2024/04/21
Posted Tag: #Personal
Other Tags: #Linux, #Windows, #All
Five or six years ago I woke up one morning around two with a pain in the center of my chest that felt like indigestion. I got up, took an anti-acid to hopefully relieve it and went back to bed. Some two hours later I woke up again with it. The pain was intense and confusing to me. I had not eaten anything that would normally promote this. The second time I woke up was close to the time I would normally get up to go to work so I called out sick because I had gotten very little sleep. The pain eventuality moved to the lower right of my chest and was starting to scare me.
I did as I usually do with questions I have and I searched on the Internet eventually discovering what it likely was being a gall bladder attack. In other words I likely had a gall stone trying to leave the gall bladder and was either wedged in the discharge duct or blocking it. It was raising pressure in the gall bladder causing pain. But in these searches I ran across something else. It was a whole food plant based diet and prominent doctors and surgeons were promoting it heavily. I found the movie Forks Over Knives so I got it and watched it. They did not have their website back then. But it opened up my eyes to the food industry and the medical industry. Money had integrated itself into both areas and were killing people. It was amazing to me and I changed my diet right then. As a Christian I believe the body is the temple to the soul and that I should remain on this earth as long as I can for everyone else. When I was in the Navy I had a friend ask me if I could commit suicide and my response surprised him when I said "No because of everyone else".
Sure I was overweight, although I ate reasonable good, I thought. I went cold turkey on this and had a faith based reason to do it. It seemed logical. I am a logical thinking person.
I did not know what I was doing and the guys at work gave me a hard time about what I was bringing to eat on my breaks. I was genuinely surprised about other people's reaction to what I ate. I was told I was crazy with all sorts of negative commits. I was doing something my faith was driving and getting ridiculed for do it. The strange thing about it I was not doing nor harming anyone else. The negativity was confusing.
For me I lost forty pounds in about six months. I slept better and when I went to the doctor they praised me for my health. I had a clear colonoscopy, my cholesterol went from 210 to 163, my blood pressure dropped and everything as far as my blood work is now in normal ranges. All because of what I was eating. Honestly that amazed me. I discovered how resilient the body was and how adaptive.
A few years ago I created some labels for bottles for hot sauce one of my brothers makes using Adobe Illustrator. He would come to my place and we would set at my computer with me implementing what he wanted. He would order a couple of pizzas as sort of a thank you while he was here and out of respect for him I ate them. My brothers have not bought into what I am dong yet but then again this one is fifteen years younger than me. I told him wait till you are my age and we will see how you feel about it. But one of those days after eating the pizza I got the original gall bladder pain again. Which makes sense with all the non plant fat. It verified for me what my original motive for discovering plant based eating.
I am not vegan because I am not doing it for the animals, although that now seems like a good reason for me too. I am doing this for everyone else. That may be hard for some people to get their head around in this in this age of excess. Food companies see a change happening so they are adapting but honestly how can you make a whole food without growing it? It is still processed food so yes the animal fat is getting out of food but they are replacing it with oil. Oil has no heath benefit and only contains excess calories. Due to this I make my own granola bars because I can control what goes in them. Yes it is more work and cost me more money but they are so good.
I can cook and always have. Cooking is knowing what you can put together and have it work. This diet has been challenging and thankfully I can eat simple and enjoy it. But I need to increase my experimentation with this diet. I eat about seven different meals right now that really last me about three or four days for my dinner. Breakfast has been oatmeal and honestly I love it. My brother actually adopted it and loves it too. He is getting there.
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