Archive for Married-1 WFPB – Page 2

“The Word of Wisdom has never been more important than it is right now”

By Jane Birch · Comments (8)
Saturday, November 9th, 2019

By Michael Crowley

My journey into the plant-based lifestyle seems trivial in light of many other stories I’ve read about here. Still I hope it’s one that gives encouragement to those just starting out like I was not so long ago. I am very motivated and excited about sharing the benefits I’ve experienced with others.

I remember reading about Jane Birch’s experience where she said something like, “Some people get an answer about the Word of Wisdom before even praying about it.” That was pretty much my experience in a nutshell. My wife and I had been going through some challenges. On the evening of Sunday, April 14, 2019, I prayed not for help but to recommit myself to the Lord. Then something miraculous happened. Later that evening, while scrolling on social media, I came across a friend’s post with a link to a video on Netflix called What the Health. Usually I would have just kept scrolling, but I felt for some reason I should check it out. As I watched the video, things started to click for me. The Word of Wisdom was suddenly front and center in my thoughts to the extent that it felt as if God was suddenly speaking to me.

Even though I had not been in good health, I really had not even been thinking about the Word of Wisdom at all. While watching the video, the beam in my eye of “vegans being strange” was removed, and my mind was suddenly open to the message being shared. I clearly recognized the health issues presented as the same ones I had previously thought of as the normal effects of aging or bad luck. I now understood what was causing them, and I was impressed at how many of the chronic diseases that had impacted my extended family over the years were being addressed.

Again the Word of Wisdom had not even been on my thought horizon that evening, but the Lord was mindful of me. He surely knew where I was headed health wise and the negative impact it would have had on both my family and me. I marveled that the Lord was so quick to enlighten me on his law of health that very same evening.

To describe my situation: at 6 feet tall and weighing 220+ lbs, I was heading towards 230 lbs with no indication of stopping there. I had horrible sinus problems, migraine headaches, poor focus, and low energy. Terrible pain in my lower back had me in physical therapy and chiropractic care and was again threatening to put me back there, no pun intended. The flare-ups would often last for months at a time. Getting out of bed meant literally rolling out. Putting on my socks was near impossible due to my limited range of motion and the sharpness of the pain. Driving was unbearable during those times. There were also multiple skin issues, including a rather large and painful boils on my back that had to be surgically removed. There were infections and sickness that just repeated over and over again. There was increasing soreness and fatigue that left me depressed and feeling useless. I had become an unbearable version of myself.

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“I’m thankful the Master of the universe cares what I have for breakfast”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, July 20th, 2019

By: Charles Cranney

When I was on the local youth swim team, the only indoor pool during the winter was at BYU. For the morning swim we arrived at 5:45 and swam until 7. My mom would always pick us up after visiting Winchell’s donuts. My favorite was the buttermilk one. After that I would go home and usually have French toast or pancakes for breakfast. My favorite meal was roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy. I drank tons of milk, thinking it was healthy. Lots of juice too.

I remained fit and trim during my mission and throughout most my college career, but little did I know my diet was laying the foundation for some challenges later in life. As the children came and I got a desk job, I started gaining weight. The joke was that every time my wife had a pregnancy, I would be empathetic and gain weight with her—but not lose the weight after she did. (We had seven children.😀)  I remember that for family night, we would often go to McDonald’s, where they had Big Macs for $1 each. I would usually eat two. I also loved ice cream. When I would go to social gatherings, I would try to be discreet about how much I ate, but I always felt I ate about twice as much as everyone else, if I was honest (especially the meat and sugary things). I did play racquetball several times a week and rode my bike to work, and we had a garden and many fruit trees, which I enjoyed. Fresh peaches drench with cream and sugar was a favorite—or peaches with Wheaties. I ate meat with nearly every meal. During food discussions I was fond of saying, “I didn’t spend a million years climbing the evolutionary ladder to be a vegetarian.”

I became more and more of a stress eater because of all the challenging church callings that seemed to come my way, including a couple of stints as bishop almost back to back (BYU and then the home ward). I remember sometimes thinking my “ticker” felt a little odd, but I never had it checked out. Later in 2006 when I was serving as young men’s president I hiked Timpanogos and King’s Peak with the young men, even though I was about 250 lbs. at the time and 49 years old. My wife had me get a heart stress test before those hikes since I was so overweight. It was shortly after that that I was called to serve as a mission president in the Russia Moscow Mission. There was, of course, lots of stress associated with that. It was one of the largest land-mass missions in the world. My farthest branch was a five-hour flight to southern Kazakhstan. My ankle hurt quite a bit during that time from an earlier extreme sprain.

When I returned from Russia, I was 264 lbs. At the doctor’s soon after, I was sent for a battery of uncomfortable tests and diagnosed with prostate cancer. Before the surgery, I went on Weight Watchers and lost 50 lbs. The robot-assisted surgery was very successful, and I was able to maintain weight of about 215 lbs for a couple of years. I was eating more fruits and vegetables than in the past but still plenty of other not-so-good stuff and meat. I also started running more.

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“I had to have a health crisis to get the ball rolling”

By Jane Birch · Comments (12)
Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

By: Darin Francom

It all started back in the early 2000’s. I had returned from serving a mission, started a new job, went back to school and met and married my sweetheart. Over the course of the next few years we started our family and added two of our three kids to the mix. Up to this point I had enjoyed great health. I was very athletic and played several sports growing up. I had never had to worry about what I ate and never dealt with weight gain, until one day in early 2005 I woke up and looked down and noticed I was starting to get a gut. The process was so gradual that I hadn’t even noticed.

So what did I do? I decided to start working out! I also borrowed a book from my brother called Body For Life. This required me to eat six times a day with an animal-based protein, a starch, and a serving of vegetables in each meal. Ultimately the diet was heavy in meat and dairy and limited in grains and vegetables. I also worked out six days a week alternating between cardio and weight training. I can’t forget the free day once every week where you were permitted to eat whatever you wanted. I would eat myself sick! I did lose weight, and I looked like I was in great shape, but I knew deep down I couldn’t maintain this lifestyle. I spent all my time planning and prepping meals or working out. I was also perpetually sore from the workouts and had the hardest time recovering. Needless to say I eventually burned out, and between 2005-2011 I went from 200 lbs to 259 lbs. As with most weight gain, my cholesterol and blood pressure also went up. I suffered from acid reflux and chronic sinus infections. I also started snoring, which robbed sleep from both my wife and me. I was a mess!

Then one day in 2011, I was watching good old KBYU while lying sick in bed from a sinus infection. Their annual fundraiser featured Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I was intrigued to say the least. I watched the whole thing and then bought Dr. Fuhrman’s book, Eat to Live and read it from cover to cover. I went cold turkey from eating the Standard American Diet to whole food, plant-based (WFPB), eating 1 lb of fresh vegetables, 1 lb of cooked vegetables, 1/2 cup of beans and 4 fruits a day. I was so sick for about 3 weeks straight! I felt like I had the flu. I was weak, tired and had a perpetual headache. Everyone around me thought I was crazy! I started to lose weight rapidly and eventually I didn’t feel ill anymore. Over the course of 6 months I went from 259 to 192, I also felt fairly good.

One of the things that drew me to this way of eating was how closely I felt it aligned with the Word of Wisdom. Eating this wasn’t difficult for me, but the pressure from others was intense and my own sweetheart, who is a nurse, thought I had an eating disorder! Family and friends thought I was being radical and without the proper support group I threw in the towel. I felt cold all the time. I had lost muscle weight, and felt considerably weaker than I was used too. I slowly and painfully went back to the SAD. From 2011 to 2018 my weight went from 192 lbs all the way up to 270 lbs.

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“I decided to put the Lord’s promises to the test”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, December 1st, 2018

By: Amy Adamson

I’ve always been interested in nutrition, so much so that I studied it in college. But sadly, I’ve always been a “do as I say and not as I do” kind of nutritionist. I was raised in a family of junk food junkies! My dad would give my brother and me $20 and tell us to go buy as many candy bars as we could. Back then we would literally come home with about 50 candy bars! Our family could easily polish them off in a couple of days. My mom was an excellent baker. We had delicious cakes, pies and cookies for dessert daily. Every meal revolved around meat and milk. Our family did have one healthy habit going though! We all loved physical activity. Tennis, skiing, running, hiking and sports filled up a lot of our family time.

By using many physical activities to “make up” for my poor dietary choices, I was able to remain slim and trim. To me that meant “healthy.” Then in the fall of 2017, I began having some bowel issues. I felt sheepish about the problem so I put off seeking treatment. Finally, in the May of 2018 a colonoscopy revealed a tubulovillous adenoma. I ended up having surgery a few weeks later to remove the tumor. The surgeon told me that the pathology revealed it was in the process of changing to cancer. At only 48 years old, I had dodged the cancer bullet.

This set me on the path of change. I knew I needed to change my dietary habits. But nutrition today had become so confusing! The more I learned, the more confused I became. Everyone believed and touted something different. One day, while searching online, I came across a sample of a book that I quickly began reading. It was called Discovering the Word of Wisdom. I read and read, until the sample ended. I immediately ordered a hard copy on Amazon and could not wait for the book to arrive so I could finish it. As I read, the spirit testified to me of the truth of what I was reading. While at the same time, the ideas seemed very radical to me. It was very different from my current lifestyle. But, based on my brush with cancer, I knew I did not need more of the same.

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“I knew I wanted to live and that He wanted me to live, and from that moment, everything changed”

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, August 11th, 2018

By: Carrie Hopkins

I still remember the eyes of the surgeon who told me, “If you want to live, you must change what you eat. You’re going to die soon, Carrie. You will not live to finish raising your children or to see your grandchildren grow up.” My medical woes were firm evidence that for too long I had failed to heed the wise counsel, warnings of a loving God, found in Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

You would think that a discussion of this magnitude would propel a person to quickly make the recommended changes, and yet I kept this to myself for a time, pondering on whether I wanted to live or die. I was so very tired of being sick, of fighting to live. It had been a while since I’d prayed, but one afternoon I felt prompted to get on my knees. As I talked to my Heavenly Father, I knew I wanted to live and that He wanted me to live, and from that moment, everything changed. When I told Him that I’d do what He wanted me to do, I was not bargaining for my life. All I asked and hoped for that day was to be comforted, whether I was to live or to die, and I did mean what I said. That comfort came immediately, although answers with regard to my health came only after much study and patience.

I decided that afternoon that I would give equal time to my spiritual health as I worked to improve my physical health. If I was going to live, I did not intend to do it halfway. I knew what was ahead would be difficult, to say the least, and I felt strongly that my only hope for success was to strengthen both body and spirit. I haven’t been perfect, but I can say with honesty that from that day to this, I have clung to the promises I’ve made to God, as if my life depends on it. I knew I could not do this alone, nor would I want to try. In ways that have strengthened my testimony in a loving God who sends personal revelation, I have been lifted many times by Him to do what I am certain I could never do on my own. Now, many years later, the joy I feel is beyond my ability to express.

When I decided I wanted to live, I sat down with the surgeon’s notes, the Word of Wisdom, Isaiah Chapter 58, Discovering the Word of Wisdom and several other books, and I made a plan. I basically went cold turkey. One minute I was one of a large crowd who ate the standard American diet and the next minute, that was the end of that. I knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t do this with a foot in both worlds. I had to allow myself time for my tastes to change, and they did. The first month or month and a half was pretty hilarious actually, but I persisted.

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“I became a convert for life”

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, February 17th, 2018

By: Patricia Haney

For the first 42 years of my life, I ate your typical American diet: meat, dairy, and loads of sugar! I cooked everything in oil, and covered everything with cheese, cream cheese, and/or sugar. I ate candy or sweets when I drove, read, watched TV. . . I even had candy in my pockets at work so I could pop some in my mouth here and there. I was an addict! I was overweight (bordering obese) and starting to have medical problems.

I am one of those people who don’t trust doctors. I had some bad experiences in the past, so I have avoided them at all costs most my life. But eventually I could no longer ignore the things that were happening in my body, and I went to the doctor. It was 2012, and we were living in Georgia, when I went to the OBGYN who diagnosed severe endometriosis. Two surgeries later, I had no more female reproductive organs left. If only I knew then what I know now!

Fast forward through years of vertigo and strange happenings to 2015. I was sitting down with my family watching a movie when I got a strange sensation. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t . . . I fell back down to the couch. I tried to speak, but it came out slurred. Everyone, including me, thought I was stroking like my mom who had had 5 strokes. I was rushed to the ER where they quickly came to the same conclusion. The results of the MRI came back . . . no stroke. Well that was good news right? “Then what happened to me?” I asked. There was zero explanation.

I am not a hypochondriac, and I know I did not imagine what happened. I knew something was wrong even though the doctor couldn’t explain it. As I was leaving with my “clean bill of health,” he said, “You might want to follow up with a neurologist. You had some lesions on your brain, but a few lesions are normal at your age.” I left the hospital and thought, “Whatever.” And my trust in doctors plummeted even more.

In 2016 when we were living in Alabama, I finally went to another doctor where I was told I had high blood pressure and should go on medication. I ignored him and finally went to a neurologist. After tests, tests, and more tests, my doctor showed me my MRI, put her hand on my knee and said, “It looks like we are dealing with multiple sclerosis. Even though there is no cure, don’t be afraid, we have lots of new drugs to slow down the advancement of the disease.”

I did NOT want to be dependent of medications the rest of my life for MS and high blood pressure. So I went home and prayed and prayed that if there were another way, could I please be led to it. I also prayed for an open mind to what I found. Then I went to the temple and prayed some more. I decided medications would ONLY be my very last desperate option.

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“I have discovered the Fountain of Youth”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, February 3rd, 2018

By: Jamie Douglass

My whole life, since I was 16, I have yo-yo dieted. I had a boyfriend tell me that I could lose a hundred pounds and I would still be fat. Even though I knew he was exaggerating on the amount, his message was very clear to me, you will never be skinny enough. So, I turned to the world in telling me how I should eat to look good and feel good. I have tried every diet out there, and I could never stick with any of them.

This last summer, I ordered a new diet supplement. I felt so crummy and was desperate to try anything. I had been dealing with years of chronic fatigue, chronic sinus infections, and chronic headaches. My new supplement came in the mail on a Thursday but on Friday I was starting a fast over a personal struggle and decided to wait to start the new supplement.

During my fast, I became surprised when I got an overwhelming feeling that I should not start the new diet supplement. Confused as to why I was getting these feelings when I wasn’t even thinking about that, the words entered my mind, “Jamie, the Lord has provided a Law of Health.” It was if a light bulb when on in my head, and I remember thinking, “Duh, the Word of Wisdom.” I went to D&C 89 and immediately gained greater insight into the diet portion of the Word of Wisdom and specifically the instruction on the use of meat. I was blown away that this portion of the Word of Wisdom has never really been discussed or talked about.

I grew up on a dairy farm and meat was a staple in our home. I love my parents, they are wonderful examples to me and I wouldn’t trade anything for my upbringing. There are so many benefits to growing up on a farm. Learning hard work was one of them. Anyway, two days later I was at a good friend’s home and as I was walking out the door she said, “I feel you need to read this book” and gave me the book Discovering the Word of Wisdom. I got halfway through the book and didn’t even finish it. I knew it was true and immediately transitioned over to a plant based diet. I have since been on a journey of diving deep into the doctrines and teachings of this part of the Word of Wisdom. I am a nurse and so I have also been studying the science side of a whole food, plant-based diet, as well as the benefits.

Six months later here are the results Read More→

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“I have had easy weight loss without being hungry or having to track any calories”

By Jane Birch · Comments (8)
Saturday, January 20th, 2018

By: Sarah Gale

I’ve struggled with health and weight for all of my married life. I joined Weight Watchers in 2002 and lost the 35 pounds of extra weight I had put on, but it was very slow going, difficult to do, and I was hungry and unhappy all the time. It also made me feel obsessed with food. I began having periods of binge eating and then starving myself to try and compensate. Five years into marriage, I got pregnant, something I wanted more than anything I had ever wanted. However, I ended up miscarrying that baby, which was horribly devastating to me. I turned to food for comfort, and promptly gained back all the 35 pounds I had lost. A year later, I was able to get pregnant again, and this time, the pregnancy worked out. However, I gained 40 pounds! I went back to Weight Watchers, and lost a lot of the weight, but the old feelings of deprivation came back, and I ended up on a binge and starve cycle again.

With our second child, I gained 30 pounds. I tried exercise, got into P90X and did it faithfully every day for 3 rounds of 90 days. I got strong and felt great, but I only lost 5 pounds!

After another miscarriage, I got pregnant again fairly soon. However, somewhere around the 18th week, I started noticing that I was very short of breath. The doctors and specialists couldn’t figure it out. Finally, I got a blessing from my husband, and he said the doctors would be able to find what was wrong. I soon learned I had a very rare tracheal stenosis, which required have multiple surgeries, ending in an extremely intense resection surgery and a high dose of steroids, which led to a dramatic weight gain.

To get my weight under control, I decided to try to the latest and greatest thing, the low carb diet. This time, I actually got a little nagging feeling in the back of my brain that this was not a good diet, and not what the Word of Wisdom taught, but I brushed it off. After recovering from the surgery, I started low carb, and the pounds just melted off. I lost 65 pounds in about 8 months, and was back to a healthy weight. Then with a fourth pregnancy, I was 100 pounds overweight!

About a year ago, I started getting back to the point where I could think about getting my weight under control and my health back. I didn’t want to do low carb again. I told my husband I just didn’t think it was in harmony with the Word of Wisdom. He rolled his eyes and said that part was outdated, and I shouldn’t worry about it! I decided to count calories with the MyFitnessPal app on my phone. I told myself I would eat three meals per day and no snacks, because snacking seems to be my downfall for binge eating . . . like the potato chips advertise, you can’t have just one! It worked very well, and I lost 65 pounds! But, again, it got difficult to keep it up!

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“I didn’t want the foods that harm my body and defeat my spirit”

By Jane Birch · Comments (17)
Saturday, January 6th, 2018

By: Julianne Kravetz

Determination, willpower and resolve are all characteristics that help define moral fiber. These qualities often serve us well in life, driving success as we pursue dreams and aspirations – except when they don’t. Despite our greatest desire, determination, our best efforts, and even all the willpower we can muster, we sometimes fail. And some of us fail again and again, leaving us feeling hopeless and alone in a barren desert of despair. This was the place where I eventually found myself.

When I was a young mother, a book was recommended to me written by Dr. John McDougall. He proposed a plant-based diet for ultimate health and weight loss. He claimed that disease, illness and suffering was not an inevitable result of aging. If that were true, we could live with health and vitality – our food choices could help us avoid needless pain. To me, this “diet” was the Word of Wisdom exemplified.

I recognized the evidence of poor food choices which resulted in obesity, complications of which is the leading cause of death in this country. And yet, this was my struggle. My recurring efforts to become a “McDougaller” were taken up, then abandoned again and again. I thought then that it was just too hard, too time consuming, too inconvenient. My never-ending trudging up and down over the dunes of struggle revealed a trail of short-lived success – then failure with pockets full of sand. What would cause people to succumb to a lifestyle that would eventually lead to preventable diseases? I knew I wouldn’t consciously choose that path, and yet there I was.

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“No food that causes me to be ill is worth it”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, December 2nd, 2017

By: Robyn Grow

I’d like to share what I have learned through my experience with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Several years ago I began having soreness in my inner-thigh area. At first I thought that I had somehow pulled a muscle because I had been squatting down a lot as I was working with the first-graders that I teach. I decided that I was out of shape and that I should workout more to get rid of the soreness. The pain progressed to the extent that I had sharp pain radiating down my leg, sometimes both legs. I could not stand on one leg (like when I was putting on a shoe). I went to my regular physician’s assistant and was told that nothing was wrong and that people have aches and pains.

Later I noticed that my hands and feet began to feel as if they had been slammed in a door. I went to a rheumatologist and found that I had both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. The x-rays also concluded that I had osteitis pubis (a side effect of RA and osteo attacking my pubic joint). I began needing to use a cane to walk on most days because the pain seemed to be weight bearing. I felt like I was walking around with some kind of fracture (or sciatic nerve down both legs). I had the pain all of the time. I could no longer teach, and I began to feel like my quality of life was slipping away from me. I began visiting an endless succession of doctors and enduring the usual required MRI, X-rays and CAT scans. All the experts agreed that I had a problem, but they didn’t have any healing solutions for me. Instead, they only offered me drugs, mostly biologics (which is mild form chemo) like Methotrexate and steroid injections. Since I am in my early 50’s, these drugs were scary for me because of the long-term dangers associated with them. I chose to take a daily antibiotic (hydroxichloriquin) that kept the rheumatoid under better control and gave me more energy to focus on walking normally again.

I spoke with a physiologist, and she told me that every pound that I lose would take 6-8 pounds of pressure off of my joints. I thought to myself, “That sounds like an easy way to lift some of the immense pain that I am feeling.” So, I began a journey to feel better by losing 30 pounds. Losing 30 pounds is equivalent to 180 pounds of pressure off of my aching joints. The weight-loss did lift some of the pain, however I was still in jeopardy of losing my ability to walk as the pain was still there every time I stood, walked or tried to lift anything.

I went the full route in using homeopathic remedies. Each time I tried a new combination, I stuck to it for 2-3 months. I never really felt like there was any cure or relief in using any of them. I also used several of the miracle cures, drinks, and concoctions. Most didn’t help, and some of them even made me very ill. Through research I learned that if you have a serious condition, some homeopathics can actually block your prescribed medications, so natural remedies should be run by the prescribing doctor first. After about a year and a half of this, the only natural remedies that proved helpful to me were turmeric and ginger.

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