Archive for cholesterol

“At the end of my 30-day experiment, I could never go back to eating the way I used to”

By: Rachel Echols

I grew up in a typical Latter-day Saint family in Orem, Utah. We ate the standard American diet. We always had a garden and fruit trees, but we ate a fair amount of meat, cheese, and other dairy products and our vegetables were always covered in butter or cream. When I got my patriarchal blessing as a teenager, I remember being surprised that it specifically mentioned the Word of Wisdom and that I should be careful about what I take into my body. I had never had a problem with the Word of Wisdom, which I considered to mean abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and I wondered why it was specifically mentioned. It did not occur to me at that time that it might not be referring to drugs and alcohol, but to food.

I was always thin until I got married, but soon after I started having problems keeping a healthy weight. After having my two children, I struggled to get the weight off, especially after the second one, and as the years passed, I become more and more overweight. I also experienced frequent migraines, sugar addiction, and food cravings.

I knew the Word of Wisdom counseled us to eat meat sparingly and that grains are the staff of life, but I often tried diets that did not go along with that counsel. I always excused it and thought it was a short-term thing just to help me get back down to a healthy weight. Some diets worked and some did not, but whenever I lost weight, I could never keep it off. I tried Weight Watchers, Sugar Busters, the hCG diet, and eating as little as possible while exercising excessively. Over the years I started using food as a crutch. I was addicted to sweets and other rich foods and was an emotional eater. If there was chocolate anywhere in the house, it never lasted long around me. Sometimes my husband would buy treats and hide them from me because I would finish them off while he was at work.

At one point I remember following the hCG diet and I absolutely knew I should not be doing it. I had read about several women following the diet that ended up having heart problems because of it. My mother and my maternal grandmother both had some heart problems, and I knew that it was not wise for me to be following that diet. Every day these thoughts plagued me, and I felt I was doing something Heavenly Father would not approve of. But I desperately wanted to lose weight and told myself that after I got some weight off, I would stop the diet. I thought I would be able to maintain my weight loss, but that was never the case.

I decided to start a new career after many years of being a stay-at-home mom and ended up starting pharmacy school at the age of 40. I found that my weight problem got worse in grad school. I sat all day in class, then came home and sat all night to read and study. I was staying up late to study for exams, and I was stressed out. I was also working a part-time job, and we ate out often. At school, they fed us unhealthy foods, like pizza, subs, cookies, and chips. By the time I graduated in April 2017, I had gained another 35 pounds. I was at my highest weight ever.

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“If you know it’s harmful, why are you feeding it to your family?”

By: Lesli Dustin

I am grateful I grew up with a mother who cooked from scratch and fed us healthfully for the most part. My school lunches of whole wheat bread, fruit, and homemade cookies looked a lot different from my friends’ Wonder Bread, Twinkies, and fruit roll ups. I decided to try being a vegan as a teenager. Since it was more a statement than a decision, it didn’t last long, but I did remain a vegetarian for about six years. When I got pregnant with our first child and had an intense craving for meat, I took that as my body’s message that it needed meat and that was the end of my vegetarianism for many years.

I continued in my mom’s tradition and tried to cook and eat healthfully, always aware of eating enough fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and making most of our food at home. But we ate animal foods and lots of sugary desserts. I was inspired to eliminate dairy from my diet when I was in my 30’s and was excited to experience a dramatic decrease in nasal congestion that I thought was normal because it’d been there my whole life. All of a sudden, the chronic sinus infections I’d been suffering from my entire life stopped. It felt like a miracle.

Over the years I cut down on the amount of meat I was feeding my family. Shortly thereafter I decided to stop eating it altogether, except for rare occasions, but I still cooked it several times a week for my family. That year I ate turkey on Thanksgiving and discovered that it tasted awful to me. I have always been interested in health and nutrition and reading books on these subjects, and after reading The China Study I knew the lifestyle that I was flirting with had to be right. But I also wanted to be right with Heavenly Father and not get sidetracked from the gospel by following down strange paths. As a vegetarian teenager, I had a bishop who told me that refusing to eat meat was wrong and that always bothered me. I couldn’t deny the revelation I was receiving that was pushing me in this direction, but I wanted to be sure. I went to the temple and asked Heavenly Father if being a plant-based eater was right. I opened the scriptures there in the celestial room and read the Word of Wisdom and knew I had my answer.

Though my husband is an adventurous eater and would eat my vegetarian meals, he has always loved cheese and meat, and wasn’t interested at all in changing. One night at dinner, he sat down and said, “You know, if you want to cook vegetarian all the time, I’d be okay with that.” I almost fell off my chair.

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“I love the way I feel. I love my way of life!”

Helen Jessup Before and After

By: Margie Burton for her sister, Helen Jessup

My sister Helen was born nearly 72 years ago. Mom had a challenging pregnancy after months of infertility treatments. The premature delivery was a difficult one requiring forceps that damaged both frontal lobes of Helen’s brain. Her infant and toddler milestones showed slight delays but all seemed to be progressing reasonably well until a sudden seizure at the age of three. She had been riding her tricycle in the driveway when she slumped over and fell to the ground, not breathing. Mom, an obstetrical nurse, ran out and immediately began CPR while driving her to the nearest hospital. Helen was revived, but being without oxygen for some time caused more brain damage. She was never able to ride her tricycle again.

Helen went to regular public schools for kindergarten and elementary school. She had difficulty and repeated a grade when she did not develop number sense and could not read well. When Helen was ten and starting 4th grade, the teacher declared that she could not have her in class as she was too far behind in her learning. In those days, school districts did not have accommodations for disabled learners. My parents were dismayed as the options in our little New Hampshire town were limited. They finally found a boarding school in Massachusetts that catered to students with limited academic abilities. It was expensive, but my parents could not find an alternative willing to accept her.

Helen had been quite sheltered in her 10 years of life, and she felt abandoned by her family at the boarding school. She did not understand what she had done to be sent away from her loved ones. She slowly progressed in her academics but emotionally life was very difficult for her.

During Helen’s teenage years she began to put on quite a bit of weight. My mom seemed to look the other way, declaring that Helen enjoyed few pleasures besides food. At the age of 20 she graduated from her school program with a certificate of completion and came home to live. My parents tried to find places for her to go and things for her to do, but she continued to find comfort in food.

Our dad passed away quite suddenly in 1973 at the age of 62. Helen was devastated. He had been her comforter and her strength. When our mom died 25 years later, Helen became my responsibility. By then, her eating pleasures had taken a big toll on her health. She had type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. She also suffered from emotional instability and severe depression. She went through various testing to see what public services were available. She could talk like an 8 year old but problem-solved at a two-year old level. That would never change.

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“Suffering from random episodes of total blindness, I was ready to try anything”

By: Teresa Starr

My whole food, plant-based (WFPB) journey spans over 25 years. It has included twists and turns, ups and downs and has ultimately blessed my life beyond measure. In fact, I believe that the plant-based eating plan is the very reason I’m still here to tell my story.

In the early 1990s, when I was 29 years old and a young mom of 3 active little boys, I began having TIAs (transient ischemic attacks), sometimes called mini-strokes. During those episodes, I would temporarily lose all vision in my left eye. It was as if someone controlled my vision with a dimmer switch and gradually turned it off until I had a total black out – 100% blindness in my left eye. These transient episodes of blindness came on with no warning. Most episodes would last between one and five minutes. The longest one lasted 60 full, frightening minutes.

I had a family history of heart disease and high blood pressure (and my own personal history of extremely high blood pressure during child birth). The scary thing about TIAs is that studies indicate that 30% of people who suffer from TIAs end up having a full-blown stroke within 5 years. That was a very disconcerting thought because we had three little boys and were hoping to have more children. Raising our family was our top priority. My doctor put me on Coumadin, nitroglycerin (during TIAs) and one baby aspirin per day to thin my blood. I was also told to never take estrogen (because of my increased risk of stroke).

In addition to my family history, I had a few other strikes against me. Even though my weight was within a normal range, my cholesterol and triglycerides were always very high. At the time we were also under much stress and anguish because of a very serious health condition one of our kids was going through. The health challenges of our sweet little boy spanned several years and left us heartbroken (and broke).

After several years of facing our challenges, I was getting very worn out physically, emotionally and spiritually. The disturbing TIAs had continued to happen at random times and places even though I was following the doctor’s advice. One day my husband, Rick, told me that a friend at work had started a whole food, plant-based diet to improve his health. Together we studied the benefits of eating this new way. Still suffering from random episodes of total blindness in my left eye, I was ready to try anything, especially if it meant that I could live a healthy life and be a fully functioning mom, capable of raising our sweet boys.

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

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 I would put it to the test to see if it could work for me”

By: Dan Thieme

I remember as a youth growing up in the Church hearing many lessons about the Word of Wisdom. Inevitably, these lessons would emphasize that Joseph Smith surely was prophet, for how could he know at the time he lived in to write a document about health, teaching us to avoid alcohol and tobacco, which would save us from the ills of these substances which were so harmful to our physical bodies. I was amazed. I also hardly even noticed, or cared to notice, the other counsel that appears in that section of scripture: That is, what we should eat and not eat. I was never really taught that eating meat sparingly was part of the Word of Wisdom, and if we wanted to please Him, meaning the Lord (who wouldn’t!) that we should eat meat not at all. Has that phrase really been in there all these years? How many lessons and discussions over the years have I heard about the Word of Wisdom, and yet not one of those spoke of that second phrase?

And besides, who would be conspiring to make me eat meat? After all, protein is good for me right? Mom always told me to eat my vegetables, but she never had to tell me to eat my meat. Somehow I seemed to have an innate desire to eat that stuff—it came naturally to a growing boy, and eating lots of meat even seemed to be part of becoming a man. As men, we barbecue, we shoot or catch our own food with our own hands, bring it home and prepare it. Very manly. It seemed a natural part of the old ways that society was forgetting. What could be more healthy? What could be more social? At every family gathering we surrounded a table of the best meat, both from the land and the sea: prime roast, juicy steaks, good old hamburgers, or crab, shrimp, and fish. But even pork, and chicken and other meats are so wonderful!

As I grew, I became more manly and more carnivorous. I ground my own meat, smoked and barbecued that meat, refined my barbecue sauce recipe to perfection and had the best pork ribs you could find anywhere. I knew bacon was not good for me, so I only ate it occasionally. I worked out five times a week, ate lots of yogurt for the probiotics, and ate what I considered a healthy diet—whole wheat bread and lots of fruits and vegetables to go with my manly animal protein. With my health profession education and background as an optometrist, I thought I had a decent handle on what I should be eating, and what I should be avoiding.

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“All these amazing physical blessings began to unfold”

Erik and Wendy Jensen Before and AfterBy: Erik Jensen

Three years ago I was feeling that my health was beginning to slowly decline. I was not happy with the way I felt but accepted that it was probably part of growing older and that there was probably nothing that could be done. I was 60 lbs overweight, cholesterol was about 220, blood pressure 140/90, and I was taking drugs for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. My feet developed neuropathy, painful arthritis was spreading in my fingers, and I had restless leg syndrome for years (about every 15 seconds during sleep my leg would twitch). I also had an autoimmune disease in my eye that would flair up regularly, my knees and ankles would begin to hurt if I ran or hiked regularly, and every morning I woke up exhausted. I had a scary episode hiking in the Sierras when my body just quit.

My wife Wendy has suffered for years with fibromyalgia symptoms. She also suffered with terrible acid reflux, diverticulosis, kidney stones, and allergies. The only way she could control the acid reflux was to take a calcium blocker that would eventually weaken her bones. Her blood sugar was at pre-diabetic level, and she had difficulty with exercise and knee problems.

We were discussing the new stage of life we were entering as our children are growing up and will soon be on their own. We began to include in our prayers our desires to prepare ourselves spiritually, financially, and physically so that we could serve missions and be useful as we enter into the last third of our lives. The answer to our prayers for physical preparation began at Costco one day as we were looking at a product called a Nutribullet. A lady next to us remarked that her brother had bought one and had been able to lose a lot of weight. We bought it and for the next few weeks it sat on our kitchen floor unopened until two of our sons decided to unpack it and see how it worked. We read the smoothie recipes and started to have them for breakfast. Our energy levels increased, we lost a little weight and found that our appetites were somewhat decreased during the morning. I continued to occasionally read about nutrition on the Internet, but it was difficult to figure out what to do since there are so many opinions.

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“I walked out of the doctor’s office completely crushed”

olga-maletina-and-dan-almeidaBy: Olga Maletina

I’m from Russia; my husband is from Brazil. We were attending BYU-Provo when our health reached its lowest point. I had started getting alarmed a few years prior to that when we were getting our first life insurance and my husband was placed in the “smoker” category due to his high cholesterol even though he had never smoked in his life. We knew he had a history of heart disease in his family, but at that time we didn’t know what to do about it and just continued our lives as usual, hoping for the best. We didn’t know that it was the food we were eating that was making us sick.

Since our arrival to the United States, we had gradually moved away from the simpler, mostly homemade foods we had in our home countries (mainly rice and beans for my husband, and buckwheat, potatoes and vegetables for me). Years went by and our blood test results were coming out worse and worse. Our weight, cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar were gradually going up, while our energy levels and the quality of life was slowly going down. Finally, my husband’s cholesterol reached an alarming 263 points when he was only 26!

My cholesterol was not as high as my husband’s, but I started having other health issues that were even scarier. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and was put on thyroid medication. Aside from my hypothyroidism symptoms (terrible night sweats, lack of energy, loss of hair), I also had ovarian cysts and an overactive bladder. I was overweight and started wearing prescription glasses. Time was passing by, and my health was not getting much better. The thyroid medication helped with the night sweats and constant chills, but my energy and the other symptoms still remained.

I cut out the soda and decided I’d try to watch what I eat: count calories, switch to low-fat dairy foods, and try to eat less carbs. In order to lose weight, I tried the low calorie diet, the hCG diet, exercise, the Paleo diet and the Jorge Cruise diet. I even met with a dietitian, but nothing helped my symptoms and the weight kept going up. I remember feeling so powerless. Why couldn’t I get any results? I was trying so hard!

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“I love food and it loves me back!”

Kurt DeGrawBy: Kurt DeGraw

I have never really enjoyed meat too much. I grew up on a small family farm. We raised chickens, pigs, ducks, geese and the occasional sheep or cow, and I was the main person to feed most of these animals. Without many other youth my age living near us, the animals became my friends. I had funny names for them based on how they looked or the quirks they had.

Two experiences really sealed my dislike for meat at an early age. The first experience was when we killed the chickens. We hung them upside down on the swing set using twine around their legs. There they were hanging and flapping occasionally when a knife to the throat let the blood run out. After a LOT of flapping and squawking, in about 5 minutes they were all still. I still remember not wanting to play on the swing set for a while after that, but more importantly to me, these were animals I had fed and spent time with. That night, we had chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and corn. I just could not eat the chicken.

My second experience a few years later was when our pig was butchered. A mobile butcher drove to our house and took our pig from the pen—where I had fed, watered and named him—and took him into the back of his truck and an hour later out popped all these white butcher-paper packages with labels. For dinner that night we had pork chops and rice. Again, I just could not eat the pork chops.

We were a large family living on a public school teacher’s salary and whatever came from the small farm and the animals we raised was definitely needed to feed our family, but after those two experiences my desire for meat decreased dramatically.

My healthy journey started when I was in my mid 30’s. I had started to gain weight from a sedentary office work life style. I did (and continue to) mountain bike and walk multiple times a week and even lifted weights on occasion. But unlike when I was younger, the weight just kept sticking around and more of it started to stick around. I started to do my own research and started to use less white flour and white sugar in my cooking. This worked for a decade or so, but by my early 40’s, I was considered obese by national standards.

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“The most horrible, wonderful experiences of our lives”

Randy and Olga CamporaBy: Randy Campora

Dat, dat…, da dat dat dat – dat daa dat dat dat daaaa dat.

That is the opening phrase of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet. As the bass trombonist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the past thirty years I have heard those violin notes hundreds of times, and in December 2014, the notes were the same as always. We were playing in the orchestra pit of the Lyric Theater in Baltimore for an entire week of Nutcrackers with the ballet corps of the Baltimore School for the Arts.

But this year, those notes did not sound the same. Or I should say, my mind as it heard those notes was not the same.

This year, I had cancer. My mind struggled to focus, though the familiar music and setting were a nice distraction for me. But as soon as the music stopped the thought came immediately back: I had esophageal cancer, stage yet to be determined.

I was fifty-three years old, at least a hundred pounds overweight, a recent inductee of the Type II Diabetes Club. I was also the possessor of more blessings from God than I knew what to do with: Olga, my wonderful yoga teaching wife; Dominik, our trumpet playing oldest son on a mission in Poland; and Raffi, our math wiz youngest son with the dry sense of humor. I was a member of the best ward in the church. I had a job I liked, with great health insurance. The complete list would assault you with its length.

That September I had choked on a piece of food at dinner. My wife had just completed a CPR course, so she successfully executed the Heimlich two-step and I could breathe. But a few minutes later I realized that something was stuck down near the stomach because I could not drink or eat anything. A trip to the ER took care of the problem: Dr. Solaiman removed the piece of chicken stuck in the valve at the top of the stomach.

He was surprised to find Barrett’s Esophagus—a pre-cancerous condition usually caused by chronic acid reflux that changes the tissue to something more resembling an intestine. He performed biopsies, which came back clear. He wanted to be sure nothing was hiding there, so another round of biopsies was done three months later. This time the cancer cells were found, along with some aggressive markers.

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