Archive for Stories – Page 15

“They strapped me down and ziplined me up to a hovering helicopter”

By Jane Birch · Comments (13)
Saturday, August 22nd, 2015

Jenny HarkleroadBy: Jenny Harkleroad

In August 2013 I was in the best shape of my life thanks to my addiction to power yoga and lots of weight and aerobic gym classes. I’d been camping and hiking and honestly feeling a little prideful that an exhausting hike had been so easy for me. My husband and I had gotten separated from our group, and found ourselves standing on a rock ledge and deciding how to get down. My husband said, “If I were young and in shape I’d jump from here.” Well, my pride got the better of me and I jumped! Really it was not that far. They say it was only 9 feet, but I guess 9 feet down is enough when landing wrong on a rock to break my back! I start yelling in pain. 911 sent in a ground crew to access me and then life flight came. They strapped me down and ziplined me up to a hovering helicopter and flew me to the nearest hospital.

The doctor’s said it would be 6 weeks before I could go back to yoga and exercise. I was not sure I’d survive another 24 hours without yoga, but I could hardly move so that helped keep me down, but it didn’t keep the tears from pouring out! What does an exercise addict do with a very busy life when bed rest hits suddenly? Cry and delete all my yoga/gym classes off my iPhone schedule, journal, read, find lots of rides for my four kids to their four different schools and activities, get others to help cover my church and volunteer commitments and real estate business and WAIT for my body to heal!

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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“I know that our bodies were designed to eat this way”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, August 15th, 2015

Amy Bjorkman FamilyBy: Amy Bjorkman

My story starts back when I was in high school. I had gotten really interested in alternative medicine and read a lot of books and studied it a lot. I also searched the scriptures and found that herbs and mild food could be used to help heal those who were sick. As I studied and thought about all of these things, I came to my own conclusion that it was best to avoid needing medicine in any form and the way to achieve that was through eating good food. Through this conclusion and through prayer, I decided to study nutrition when I went to college.

I loved my college courses and was very eager to learn. I even got jobs with the university dietitian and at the dorm food service. I did well in all my classes and graduated with honors. During my college learning, there was one class in particular that I had really looked forward to. It was “Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease.” THIS was the exact reason I wanted to study nutrition in the first place! I was really excited and devoured the book. As the semester wore on though, and as I read the book more, there was very little, if any, talk of preventing disease through diet. It only talked about treating disease . . . by calorie counting and protein counting. I was so disappointed in this class.

My studies in general never really took a firm stance on what NOT to eat. The underlying message was that everything could be eaten in moderation, and when you eat meat and dairy, choose low-fat. However, at the time of graduation I was pretty satisfied with what I had learned and the best information that I took away from it all was to use whole, unprocessed grains and food.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories

“Why did God invent food?!?”

By Jane Birch · Comments (12)
Saturday, August 8th, 2015

Shara MitchellBy: Shara Mitchell

Up until the last year of my life, I have lived with one foot in the camp with the “health nuts” and one foot in the Standard American Diet (SAD). When I was a child, my mother taught me to love wholesome foods, vitamin supplements, and occasional fasting for detoxification. I was never really taught how to cook, however, and when I became an adult and got married, I wanted to please my family. Although I started out trying very hard to cook from scratch and make healthy foods, eventually I found that my family liked it better when I made recipes that were less healthy.

I had vowed to never let my children drink soda, but as many years went by (years of overwhelm that can wear a person’s resolve down), I not only started allowing my kids soda, but also found myself drinking Diet Coke daily… sometimes twice per day. My kids hated chunky vegetables in the soup that I loved to make, so I stopped making it and made the creamy soups that made them happy. My husband at the time seemed to appreciate it more when I gave in and kept the peace by serving less healthy foods, so I felt like I was alone, and I gradually gave up my resolve to feed my family in a healthy way.

Although I had never struggled with weight, energy, or general heath after my first two babies, things started to change after baby number three. I couldn’t get rid of the last 10 pounds of baby weight, and I started to feel really tired and achy much of the time. My stress level was high, and I was overwhelmed with small children. I basically ignored the problem, and coped by doing yoga to ease the muscle tension that at times would overwhelm me. I wasn’t really exercising much and my cooking was “survival cooking”… cheese quesadillas and juice, you know, convenient kid food.

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Categories : Single Adult, Stories
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“I wouldn’t go back for all the money in the world.”

By Jane Birch · Comments (7)
Saturday, August 1st, 2015

Ari McLaughlinBy: Ari McLaughlin

I was overweight, had low energy, hated my appearance, and got sick a lot. One day, I decided I wanted to lose weight. I made a goal and started that day. From what I googled and read online, every single article was saying the answer was to cut calories, exercise a lot, eat lean meats with some salad, have eggs for breakfast, etc. (In other words, high fat, low carb SAD diet). So that’s what I did. At first it worked! I was losing weight rapidly. Everyone was stunned and said I looked great.

I went on with this for five months before I knew I couldn’t proceed any longer. I had become obsessed with every little thing I put in my mouth, ESPECIALLY anything that had carbs! I would not even eat a banana. My aim was 50g or less per day. I did my absolute best to hide the fact that I was miserable. I had so many mood swings it was ridiculous. I would google the calories in every little thing that entered my mouth. I even googled the calories/carbs in a tomato! That was it, brother. I knew where I was at and where it would go if I continued down that path.

On the 4th of July 2014, my friend’s cousin came to watch the fireworks with the whole neighborhood. We got talking, and she told me how she was a high carb, low fat vegan. My initial reaction was “How did she lose weight like this?” since all she ate was fruits, veggies, rice, potatoes, beans, etc., foods I thought were not weight-loss foods. She told me she had read Discovering the Word of Wisdom by Jane Birch, and I kinda flipped out. I was like “NO WAY! That’s my Mom’s, like, life-time best friend!” She was pretty envious that I knew her. 🙂

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Categories : Stories, Under 20
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“I wanted revelation like unto Daniel”

By Jane Birch · Comments (54)
Saturday, July 25th, 2015

Karmel Larson FamilyBy: Karmel Larson

I have discovered a powerful pattern in my life. I ask God questions, and he gives me answers. If I obey those answers, he gives me more. Line upon line, precept upon precept, he has led me down an exciting path of self discovery, self improvement and understanding. I find that the more quickly I obey and comply, the more abundantly the flow of knowledge and revelation comes to me.

Daniel, of the Old Testament, was rewarded by his obedience to God by receiving the gift of revelation. His power to receive revelation was so great that he did not even need to have Nebuchadnezzar’s dream told to him in order to give the interpretation. God, through revelation, gave him direct and pure knowledge of the dream and its interpretation.

I was seeking this kind of access to revelatory knowledge. I wanted revelation like unto Daniel. I wanted to know what was required of me to be worthy of pure knowledge. I wanted access to the mysteries of the kingdom. I knew that it was possible, and I wanted to know what I should refine in myself to be worthy of that gift and privilege.

In 2010 I took this question to the Lord. In response, all of my prayers guided me to a need for “physical change,” but I didn’t know how or what to do with those impressions.

I set a goal to attend the temple weekly. This period of weekly attendance also overwhelmingly directed me to physical change. Here are some of my impressions, promptings, and experiences on different visits, as recorded in a notebook that I take with me to the temple each week: Read More→

Comments (54)
Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“I was thrilled with how smooth the transition was”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, July 18th, 2015

Ashley ParkinsonBy: Ashley Parkinson

I have loved nutrition and healthy eating for years. I have tried so many eating styles because I was curious to see if they felt right for our family. My driving force in searching for a healthy diet was really all about my children. I wanted to make sure that I was nourishing them with the best nutrition. I researched a lot of different eating philosophies, each one promising to be healthier than the last. We would test these eating styles out to see if we felt they were truly impacting our family for the best. We tried vegetarian, raw food, vegan, and of course lapses into the standard American diet in between. As we tested each eating style, we felt that they bounced from one extreme to the other. Our home base for nutrition was always the Word of Wisdom, and though some eating styles came close, none quiet meshed with the revelation given in the 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

I studied the Word of Wisdom with a lot of effort, trying to make heads or tails of all the information within the scriptures with all the contradictory eating habits so prevalent around us. I wanted something that was modern, current, and avoided large portions of meat, eggs, dairy, etc. I was impressed when I learned of The China Study because it was more in line with the expectations I had for an ideal explanation of a balanced diet. In his extensive research, Dr. Campbell describes a direct correlation between health and nutrition and sheds a lot of light on the value of plant-based eating. I started looking for a book that merges the principles of The China Study with the revelations in the 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

I came upon Jane Birch’s amazing book, Discovering the Word of Wisdom, when I was doing a search for any new books on the topic that I hadn’t seen before. I was curious after seeing so many positive reviews and checking out her beautiful website, and I wanted to read her take on some questions I had about milk, eggs, and things of that nature.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“We thought we were joining a vegetarian church”

By Jane Birch · Comments (14)
Saturday, July 11th, 2015

Joyce KinmontBy: Joyce Kinmont

My husband and I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1964, in our early twenties. We were the standard, clueless products of the 50′s and 60’s. Neither of us had any religious background, although we would later find out that my husband had early Mormon ancestors from Denmark who came by ship and train to Salt Lake. I’m sure they reached through the veil and stirred up the events that brought us into the gospel net.

The day the missionaries taught us about the Word of Wisdom, my husband handed them his cigarettes. They left us a pamphlet to read about Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church, which defines a healthy diet. In it the Lord says, “it is pleasing unto me that they [animals] should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” (v. 13). We took the words at face value. We thought we were joining a vegetarian church. Well, OK, we thought we can do that. Living in warm, famine-free Southern California, we assumed these folks would not be eating much meat. Naively, we went happily off to our first church social, a ham dinner!

We had a testimony that the Church was the Lord’s authorized organization on earth and were soon baptized, but we wondered why the behavior of the Saints did not match the doctrine. I continued to watch for information from the prophets about diet. I found much support from early Church leaders as I searched the Journal of Discourses and read Elder Widtsoe’s book, The Word of Wisdom: A Modern Interpretation, which I learned had been used as the priesthood lesson manual one year. Apparently it had made little impact on the brethren. It seemed to me that the latter-day prophets had tried to lead out but no one was following.

My husband and I loved the Lord and His church, and we wanted to please Him by not using meat (D&C 89:13), but we soon found that “pleasing Him” did not please others or make us popular. Sometimes it was a lonely road. At one point of frustration I wrote a list of the reasons why we didn’t eat meat. I mimeographed it (yes, it was that long ago) and handed it out whenever I could.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB
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“I asked the Lord for a definitive answer”

By Jane Birch · Comments (7)
Saturday, July 4th, 2015

Mignon ProbstBy: Mignon Probst

Weight loss was not a driving factor in my change of diet. Just under 5’8″ my top weight was 155 pounds, but I typically kept it in the mid 140’s. It was my belief that as we age, our metabolism slows down and weight gain is inevitable. I was married to a dairy/cattle farmer (he has since gotten out of the dairy business, but still raises a few cows) so those foods were a huge part of our family diet and we loved the foods we ate.

There were two reasons I was searching for a better way of eating. Firstly, in my early forties, my doctor began talking to me about my unfavorable lipid count. For two or three years I tried to get my cholesterol under 200 and lower my lipids without prescription medications, trying many different “low fat” diets. None were successful. In years past, my father had a quadruple bypass surgery in his mid fifties after suffering a mild heart attack. Father took a regimen of pills for the remainder of his life and suffered the side effects of them. I began to believe bad genetics had sealed my fate and was fearful that ill health would limit my ability in future years to serve a senior couple mission, which had long been my desire.

Secondly, I was very troubled with the idea of being reliant upon prescription medications to sustain life. I worried that a time might come when I could not obtain medications. What then? I find it paradoxical in our LDS culture of preparedness that we spend a great deal of money and effort to store food and other necessities, yet may have only a three month supply of life sustaining drugs at any given time for conditions brought upon us by consuming the “king’s meat” (see Daniel 1:5) and other rich foods. So of what personal value is our home storage beyond that? I am satisfied that self-reliance not only includes gathering and storing, but decreasing/eliminating the need for prescription medications. I believe that after having done all we can do, we might more confidently call upon the Lord’s healing power for conditions beyond our control.

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Comments (7)
Categories : Married-2 WFPB
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“The results were nearly miraculous”

By Jane Birch · Comments (5)
Saturday, June 27th, 2015

Marc and Vicki SorensonBy: Marc Sorenson

Much of my youth was spent at our ranch/farm, located within one-half mile of the Nevada border in Utah’s west desert. We had no electricity and no indoor plumbing, necessitating old methods of cutting wood for the heater and carrying water in from the well for drinking and culinary purposes. It was a hard but good life, and we always had plenty to eat. We ate the typical cowboy fare, starting with bacon and eggs for breakfast, with an occasional bowl of cereal, and always a plethora of milk. I milked the cow, who was quite generous to us, providing not only milk, but cream and butter, which I often ate by the spoonful.

We did have some healthful foods, since my Dad loved fruit and often would buy cherries, apricots, peaches, watermelon, and apples, and we had some corn, peas and tomatoes from our garden or the gardens of our neighbors who sometimes had surplus.

Every meal contained meat and/or chicken, duck, turkey, fish or other animal food. I killed them, cut them up, put them in a cool area, and sometimes cooked some meals. When Mom was gone for a few weeks to keep her teaching certificate renewed (she taught school in the winter), Dad and I would eat as many as 16 eggs daily, he consuming about 8-10 and I another 6 or so. They were all sloshed liberally with bacon or other meat grease. I feel fortunate to have survived past my teenage years, considering the mountain of animal products along with their cholesterol and saturated fats that went through my digestive and circulatory systems! In spite of the hard ranch work my weight at one time was as high as 217 pounds at a height of 5’10 ½.” I now weigh about 178 pounds and am very muscular for a man of 72 years.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB
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“I love wheat”

By Jane Birch · Comments (16)
Saturday, June 20th, 2015

Annette DraperBy: Annette Draper

I remember the thrasher coming to our farm. All the farmers in the area came to help in hauling the wheat bundles to the farm. The job of the children was pushing the wheat to the back of the bin so everything fit. Every year we made wheat gum by chewing the wheat to the point of being able to blow bubbles. It was tradition. Later as flour was needed, a couple gunny sacks would be filled and taken to the mill to be ground.

I had been taught by example to store food and helped do it. One day I was looking at my children and had a very vivid realization of how I would feel if they were crying because they were hungry. It made me cry. I was not doing the things I’d grown up with to provide for my family. I began to renew my knowledge of canning and baking bread. We obtained our one-year food supply, which included a great deal of wheat.

Using whole wheat flour in bread, cookies and other baked goods and eating wheat cereals had become our regular routine. Still, I received a prompting to learn to use wheat. I thought I already knew. I was very involved in church and family life was very busy. I had all the usual excuses for not doing as I had been instructed. Because of procrastination, we experienced what I call, “The tithing in reverse principle.” Our income had not changed nor had our expenses; but we were very broke. It didn’t take me long to realize that what I had been instructed to do needed to be done now.

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