some vertebra issues and degenerative discs... So you can probably guess where this is going. I struggled with horrible arthritis and inflammation of both my joints and my gut. I also found out I had high blood pressure, was pre-diabetic, I was anemic along with deficient in vitamin D and B12, and showed significant signs of ulcerative colitis. I felt like my body was completely shot all by 28 years old, in 10 years I had accumulated that many injuries and ailments and my body felt the aftermath. I constantly had some kind of ache or pain and can honestly say I had very few days that I actually felt well.
In 2016 I first heard of a "vegan" or plant based lifestyle via YouTube. I found an athlete named Rich Roll and saw where he had written a book all about how he changed his life from couch potato to athlete all by changing his diet. That lead me to discovering other athletes who ate a plant based diet and not only lived that way but truly thrived. People had better recovery time, better performance and even had healed themselves from disease and food disorders. I jumped deeper in, since I am a seeker of knowledge I always have to weight out the facts and research every side and I was amazed at how people had transformed their lives by changing what they nourished their bodies with. It took me time to fully transition but I would notice when I ate good I felt good and the minuet I would have a little "cheat meal" all the familiar issues would come right back. Last year I was overweight and was on 3 medications awaiting a back surgery and that was it I was over the pain and sickness that had consumed my life and I knew that I would do whatever it took to give my body a chance to heal and recover. My grandmother was a huge impact on me at this time because she was battling breast cancer and really had began to study nutrition, She thought no one was listening but I sure was. I began to eat as many healthy life giving foods as possible and my body transformed. I traded my prescription anti-inflammatory for a turmeric, black pepper, and ginger supplement, and soon would come off all the medications I was prescribed.
My 6 week follow up with my spine doctor showed a reversal in my degenerative disease and he no longer recommended I have the 2nd procedure like planned, He was baffled at how my body was actually showing signs of healing. On December 27th, 2017 I had a follow up with my general practitioner and had my lab results re-tested. My A1C was in perfect range, so was my blood pressure and cholesterol, I was no longer vitamin deficient and had no symptoms from the ulcerative colitis, he then pulled me off all medication and previous supplements. A side effect of all of this was over that year I lost 70 lbs, My body began to thrive and it has ever since. The only thing I did was change what I put into my body, I became aware of how food effected me and how what I put into my body was more important than I ever realized. You have to nourish to flourish and I am able to live the life I have always desired because I choose to make the change. We don't always have control over the things in our life but we do have control over what we eat and the lifestyle we choose to live!
I choose living foods for a living body!
I have grown up eating a processed standard American diet from the South so lots and lots and fried food and take out. My family is riddled with health issues, everything from auto-immune diseases, to cancer, and heart attacks. Almost everyone in my family is on at least one medication for something that I now understand can be completely controlled by diet change.
My health story begins with constantly having digestive issues as a child and that continued to follow me all the way into adult hood. During my teen years I began to struggle with my weight and I felt as if I was always just a little heavier than everyone else so I then developed a horrible relationship with food. Yo-yo dieting, binge eating, diet pills you name it and I did it. All of those things made my digestive issues that much worse. In 2007 at 18 years old I married my high school sweetheart and our eating habits consisted mainly of microwaved meals and drive thru foods, oh and a ridiculous amount of pizza. A few months before we married I tore my ACL and meniscus in my right knee, Later I would tear and have that ACL replaced 3 more times for a total of 4 reconstructions. I had my appendix removed following the first ACL surgery then later would have my collar bone reconnected with a plate and 5 screws and then finally in 2017 I had a procedure on my back due to some vertebra issues and degenerative discs... So you can probably guess where this is going. I struggled with horrible arthritis and inflammation of both my joints and my gut. I also found out I had high blood pressure, was pre-diabetic, I was anemic along with deficient in vitamin D and B12, and showed significant signs of ulcerative colitis. I felt like my body was completely shot all by 28 years old, in 10 years I had accumulated that many injuries and ailments and my body felt the aftermath. I constantly had some kind of ache or pain and can honestly say I had very few days that I actually felt well.
In 2016 I first heard of a "vegan" or plant based lifestyle via YouTube. I found an athlete named Rich Roll and saw where he had written a book all about how he changed his life from couch potato to athlete all by changing his diet. That lead me to discovering other athletes who ate a plant based diet and not only lived that way but truly thrived. People had better recovery time, better performance and even had healed themselves from disease and food disorders. I jumped deeper in, since I am a seeker of knowledge I always have to weight out the facts and research every side and I was amazed at how people had transformed their lives by changing what they nourished their bodies with. It took me time to fully transition but I would notice when I ate good I felt good and the minuet I would have a little "cheat meal" all the familiar issues would come right back. Last year I was overweight and was on 3 medications awaiting a back surgery and that was it I was over the pain and sickness that had consumed my life and I knew that I would do whatever it took to give my body a chance to heal and recover. My grandmother was a huge impact on me at this time because she was battling breast cancer and really had began to study nutrition, She thought no one was listening but I sure was. I began to eat as many healthy life giving foods as possible and my body transformed. I traded my prescription anti-inflammatory for a turmeric, black pepper, and ginger supplement, and soon would come off all the medications I was prescribed.
My 6 week follow up with my spine doctor showed a reversal in my degenerative disease and he no longer recommended I have the 2nd procedure like planned, He was baffled at how my body was actually showing signs of healing. On December 27th, 2017 I had a follow up with my general practitioner and had my lab results re-tested. My A1C was in perfect range, so was my blood pressure and cholesterol, I was no longer vitamin deficient and had no symptoms from the ulcerative colitis, he then pulled me off all medication and previous supplements. A side effect of all of this was over that year I lost 70 lbs, My body began to thrive and it has ever since. The only thing I did was change what I put into my body, I became aware of how food effected me and how what I put into my body was more important than I ever realized. You have to nourish to flourish and I am able to live the life I have always desired because I choose to make the change. We don't always have control over the things in our life but we do have control over what we eat and the lifestyle we choose to live!
I choose living foods for a living body!
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