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“I am not after mediocre results with my health or life. I want outstanding results!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)
Saturday, June 22nd, 2019

By: Janeen Alley

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved health and the human body and was fascinated with how it worked. I also knew that in my life journey I really wanted to help people. Fortunately, I found plant-based nutrition early on, but it wasn’t until after a few unhealthy detours. Currently, I’m a health and life coach and run my own business. I’m passionate about educating others about the newfound energy and life I discovered after I stumbled upon plant-based nutrition in 2004.

After I graduated from college, I got a job working as a personal trainer in a gym in 2001. I had taught anatomy as a teaching assistant at BYU for 2 years, so it was an easy position to transition into.

The job proved to be more challenging than I thought. As a trainer, I couldn’t give specific nutrition advice to my clients because it was beyond my scope of training. I could ask if they were eating “a balanced diet” – if they said yes, I could move on to their workouts. If they said “no” – I could point them to the My Plate guidelines, and then… move on to their workouts!

I knew diet mattered, but at the time, I didn’t realize how much. When my clients failed to reach their goals, I was devastated for them. I was also frustrated and embarrassed I couldn’t figure out how to troubleshoot better and get them the results they were after.

At the time, I thought I had a “pretty good diet.” My dad was a physician and my mom made everything from scratch. They lived by the Moderation Mantra: everything is okay, even healthy, as long as it is consumed in moderation. I have found that this thought and lifestyle only creates mediocre results. I don’t know about you, but I am not after mediocre results with my health or life. I want outstanding results!

I knew how the body worked – down to the nitty gritty details – but I couldn’t figure out how to get outstanding results for my clients. According to my training manual, I was doing everything right. But I was still confused by ALL the conflicting information out there on nutrition, and I definitely didn’t feel good about recommending gym supplements because I knew there were some dangerous side effects.

When my husband started dental school in Philadelphia in 2002, I was more than relieved to get away from my frustrations at the gym and move on to the next phase of my life. Our first two children were born while we lived there (2002 and 2004). But not only had I stopped training clients, I stopped taking care of myself. As a result, my energy levels tanked, I put on weight, struggled with my acne, and lost a TON of hair during my pregnancies.

I remember being exhausted! When my son was about 9 months old, I have memories of being so tired I couldn’t get up off the floor. I would lay down and try to stay awake while he would crawl on my legs and back to try to get me up to play with him. I felt like a horrible mom. I didn’t want to take him to the park or to the library because I didn’t have the energy. I knew I needed to do something different.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“I received a very strong personal revelation, telling me that this is the answer to my prayers”

By Jane Birch · Comments (2)
Saturday, June 8th, 2019

By: Patricia Gausnell

My husband and I joined the church as newlyweds when I was 18 years old. I had a strong testimony as soon as I started studying the gospel, and when I learned about the Word of Wisdom, it was not hard for me to accept it. But the parts about meat didn’t mean a lot to me then. I realize that I had never in my life thought for a moment that our diets might have something to do with our health.

One day when I was 24 and going through a difficult time in my life, I happened to pick up two Prevention magazines (a publication devoted to good health practices.) I read them from cover to cover, and was amazed. It was like a bright light went on in me, opening up a whole new world. I became obsessed with nutrition and natural healing. I studied everything I could get my hands on about health. I spent hours at the supermarket, reading labels.

At that time we had two children who had been raised on Carnation Milk and antibiotics. We went on to have 6 more, including a set of triplets, none of whom ever needed an antibiotic. The triplets were born healthy and we took two of them home at 3 days old, and the other at 11 days.

I bought a wheat grinder and used only whole grains in cooking. I grew a large organic garden every year and preserved as much of our food as possible. We also raised some of our own meat, milk and eggs. In the back of my mind, I always wanted to eat less meat, but my husband and I were both from families of macho hunters and farmers. So I didn’t always try very hard. For a period of time, I did try to be more vegetarian. I remember one time my son said, “Mom, I am a 125 pound quarterback; I need steaks and roasts.”

In spite of the fact that I have studied nutrition for nearly 50 years, in the past few years, I had become very confused about what we should eat. I tried nearly every diet that came along. The Atkins diet, the Slender Lady diet, the Wheat Belly diet, the Ketogenic diet, the Undoctored diet, and the Plant Paradox diet. I usually could lose a few pounds, but not nearly as much as needed. And I never felt very good about them, because none of them went along with the Word of Wisdom.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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Join us for the Discovering the Word of Wisdom Cruise August 2019!

By Jane Birch · Comments (2)
Saturday, June 1st, 2019

Announcing the maiden voyage of the Discovering the Word of Wisdom Cruise, August 5-9, 2019.

This is your opportunity to spend a few beautiful days on the ocean and in exotic places with others who are interested in a whole food, plant-based approach to the Word of Wisdom.

We will embark at Long Beach, California and set sail for Catalina Island and then Ensenada, Mexico. All along the way, I (Jane Birch) will have a chance to share insights on the Word of Wisdom and the whole food, plant-based lifestyle, and we will all learn from each other. I’m quite excited to set sail with everyone wanting to join this adventure.

Click here for the link with pricing and all the details!

See also the Facebook event page.

Note: I do not profit financially from this excursion. I’m doing this to serve the Word of Wisdom community, and I do plan to have a fabulous time with all of you!

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“God has given me the heart to be a voice for his animal creations”

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)
Saturday, April 27th, 2019

By: Sarah Rayner Hancock

I took interest in becoming vegetarian around age 17 when I began to recognize the suffering of God’s creatures here on earth. I was vegetarian for some time, then I fell back into eating meat for several years, though I had lost my appetite for beef. That tends to happen when you cut meat from your meals. Eventually, I became pescatarian with efforts to ditch dairy from my diet. The traditional Christmas and Thanksgiving family dinners were events I didn’t want to make difficult for others who were cooking, so I often just ate foods even if they contained dairy. As I became far more educated on the practices in the factory farming industry and its devastating effects on our health, planet and its animals, I chose a plant-based diet.

It was not always easy during these years of transition. I was raised a meat eater and had to learn how to cook again and appreciate new flavors and tastes. I was accustomed to and craved cheese, for example, not realizing how dependent I had become on it for nearly every lunch and dinner meal. I learned that cheese contains casomorphins, a morphine-like compound derived from the protein casein, which is found in a mother cow’s milk at far higher levels than is found in human breast milk. This is the very reason I craved more cheese on top of my cheese, haha! Milk is designed to keep babies, both human and non-human, coming back to their mothers for what is God’s intended purpose, which is to provide the very best formulae for them in their infant stage. With this knowledge, I felt more empowered than ever to ditch dairy.

Eventually, my love for the welfare of animals set so deep in my heart that compassion was of more worth to me than the taste of meat. I figured that if Eden was plant-based, I have no doubt that Zion will be too, and are we not to become a Zion people? Even Isaiah (11:6) saw that the wolf and lamb will lie together and a child shall lead them.

Somewhere along my journey, I don’t recall exactly when, I became aware that the Word of Wisdom seemed to imply a plant-based diet. Or did it? Why was I somewhat confused? Was it tradition that caused me to question? I believe so. Upon further study, there is no denying. The Word of Wisdom is plain and clear that animals are to be used, “sparingly” and “ONLY in times of winter, cold and famine.” However, why during cold and winter times and not summer? What did that mean exactly? “…And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used” (D&C 89:13). WOW! Now as an animal advocate, no more beautiful a word can be said than when your God himself says such a thing as this!

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“The cessation of meat and dairy has reaped health benefits I never expected”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, March 30th, 2019

By: Troy Gundersen

15 years ago I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Since that time it’s been like the Indiana Jones ride trying to understand and navigate the positive and negative effects of carbohydrates and insulin. Paramedics were invited over to our house on multiple occasions to wake me up from an insulin-induced coma. Fortunately in all of these instances I was able to give the grim reaper the proverbial stiff arm. I’m grateful to still be among the living to share my story. Maybe there are others who can relate to my experience in finding the Word of Wisdom and the hidden treasures therein. This is how I recall my enlightenment.

It was about a year ago, February/March of 2018. My son Jordan and his wife Cassidy had been eating a whole food plant based (WFPB) diet for a few months. Up until this point I had been working out 4-5 times per week and thought I was doing a decent job of watching what I ate. They approached my wife Valerie and I with a WFPB diet as a possible solution to better health. We didn’t think it was really applicable to us because we were already “watching what we ate.” LOL. We listened to their position but thought, “Naw, this ain’t for us.” Little did I know that it was the love of bacon and eggs twice a week for dinner that had commandeered my mind like an opioid.

Little by little my wife Valerie and I would discuss the WFPB benefits as she read verses of “the bible” to me (How Not To Die by Dr. Michael Greger). My wife was much easier to convince than I. She didn’t grow up on hot dogs and macaroni and cheese like I did. I also loved pasta with a rich, creamy stroganoff sauce—a recipe that was handed down from generation to generation. How Not To Die convinced me by the overwhelming amount of specificity and controls the data provided. Dr. Greger referenced study after study after study. It seemed legit enough for me to experiment upon his words. It also made me hypothesize that God already had this data and just wanted us to study it out in our own minds and then ask Him if it’s right. Better yet, give it a whirl. As a business analyst by trade, the data cogently spoke to my mind, while the spirit gently whispered to my heart. They converged and my WFPB path was born.

I went plant based around April 1st 2018, and boy was it an emotional cork screw! I didn’t realize how emotionally attached I was . . . attached I was . . . attached I was to the food I ate. I’m still in food therapy, learning new coping skills on how to detach from things like bacon, cheese, Campbell’s soup, sour cream, cream cheese, etc. LOL.

We went to the scriptures and studied the Word of Wisdom to find more enlightenment. There were three scriptures that spoke to us at a higher decibel level than the others. They were Doctrine and Covenants 89:12, 13, & 15—

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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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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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“We were all blown away by the power of these simple dietary changes”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, February 16th, 2019

By: Danielle Dinkelman

In the Fall of 2016 I started diving into some Netflix food documentaries. That was the first time I seriously considered the idea of shifting to a whole food, plant-based way of eating. I had been a mom on a mission for the last year and a half to eliminate processed foods and added sugars from our diet. My husband and four little ones (ages 7, 4, 3, and 1 at the time) had come a long way, but I was looking for the next step.

It was the movie Fat Sick & Nearly Dead that really got my attention. I remember Joe Cross pointing out that by definition the only foods that contain fiber are plant foods. Having suffered from digestive issues my whole growing up years, this was an answer I had never considered: eat less animal products. Then there was the point on inflammation and the immune system. In the film he explained how when we eat inflammatory foods, especially dairy and sugar, our immune system is weakened. I finished watching that movie, determined to add more fruits and vegetables to our diet, and maybe start avoiding dairy.

The next few months, I experimented with these ideas on myself and my kids. It was the perfect time to test these ideas out because it was the height of cold and flu season. So, when we started to get the sniffles or a sore throat, we would cut out all dairy and all sugar. I saw a dramatic difference in our ability to stave off infections. When we did get a full-on cold, the kids and I were able to get over it so much faster than before. Instead of 7 to 10 days or more, it only took us 3 to 5 days at the most to get better. I was amazed at how predictably well this worked, so much so that I started to wonder why I was feeding my kids dairy at all.

My husband was unaware of my experiments until he himself was going on month 3 of a chronic sinus infection where drugs had not helped at all. I told him about the success the kids and I had with ditching dairy and sugar to kick our colds. I asked him to just try it and see what happened. He did, and it only took 7 days for him to feel the symptoms start to subside. We were all blown away by the power of these simple dietary changes.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“My divine tap on the shoulder”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, February 2nd, 2019

By: Marjorie Rice

On March 3, 2015, at age 76, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, a 8mm mucinous carcinoma in the right breast. It was especially devastating news because almost nine years earlier my husband George had suffered a massive brain bleed that left him completely paralyzed on one side. He was in a wheelchair with the use of only one hand, and I was his full-time caregiver; he needed me 24/7.

Five days after my diagnosis I watched a 10-minute video by Chris Wark, a young man who beat stage 3 colon cancer at age 26 by switching to a primarily plant-based diet. Ten years later he was still healthy and cancer free. That same day, my husband and I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives and were convinced of the scientific evidence of several physicians in the film showing that most, if not all, of the life-threatening diseases that afflict us can be prevented, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods and eating a whole-food, plant-based diet. Further, every nutrient our bodies need for optimal health is found in plants—vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts. I believed what I saw and heard.

I went to Doctrine and Covenants 89 and read again the Word of Wisdom and other scriptures that counsel us concerning food. Those scriptures confirmed everything I had just heard in the documentary. George and I were both convinced that we should follow this whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) way of eating.

Since my husband’s stroke I had been religiously following the American Heart Association’s diet: low-fat dairy, very little lean red meat, skinless poultry and fish, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables. Included was some processed foods, canned soups, etc. I felt it was a fairly healthy plan, but WFPB eating was a whole new concept.

The next day I went through my pantry, cabinets, freezer, and refrigerator and got rid of everything that didn’t comply with a WFPB diet. I was excited about it, but there was so much to learn—a whole new way to plan meals, shop, and prepare food.

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Categories : Single Adult, Stories
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“My husband’s heart attack became one of my greatest blessings”

By Jane Birch · Comments (5)
Saturday, January 19th, 2019

By: Diane Mayo

All my adult life, when I read the Word of Wisdom and came to the verses about eating meat sparingly, I wondered what it meant and how to do it. I had completely bought into the idea that meat and dairy products are necessary for good health. I kept trying to cut back on the amount we were eating, thinking that that was obeying eating it “sparingly.” As I look back, I realize that I was slowly changing on my own. I would take very small portions of meat and enjoy the other dishes on the table. Meat, even in small portions, was becoming distasteful to me. I distinctly remember one morning when I was thinking about fixing eggs for breakfast. I paused and asked myself if I could eat them. The answer was, “absolutely not.” So I fixed my normal oatmeal and relished it.

Then my husband had a heart attack just before Christmas in 2017. All four of the major arteries in his heart were 90 to 100% blocked and others were over 70%! We were shocked. He had always been so healthy and strong. Our jaws dropped when the doctor told him he was overweight and needed to lose about 20 pounds. Before this, he could eat anything he wanted and hadn’t changed weight for years. We studied the information the hospital gave us and immediately cut out red meat, switching to white chicken and fish. We also had to cut out all his favorite foods: potato chips, French fries, ice cream, candy, etc. Everything he loved was on the “no” list. 

The instructions also told us to consider a non-meat meal a couple times a week. I was drawn to that and started trying to find help to know how. I had an impression that I should hold off for a while and study the Word of Wisdom. It took me four days to study it because I kept stopping at verses I had never considered before. It is not a coincidence that the day after I finished my study I was introduced to whole food, plant-based eating and the Discovering the Word of Wisdom website. My husband and I watched the video, which detailed everything I had just discovered on my own! A new world had just opened up and I was ecstatic! 

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“I have experienced all of the promises of the Word of Wisdom”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)
Saturday, January 5th, 2019

By: Alicia Schick

It was summer of 2015, and I was expecting boy #4. We’d been seeing specialists in an effort to resolve digestive trouble my husband had experienced for years, and I was exhausted trying to make enough food for him on a strict elimination diet composed of primarily organic meat and four types of cooked vegetables. So much of the digestive advice emphasizes meat and recommends avoiding grains that we thought it was worth a try. While a few of my husband’s symptoms did subside, others became worse, and we were uncomfortable with the high intake of meat. Looking back I can tell it was a much harder pregnancy than the others–including my highest weight gain and challenges I hadn’t experienced before.

Shortly after our son was born in the fall, we were amazed to learn some new friends of ours didn’t really eat animal products at all. Janeen Alley and her family had eaten whole food, plant-based for at least 10 years and become an expert in the benefits, so we decided to give it a try. We ate a dramatic increase in plants between Thanksgiving and Christmas that year, and I was amazed that we managed to avoid getting sick—no easy feat with a newborn, a 3 year old, a Kindergartner and a 2nd grader in the thick of winter.

As the months progressed, I couldn’t believe the benefits I experienced by eating whole food, plant-based. By March, I had lost all of my pregnancy weight and then some. I had to buy new pants because everything I owned was too big. In June I competed in a triathlon. I was still up with my baby many nights and because of that was pretty inconsistent in my training. Yet my paces were not too far behind my pre-pregnancy times, something I had previously struggled to reach until my babies were much older and I was able to resume more consistent training.

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