Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Yesterday, my car was getting a tune up. It was rainy, the kind of day most people would not want to be outside. The technician at the car place told me that it might take an hour or an hour and a half.

In the waiting room, the TV was playing the typical political news in the background. Ugh, I'd rather not just sit there and listen. Of course, everyone else was sitting there patiently.

I started my plant based journey for health reasons. Of course, since then, I became vegan too, as my compassion for animals and concern for the environment grew. But today, I had my yearly physical and had a reminder about why I am plant based... a clean bill of health.

I never liked going to the doctors. I had such phobias when I was a kid, and it was part of the reason why I avoided going as an adult. It wasn't until 2012 when I had my first physical that I really started getting over my anxiety (although, admittedly, it's still there!). When I found out I was pre-hypertensive and that my cholesterol was elevated, it was a huge wakeup call.

When I injured my knee after a race on November 28, I'll never forget the excruciating pain I was in. My knee was swollen and I could not put any weight on it without the pain.

I did heal pretty fast but still had problems with the stairs. I felt pain when I was going up and down. My knee cap wasn't moving right in my left knee. But the physical therapist said I would be as good as new if I did the exercises.

I had an awesome interview with Elisha Lee today. Elisha is founder of Eat To Live Daily and is helping so many people transition to a healthy plant based lifestyle and improve their health.

One of the questions during the interview had to do with my why. Why do I keep going and why do I keep eating the way I do. I answered that my why is health. But I was giving it some thought since the interview and my why has been even beyond health. I don't think I gave a complete answer because there are other whys.

I lost weight and a lot of people know about it. But what is more significant in my eyes is my transition to 100 percent plant based eating. I could have done my yo-yo dieting that I did in the past but that would have been only a temporary fix. What I wanted was something that would improve my blood pressure without needing medication and avoid diabetes. After a lot of research, I realized that plant based eating was the way to go.

So what did being plant based do for me? Take a look at some of these significant items: