Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Back in August of 2016, I had plateaued. I had already lost 150 pounds eating a mostly plant based diet, but I was left with a lof of loose skin, especially around my belly. I wanted to shift things into high gear, try other methods to build more muscle to hide the excess skin. That’s when I turned to the internet, the same thing I turned to when I initially lost the weight in the first place.

I had been trying for a few years to pack on muscle but it wasn’t working that well for me at the time. My personal trainer told me to up my protein intake to a whopping 200 grams a day. He wanted me to start having whey shakes. Two things happened that caused my personal trainer’s plan to fail: first, the whey protein shake did not agree with me. It didn’t digest well and there’s no way I could continue. Second, my primary doctor told me that I could damage my liver or kidneys with such a high amount of protein. Both of those instances caused me to rethink what my personal trainer was advising.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Brooke Goldner. I have been following her story for years and thought my podcast followers would want to learn more about her.

Dr. Goldner once had lupus, back when she was just 16 years old. Doctors would tell her it would only get worse and would shorten her life. But Dr. Goldner had a positive attitude and never let the diagnosis slow her down.

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.