Making the Shift to a Plant-Based Lifestyle- My Story
Dear Reader,
I am going to share with you my story in finally making the commitment to a Whole Foods Plant-Based (WFPB) lifestyle. I wish I could say I embarked on a 21 Day Kickstart and the rest is history, but my road was long and bumpy. It began in the spring of 1999, Memorial Day weekend to be exact. I had found a book at a used bookstore by Dr. John McDougall about plant-based eating, and frustrated with my weight, I decided to dive in and see if what he promised really worked.
That Memorial Day weekend, I was scheduled to drive from North Carolina to Northern Virginia to accompany a close friend’s daughter on her 8th grade trip to New York City. I was determined not to let the trip interfere with my commitment to go plant-based. Luckily, because of New York’s diverse restaurant scene, I was able to find plenty of foods to sustain me until I returned home.
By the end of the summer, I was lean and healthy and feeling better than I had in years. Then one morning in the fall, around Thanksgiving, I woke up and realized I had skipped a menstrual period. My husband and I thought we couldn’t have more children because we had tried to conceive another child five years earlier with no result. Though we wanted another child, we already had our three healthy boys and decided if it was not meant to be, we had a lovely family to be thankful for.
That morning in November, at the age of 38, I realized I was pregnant, and almost right away I went back to eating old familiar comfort foods. I completely abandoned the McDougall Diet that had, I strongly believe, made it possible for me to conceive again. However, I didn’t yet understand the powerful connection between health and food, so I didn’t always make the best food choices while pregnant.
Years earlier, at the age of 26, I had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis after the birth of our second child. I was told to take my medicine every morning on an empty stomach and wait an hour before eating. That was it. I went to the doctor every year to have my blood drawn and my prescription renewed for the year. However in 1995 at age 34, I had been working out and eating well, and I felt so amazing that I quit my thyroid medication cold turkey. (Do Not Try This, Ever!)
What followed were five years of ill health, both physically and mentally. In fact, the fall before that Memorial Day weekend in NYC, I had seriously considered committing suicide because my depression had become more than I could bear, but when a neighbor’s son committed suicide the week of Halloween, I reflected upon my own situation and vowed to find a solution to my suffering. (I did not make the connection yet that quitting my medication was the cause of many of my problems.) That is what led me to a diet change. I felt if I got healthier, I would start feeling better.
On my first prenatal visit, I had my blood drawn. I was told that my thyroid levels were dangerously high. The nurse who gave me the news said, “I don’t know how you are standing up with these numbers.” So I went back on thyroid medication during my pregnancy and have taken it religiously ever since. The possibility that I could lose the baby girl I was carrying made me careful to take good care of my body. When the doctor who delivered her said she got a perfect score for health, I breathed a deep sigh of relief.
After her birth, I did want to be healthy, but I had been looking at the WFPB approach as a diet, a temporary way to lose weight, not as a permanent solution. I spent several years as an unhealthy vegan, eating meat substitutes and vegan butter. As for the McDougall Diet, it was an off and on thing until I got some really devastating news.
On New Year’s Eve, 2002, my mother went to the emergency room in her hometown and was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Six years earlier she had a cancerous lump removed from one of her breasts. This time, the doctors told her the cancer had spread to all of her internal organs.
The news knocked the air out of me. Right away I went to see her and to ask her what I could do. I wanted to help her as much as I could. She said she was willing to fight it even though the doctor had told her she had about 90 days to live. Back at home, I researched everything I could find about diet and cancer. Mom had a habit of eating fast food, and I felt that a healthy change of diet was a good place to start.
In solidarity with her, I ate and drank the same things I was making for her and suggesting that she eat. After a month of fresh juices, and other vegetable foods, Mom looked amazing. She glowed. However, I was not familiar with a sustainable diet for cancer, and soon she got really tired of the same foods. She told me she felt hungry all of the time. I would learn too late about the importance of starches in a WFPB diet to curb hunger.
My job and home were two hours away, so I couldn’t be there to make her meals. She didn’t have anyone to cook for her, and and my father didn’t really believe that diet had anything to do with her cancer anyway, so she had no support unless I was there.
Eventually, Mom’s health declined, and 87 days after her diagnosis, she died. Since I had followed the diet with her, I was slender and healthy. And I was heartbroken. I felt then and I feel now, if I had based Mom’s diet around healthy organic starches, she would have survived.
Building Mom’s diet around whole, healthy starches would have taken care of her hunger and provided the variety she craved. I am grateful that Dr. McDougall has now published The Starch Solution because it is a wonderful guide for anyone making the change to a WFPB lifestyle, whether they are healthy or need to heal. Feeling hungry is not a component of this lifestyle. Satiation is important.
After Mom’s death in 2003, my weight fluctuated again, and I was on again off again with the diet. Grieving the loss of my mother, I just stopped reading about the effects of diet on our health. Interestingly enough, if someone talked to me about their health issues, I would give them a copy of one of Dr. McDougall’s books.
I was eating a bit better because when our daughter was born, her father and I made the decision that she would be fed only plant foods. I nursed her for ten months, until she weaned herself, wanting to drink from a cup and trying to keep up with her older brothers. She was healthy and didn’t have a single cold the first five years of her life.
In 2007, when I was 46 and once again frustrated with my weight, I adopted the diet again. Combined with 30 minutes on the treadmill everyday, and a simple yoga practice, I lost weight quickly. A few months earlier, I had gone for my yearly thyroid check up and gotten my medication for the next 12 months. What I didn’t know then was if I lost a considerable amount of weight, I needed to have my thyroid levels rechecked. Also, I was entering a time in my life, perimenopause, when my body was changing.
With perimenopause and my rapidly shifting hormones, my focus on vegan as opposed to a low-fat WFPB diet, along with other stressors led to a severe personality change. I would later learn that taking too much thyroid hormone can have devastating psychological effects.
Looking back, I realize that I wasn’t really eating healthy. I was a vegan, but I was not eating fresh fruits and vegetables as often as I do now, and I did use oil.
As a result, I turned my life upside down, not only my life, but my entire family’s life. I left my marriage of 27 years and broke my family apart. Since learning that Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis is affected by hormone fluctuations and stress, I look back at that time with great sadness at what I put my family through. Over time, I have learned to have compassion for myself as well.
Depression and anxiety followed, as did taking antidepressants. Something inside me always knew I needed to focus on diet, but no one around me was eating this way, and I just didn’t have the will. I spent the next five years sitting on the couch and gaining weight. When I finally decided to take control of my life, I didn’t go for diet right away, so I continued to carry around 35-45 extra pounds.
It wasn’t until a friend was rushed to the hospital after falling, and later diagnosed with brain cancer, that I finally decided to take my health seriously. It didn’t happen right away then, either. After visiting her in the hospital for two weeks, I came down with the flu for the first time in 18 years. It was the sickest I had ever been. Every muscle in my body ached, and I was scared for the first time in my life that I might get sick and die and not be able to see my 15 year old daughter grow into a woman.
It was love, not fear, that made me choose the WFPB diet, and luckily, my daughter wanted to join me. In a matter of months we had lost over 20 lbs each. After one year, she had lost a total of 30 lbs. and I had lost 35 lbs. This time was different because I did not approach the change as a diet. I made a lifestyle change. That simple shift has made all the difference.
It has been two years since I embarked on this journey, and I consider myself still a novice. However, at age 56, my health has never been better, and I feel I am getting healthier each day. My thyroid medication was lowered two times in the first year, and I am careful to have it monitored regularly. My focus is on eating for health, making sure I eat foods high in vitamins and minerals to support my thyroid. I’m discovering that these are the same foods we all need to eat to be healthy.
That’s the story of my journey so far. I am so happy about the results that I want everyone to feel as good as I feel. There are many things we can do to increase our well-being, but I believe that diet is one of the most powerful changes we can make. I cannot keep this great news a secret, so I have decided to share what I have learned and continue to learn with anyone who will listen.
Thanks for listening, and if there is information you need about the Whole Foods Plant-Based lifestyle, check out my other posts, or comment on Facebook or Twitter, and I will be happy to post the information you need.
Peace,
Deby
p.s. The picture above is my daughter, Bliss, and me after one year on the WFPB lifestyle.
Here is a collage of my ups and downs over the years.
