Plant Based Eating Can Literally Change Your Life

Who do you want to be? Really be? What’s the life you want to create? If you put health into the equation, are you doing all you can to be as healthy as possible?

If you didn’t put your health into the mix, how long can you keep doing what you’re doing without hitting a wall?

Discover Who You Are Meant to Be

Our life is about discovering who we are meant to be. Our greatest gift is to live fully, with vibrancy, health and clarity.

Sadly, most people block their ability to do this by choosing to settle for less than they are capable of. They do this in a number of ways including overindulgence in alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, and mindless activities that do not serve them.

I have been as guilty of this as anyone at various points in my life. On the one hand, I claimed to want to live fully. On the other hand, I blocked my greatest success by indulging in behaviors that did not serve me.

My Own Indulgences

One such indulgence was alcohol. When I realized I could not live the way I had been, I got sober in 1979. Although life dramatically improved, I still had my own personal demons to deal with including excess weight.

One of my greatest challenges has been poor food choices that packed the weight on. I know what it’s like to top the scale at over 210 pounds (212 to be exact), force my body into clothes that were way to small, and very uncomfortable, choosing to wear sweats just to make it easier to move, and resign myself to the belief there was nothing I could do about it.

Trying various crash diets, I would drop weight, feel like I had things under control, only to give up on the deprivation, gain the weight back and some.

Figuring there wasn’t much I could do about the up and down of my weight, I resigned myself to the extra pounds, lack of energy, frustration over the muffin top, and feeling sluggish by mid-afternoon.

That is until I discovered a completely different way of eating; whole food, plant-based foods. I happened upon this way of eating purely by accident.

I had pretty much given up on releasing the excess weight I had grown accustomed to carrying around.

My Activity Level was Deceiving

The thing is, I was very active despite the extra 30 pounds I was packing with me wherever I went. As a hobbyist runner, I accepted the fact I would never be a fast runner. I also accepted the pain in my right calf from cramping as well as complete exhaustion after a run that was more than three or four miles.

Compared to a lot of women my age, I was doing great. But deep inside I knew I was capable of much more than I was giving myself credit for, but I quit demanding more of myself. I got into the “settle for” mode.

The settle for mode left me tired, frustrated, in pain, and feeling old. After all, at 64 years of age, isn’t this what I was supposed to feel like? That’s what a lot of people seemed to think, myself included.

The Journey Began

Little did I know what was about to occur for me.

During the summer of 2018, I experienced increasingly painful inflammation in my right hand as well as other joints.

My right leg grew increasingly painful on even a short run of a couple miles.

As a writer, it was impacting my ability to type for more than a few minutes at a time never mind, my overall joy of movement.

Other things I grew accustomed to were afternoon energy dips. My focus was not as good as it had been in the past. I didn’t feel Beginners Guide to Plant Based Eatingas creative as I desired to be and my passion for life was waning.

Not wanting to depend on medication to get rid of the pain, I hopped on the Internet to research natural remedies to minimize the inflammation.

I found YouTube videos, books, blog posts and articles all touting the miracle results people were experience with a whole food, plant-based eating protocol. Although some of it seemed too good to be true, I was desperate to feel better.