Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Steiner recently. She was recently featured in an article in Forks Over Knives and it was an inspirational story, one that I could definitely relate to.

Karen was a yo-you dieter, something I had to deal with for years as well. I wasn’t yo-yo dieting as long as her, as she was dealing with dieting issues since her teenage years. But I know how frustrating it can be going from one diet to another. That's basically what I did throughout my twenties and part of my thirties. It wasn’t until I was closer to 40 that I woke up and stopped dieting.

I get it, change is hard. Sometimes, it may look too daunting of a task to completely change a diet. But, once you go whole food plant based, you begin to realize it’s not a diet but a lifestyle change.

I have a few friends and family members who say they would rather not change and stick with the side effects of the meds. This is completely the opposite of the way I feel. I would rather not have to rely on a pill to keep me going, knowing that the pill is not curing the problem but only masking the symptoms.

As many of you might remember, I had a knee injury during the last couple years. I can say that it’s finally healed! It may never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I can’t resume my normal activity, which I’ve already been doing for months.

I had chronic swelling on and off for a year. I had to wear a wrap on my knee to control the swelling. No matter what I did, if I took the wrap off my knee, it would swell. I wasn’t in pain... the only pain I really had was the day that started it all, when I had to go by ambulance to the ER a few years ago because of excruciating pain in the knee. It was the same day that I had completed a 5K race.

If you have high cholesterol, you really have no other options than to go whole food plant based. It’s really the only way to healthfully bring your cholesterol under control.

Recently, I had routine lab work done for a physical. As expected, my cholesterol was awesome! My doctor said it was optimal. According to Dr. Greger, you want a total cholesterol under 150. Most conventional doctors think anything under 200 is OK but I trust Dr. Greger, Dr. Ornish, Dr. Esselstyn and others who advise people to achieve the optimal level.

In a few weeks, it will be exactly ten years since I had my first physical since before college. That one physical altered my life from that moment on.

Many of you know my story, but it seems appropriate to remind my readers of why this appointment was so critical. I was morbidly obese, weighing in at well over 350 pounds. i was not taking care of myself, having neuropathy in my feet, feeing exhausted, having headaches, etc. I knew the doctor would tell me I had health issues and I did not want to know. I was pushed into this physical because the state of Connecticut was requiring it for workers who wanted to have cheaper premiums. I decided to finally face my fears and do the physical.