Food. Depending on what age you are, what stage of life you are in or what you are doing right this very moment, the word food can mean so many different things. Happy memories of birthday cakes, meals at your grandparent’s house or maybe even bad memories of quick, fad diets you may have tried. When you were a child, you didn’t think about how many calories a cookie had in it or how much fat was in the ice cream you ate on that hot summer day. You enjoyed life and you enjoyed eating without worrying about it! Then, as you grow older, maybe your body changed and you couldn’t eat certain foods anymore without thinking about calories, fat grams, macros and ketos. Or, maybe things didn’t change as you grew older and you could eat whatever, whenever you wanted. That was not the case for me. Right about the time I was hitting puberty, around 12 or so, my body began to change and no matter what I ate or didn’t eat, I would gain weight. My parents grew a lot of our food in their garden and my mother was a vegetarian. We didn’t typically have desserts unless it was a special occasion, so there really was no reason for me to be gaining weight. We lived out in the country so grocery shopping happened once a week. I couldn’t sneak food or even walk to go buy junk food. I remember my mother taking me to several doctors as my weight grew out of control. Their response to her was to tell me to quit eating so much. I also remember her standing up to the doctors and telling them she knew how much and when I was eating and that there had to be something else wrong. The years rocked on and my weight ballooned to well over 200 pounds and while my weight was climbing, my depression was also growing. I remember feeling guilty for eating normal, average, healthy food. Finally when I was 17 we found a doctor that would really listen to us and did several tests and blood work to find that I had hypothyroidism. I had never heard of that but everything they described, described me. Some of the common signs were weight gain, hair loss, dry skin, lethargy, mood swings, etc. I was a textbook example. I began a synthetic medication and began walking to try to lose the weight. If you read the blog about me, you know what an amazing father I had because he would walk with me after his day at work on a walking mail route! Now that’s a supportive parent. I remember working very hard and continuing to eat right and the weight began to come off. I had never really been able to go to the regular stores in the mall to buy my clothes and when I did for the first time I couldn’t contain my excitement. Back in 1987 Lane Bryant didn’t look like it did today. I eventually lost over 75 pounds and felt the most normal I could have possibly felt. I continued to exercise and became a certified fitness instructor in hopes of sharing my passion for health and fitness. But then the low fat craze began. Highly processed foods that were “low fat” and laden with chemicals. I bought a ticket to ride and joined in on that crazy train. Then, as the years came and went, so did the pounds. The low fat craze didn’t help my weight struggles nor did all of the other crazy fad diets that I had tried.
I grew up mostly vegetarian, or as I’ve learned in my health coaching classes, a lacto-ovo vegetarian. We would eat dairy and animal products, but no meat. I occasionally ate meat and chicken throughout my life but it never really agreed with me, so for the past almost 10 years I’ve been a lacto-ovo vegetarian. But I want to take it a step further and be a completely plant based vegetarian eating no animal products whatsoever. I’ve had some skin issues for a couple of years and I truly feel like it’s from the foods I eat, mostly the dairy products. And if you’ve read the blog about me, you know that I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis when I was 19. I’ve also learned in my health coaching that optimal health begins in your gut. So, I’m starting there. I’m hoping the plant based diet can improve my inflammation and other health concerns. I will be documenting my journey of a strictly plant based diet for the next 6 weeks. I will post updates and pictures of my meals, supplements and workouts on Instagram and will write about it here. But, what I won’t be doing is counting calories, counting macros, ketos or weighing my food. I want a plan for the rest of my life and not a temporary fix. I want to give myself a goal of seeing how this 6 week plan can improve my health. Let’s see where this plan will go!
