Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Many people are struggling with their weight, as I once was. I recently did a video to help Million Dollar Vegan with their recent campaign. A few comments I've read on some of the videos were about moderation. Nothing drives me more crazy than this idea that someone can eat something unhealthy part of the time without sacrificing health. Here's why I don’t like the everything in moderation talk.

Would You Want To Be Moderately Healthy?

When I finally lost the weight and it stuck, it was because I did it for my health. All other attempts to lose weight before this failed because it was only about the numbers on the scale. When I put the health first, the weight came off.

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:

I know many of my vegan friends can related when I say that I wished I went vegan years ago. That being said, it is now my anniversary of being 100 percent plant based, as my last day of consuming animal products was on Sept. 6th, 2016.

I had been mostly plant based since 2012, but still relied on turkey, eggs and yogurt, along with all the fruits and veggies I was consuming. I cut out all the processed foods I was eating prior to 2012 and was feeling great. I was working out hard and getting results. I had lost the first 120 of my 150 pound weight loss within the first year.

This past Thursday, I had honor of interviewing Dr. Joel Fuhrman about how to be a healthy vegan. If you are unfamiliar with Dr. Fuhrman's work, he has transformed so many people's lives with his Nutritarian diet, including the "GBOMBS" foods that I eat each day (greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries and seeds). Although my diet includes other plant based foods, the GBOMBS are what I make sure I have daily. You can read about Dr. Fuhrman further on his website.

I wanted to interview Dr. Fuhrman as I knew he would have a lot of insight as to what's a healthy way to be vegan. As we all know, vegans can also be unhealthy, evidenced by the fact that many of the processed foods are vegan, like Oreos. As expected, Dr. Fuhrman confirmed that the GBOMBS foods are what vegans, and everybody should be focusing on. People need to eliminate as much processed food in their diet as possible, vegan or not!

So much focus is centered on weight loss, I wanted to blog about the other reasons to go whole food plant based, that being the health benefits. There are a lot of amazing stories out there and I thought I would share my own personal experience eating this way for better health.

Before I lost the weight, I was on so many yo-yo diets but nothing ever worked. I was unhealthy with hypertension and most likely pre-diabetes. I was going down a path of being on meds like so many in my family. I did not want to be like my parents, constantly making sure I had all my medication with me, worrying about side effects, etc.