Archive for diabetes

“From sedentary to marathon runner and over 200 pounds lost”

By Jane Birch · Comments (1)
Saturday, January 27th, 2024

By: Liz Derry

Looking at me today, people are shocked when they hear that I have lost and maintained over 200 pounds of weight loss, eliminated multiple health problems, including diabetes, and went from sedentary to marathon runner, all through healthy eating and exercise, without pills, surgeries, shots, weighing and measuring foods, or counting calories. The affects of my change to a whole food plant based diet were not just physical, but emotional, mental, and spiritual.

At the start of 2020, at the age of 44, I weighed almost 400 pounds and was suffering from many health problems including chronic reflux, poor wound healing, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, depression, poor sleep, chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, menstrual problems, and general despondency. I had lost and gained large amounts of weight multiple times in my life, including over 100 pounds 2 other times. I had been on many different diets and none of them were working for me anymore. I was only able to lose 30-40 pounds and then would quickly gain it all back. After a recent family vacation in which I spent most of the time sitting on benches, while my family explored the sites, I had reached an all-time low. I felt so old and run down physically and wondered what type of life I had left, unable to enjoy time and activities with my children, and eventually grandchildren, and likely facing an early death.

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“I told God I wasn’t going to do another diet”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)
Saturday, June 13th, 2020

By: Tricia Braunersrither

I grew up in a large family of four sisters and two brothers. I always felt overweight because I was a bigger build than my sisters. I thought it was something that needed to be fixed. Consequently, I spent my lifetime looking for diets to shrink my body. I tried diet after diet and was never successful. After each diet I would gain more and more weight.

In 2010, I started a diet that seemed to me to be the Holy Grail to Weight Loss: hCG. I would take a hormone and eat 500 calories a day, and I would lose weight. I lost 75 pounds! For the first time in my life, I felt like I had some control over my weight. To keep that weight off, I had to continue taking the hormones and keep my diet at 500 calories. I would do that for three weeks, then I would eat low carb for the next three weeks then go back to 500 calories. I did that for eight years until finally I couldn’t do it any longer. I told God that I no longer was going to do that. I told him I was going to wait on him for an answer of what I should do because I definitely wasn’t going to do another diet.

I gained 25 pounds right away because I finally was giving my body the nutrients it needed. In July 2018, I was visiting my kids in Idaho. A family friend was there who is a doctor. I told her my frustrations with many of my health issues. She did a full bloodwork panel on me. She even did an insulin-fasting test. She came to me and told me that I was “insulin resistant.” I had never heard that term before, but I later learned it is the first stage of type 2 diabetes. She gave me Metformin and told me to exercise and to eat a low-carb diet. I told her that I had done keto for seven months, and I knew how to do that diet. She said, “Oh yes, that would be great. Go ahead and do that.” So I headed home with much hope that this was the answer from God I had been waiting for. I even had my dad give me a priesthood blessing. He blessed me that “I would be able to discern what was the best path to healing my insulin resistance.”

I went home and immediately pulled out my keto cookbooks and started watching keto YouTube videos. I thought it was interesting that keto would be God’s answer. When I ate the keto diet, which is heavy in fat and meat, I often had thoughts that this was not following the Word of Wisdom. Despite these misgivings, I knew I wouldn’t gain weight eating keto, and I would have refuge from my 500-calorie diet, so I assumed it must be healthy.

While watching one of my keto YouTube videos I fell asleep. I woke up to a YouTube video that had continued to loop while I napped. I woke up to a bald guy with no eyebrows giving a talk on how eating Whole Foods can reverse insulin resistance. I had never heard of this. It was the exact opposite of what my doctor told me. I started researching right away. I found Dr. John McDougall who had the same message. He was telling me to eat all the things that are in my Church food storage under all my kids’ beds! Oats, rice, and beans! I found that super interesting! I found one plant-based doctor after another saying the same thing. But why do they not teach this to diabetics? I was terrified to try eating this way. The things they said to eat were what I avoided my whole dieting life because “carbs make you fat.”

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“I love the way I feel. I love my way of life!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (5)
Saturday, September 7th, 2019

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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Categories : Single Adult, Stories
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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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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“I was at my wits end and stressed out beyond anything I have ever been before”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)
Saturday, July 14th, 2018

By: Brian Beck

It all started nearly 14 years ago. I had been working at this great job that kept me in good shape physically. You see, my job was to maintain the buildings and fix the equipment for two locations of a local gym, and some days I’d help out with projects on the other 15 locations. I’d joke with everyone that I walked at least 3-5 miles per day (from the front of the building to the back, up ladders and scissor lifts) to get a tool or a part to fix a stair stepper, and then to the roof to find out why the AC wasn’t working. I hauled everything from light bulbs to treadmills . . . even hauled those up flights of stairs. It would take 4 of us to do it, but we did it. The ‘gym rats’ (body builders mostly) would give it an honest try, but 4 or 5 steps up the stairway was all they were good for. We would laugh because they had bigger muscles than we had, and we would move the rest of the treadmills ourselves. We even moved the giant weight machines. We did everything from painting to plumbing as well.

During my employment at these gyms, I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia. You see, it turns out that when I ate something with any sugar in it, my blood sugar would spike up with little control from my pancreas (which produces insulin). My body would put out too much insulin, too late from a slow reaction to the rapid rise of sugar in my bloodstream, and I would ‘crash’ (extreme drop in blood sugar). The worst part of this was that I would get really angry right before I would crash. I only saw it as though I had a really good reason to be annoyed. Sadly, it didn’t look that way from the outside looking in, and my family suffered.

I’d heard about Atkins, and I thought, “Hey let’s look into that. These guys here at the gym seem really healthy.” So our whole family started eating all the meat, dairy, and cheese we wanted, just no carbohydrates and no fruit because I was told that “eating sugar makes your body store fat.” Carbs became evil really fast.

But I had missed a little thing . . .

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB
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“You no longer need to be on insulin!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, October 7th, 2017

By: Helen Bileen

All of my adult life my health has had its ups and downs. I’m sure many factors contributed to the lack of consistency with my health. During my annual visits to the doctors, they wrote in their reports that I was managing my pre-diabetes with diet and exercise. I’m a full-blooded Native American of the Navajo Nation. Type 2 diabetes is running rampant among my people. I know too many people who were diagnosed with this disease and eventually died. I used a low carb diet and walking to control blood sugar level and weight. It worked for a short period of time, and my numbers (i.e., blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) would always plateau. Then with a busy lifestyle, I reverted back to eating comfort foods.

After I retired from my career, I served a full-time mission for the LDS Church. One day I was complaining to a missionary friend about my lack of sleep, feeling tired, and my craving for more food. She invited me to her whole food plant-based support group which included missionaries and local people. My first impression was that it was too restrictive. I knew I was addicted to food, and I just couldn’t imagine limiting my diet to whole food plant-based. I needed a brownie or chocolate chip cookie at least once a week. Where I served there was always food everywhere: in the Zone office, the cafeteria, potluck dinners, and dining out. I strived to limit myself to eating comfort foods in smaller portions. Even though I had good intentions, I was not always successful!

After serving two and a half years, I temporarily moved in with my son and his family. Naturally, I ate what my family ate. Also, people in the community drove to their destinations. Therefore, I naturally walked less. It was different from serving a mission in downtown metropolitan city where I walked everywhere.

After five months, I began feeling symptoms of type 2 diabetes that previous doctors had taught me through the years. Finally, in March I made an appointment to see a health care provider at a Public Health Service. Since I was new to their clinic they took my blood and urine samples for tests. My new health care provider was astonished to see my numbers. At the time, my weight was about 147 pounds. He was surprised that my A1c was 14 (normal is below 5.7)! The other numbers were also not within normal range. He didn’t tell me I was pre-diabetic which is what I was expecting to hear. No, this time I was full-blown diabetic! He gave me a choice of taking insulin or Metformin to control my diabetes. Years ago I had my gallbladder removed and the doctor prescribed Metformin for me to begin taking on a regular basis. It had side effects that made me feel sick. Therefore, I told him I would try the insulin, and he assured me that there would be no side effects. At the time, I was totally naïve. I trusted my health care provider.

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Categories : Single Adult, Stories
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“The doctor told him straight out that he was too young to die”

By Jane Birch · Comments (22)
Saturday, July 23rd, 2016

Kaylene and Ted HardyBy: Kaylene Hardy

There is an old saying, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” Several years ago I started looking for a way to lose some weight. My husband Ted also needed to lose weight and just didn’t feel good most of the time. We briefly tried eating a low-carb diet, but that just didn’t feel right to me. Even though I did lose a few pounds, physically, I did not feel healthy, and I kept thinking about the Word of Wisdom which tells us that grains are ordained for our use to be the staff of life. I wanted to find something that would help our family, something that would be sustainable for a lifetime, and something that was in line with gospel teachings. I happened to watch the movie Forks Over Knives, then I read the book Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. The information made an impression on me, and I wanted to give it a try. Compared to other popular weight loss plans, it was the only one that seemed to be in line with the Word of Wisdom.

It was the beginning of an adventure that has a happy ending, but the road there was a little rocky. This story is not about me and just wanting to lose some weight. This is really my husband’s story and how we have been blessed with hope and a brighter future.

My husband Ted grew up in a family where food was an expression of love. He and his six siblings loved to eat. They ate plenty of salad and vegetables, but it was pretty much standard American fare. Three of his siblings later had bariatric surgery as adults and although they lost a lot of weight at first, they have all experienced various health problems as time passed.

Some years after we were married, when Ted was in his mid-thirties, we had a little scare which sent him to the emergency room with a concern for his heart. It turned out that his heart was fine, but it was enough to convince him that he needed to lose weight and take better care of himself. He was very successful and interestingly, he ate a very low-fat diet and this was years before we even heard of Dr. Esselstyn and whole food, plant-based (WFPB) eating. Ultimately, Ted lost a lot of weight and kept it off for quite a few years, but it was all about will power. He was very strict about the times he ate, what he ate, and how much he ate. Over the next twenty years, he gained a lot of the weight back.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“Changing my eating habits has saved me”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, July 2nd, 2016

Warren TownsendBy: Warren Townsend

I was diagnosed some years ago with pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and a dangerous buildup of plaque in my arteries. If one of these maladies didn’t incapacitate, cripple or kill me another one would.

The doctor prescribed warfarin or Coumadin, which is the main ingredient in rat poison. It thins the blood to the extent veins and arteries can no longer contain the blood and the animal bleeds to death. I was given information on a diet for diabetics and was told it would help stabilize my condition.

Diabetes, heart failure, cancer and obesity have plagued my mother, father, sisters, brother and their mates for many years. Dad died at age 59 of oat cell carcinoma, a type of lung cancer. At the age of 86, Mother died of congestive heart failure, also called myocardial infarction or heart attack. Her life was not easy during my lifetime. When Mother was 37 years old we nearly lost her to uterine cancer, ulcerated colitis, and improper combinations of conflicting medications prescribed by her doctors. She was prescribed Coumadin, refused it, and turned to the natural help of gingko biloba and cayenne pepper capsules, which did indeed thin her blood. As she got older, continually testing her blood sugar she was able to somewhat control her type 2 diabetes through a prescribed diet for diabetics that still allowed meat and dairy products. Mother developed neuropathy in her feet and so got little exercise and was middling obese for many years.

I have put all this down to tell you of my experience.

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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“The most horrible, wonderful experiences of our lives”

By Jane Birch · Comments (22)
Saturday, April 2nd, 2016

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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“Even the least of us can do it!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (8)
Saturday, February 6th, 2016

Jim and Carol LindseyBy: Carol Lindsey

When I was 12 years old, we went to visit my grandparents. As we were traveling, just before our stop for dinner, I realized it had been days since I’d felt hunger pangs. This was a memorable “ah-ha” moment. It was the first of many times over the next 50 plus years that I noticed I was eating for reasons other than hunger.

I’ve always loved food, and I loved to eat, especially sweets. Weight was never a problem . . . until I had my first baby. After my daughter was born, my son came one year later, and for the next 47 years I carried more than 50 extra pounds on my 5’4″ frame. That’s not to say I didn’t try to lose the weight, and sometimes I was even successful, but it never stayed off. No matter how hard I tried, the weight would always creep back on. You could probably say in my whole adult life I was either dieting or gaining weight. Rarely did I ever maintain my weight, and if I did, it was for a very short period of time. My food choices were anything sweet, salty, fried or on a bun. Chocolate, butter and ice cream were their own food groups in my book, and least I leave out the meat, I loved rare steak, prime rib, and any seafood you could dip in butter.

I was so obsessed with my weight that to this day I can tell you how much I weighed at every important event that ever occurred in my life. Food was a drug to me. I used it to dull emotional pain and feelings of failure. In the first nine months after our son passed away, I tried to deal with the grief by stuffing myself. It didn’t work. Once again I went on a diet. This time I lost 30 pounds and figured that was the best I could do . . . after all a woman in her 60’s can’t expect to be skinny. I managed to maintain that weight loss for about a year, but then, just like all the other times, the weight began to creep on again.

We left home in March of 2014 to serve an 18-month mission for the LDS Church. We spent the first six months at Martin’s Cove, Wyoming. Next we were given a six-month assignment to Rosebud, South Dakota where we lived on the Sioux Indian Reservation and taught an addiction recovery program. In April of 2015 we were transferred from Rosebud back to Martin’s Cove.

I had assumed that because the work we did on our mission was very physical that I would easily lose weight, but instead once again I found myself gaining. We missionaries had a funny saying: “No one has starved at Martin’s Cove since 1856.” We made sure of that with wonderful dinners, desserts, and movie nights with treats and BBQ’s and trough dinners and the list goes on. With all that great food, I decided I was through with deprivation. No more diets for me! I’d eat what I wanted and just be happy. After all there are more important things in life than the size of your body!

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