Archive for asthma

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

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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“After all these miracles, I was convinced that this was the way I needed to eat”

By: Janelle Dunn

As a young girl, whenever someone asked me how many children I wanted to have when I grew up, I would answer “eight.” I have always wanted a big family with a house full of children. Well at age 44, life hasn’t exactly turned out as I had hoped. I didn’t get married until I was 33. That was only part of the challenge. The amazing news is that I have been blessed to have been pregnant eight times. Getting pregnant was never the problem. I ended up having six miscarriages and the last three were all in my second trimester.

As my empathetic OB/GYN would disappointedly share the news with me that I had yet again lost another baby, she would follow it up with the same consoling words, “This isn’t because of something you have done. It is probably because of your age.” At this point in my life, my age ranged between 37-42 years old. Her final words were usually, “. . . and this has nothing to do with something you ate.” Each time she said that, the Spirit would say, “This has something to do with the way you eat.” I didn’t know what this meant, but I began praying about it. God quickly told me to break my addictions to chocolate and sugar. So with much prayer and fasting, I covenanted with God to give up chocolate and sugar. It was a painful first year without chocolate. With the Lord’s help though, I can say that I have not had any chocolate now for three years, and I no longer feel the addictive craving for it. This was only my first hurdle, unbeknownst to me at the time.

In the interim, I spent way too much money on specialists, genetic testing, and other options to see if I could find a solution for my miscarriages in hopes of having another child. No specialist seemed to find anything obviously wrong with me. They found some thyroid levels that were slightly off and that I had endometriosis. This was not enough to convince any of them though that it was the cause of my miscarriages, and the blame usually fell back on my age. I just wasn’t satisfied with that response.

Around the same time, my mother read a book called Discovering the Word of Wisdom. My mother has always been a righteous thought leader in our family. She read it and immediately gave up eating meat. She would mention a few things to me here and there, but I still wasn’t awake enough to get what she was trying to tell me.

Several months down the road, my father called me on the phone. He started telling me about an 80-year-old man who walked into his dental office and started sharing his secrets for great health and vitality. This man had run three miles that day, and he told my dad he eats two large salads every day. He attributed his youthful athleticism and his clean diet to a book he read called Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. My dad ate the Standard American Diet at the time, but this man caught his attention enough that he wanted to tell me all about him. I wrote down the name of the book, and I immediately got it on Audible. I did not know what the book was about or what I was getting myself into, but I knew it would be a good idea for me to eat more salad.

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“Some days I feel so good, I can’t believe how good I feel”

pattsy-dayleyBy: Pattsy Dayley

I am originally from Oklahoma and am now 77 years old. I grew up eating lots of fried food. We had biscuits made from white flour and gravy. The gravy was made using bacon fat, lard or sausage or hamburger. Whatever we had, mom would fix. We ate plenty of beans and cornbread, but she added lots of bacon fat, ham, or fatback. Whatever little meat we had, she added it. Mom grew a garden and cooked with lots of vegetables, but they were heavy laden with fat. We used canned milk to make gravy. As we had babies, we used it for baby formula.

As a child I had lots of croup and tonsillitis, and my legs hurt all the time. My mom would rub them to give me some relief. She gave me cod liver oil to help my bones and then when we had sore throat, she would swab our throats with Merthiolate. For croup, she gave us a spoonful of sugar with two drops of kerosene added to it. It worked so I was able to breathe.

I had low energy levels even as a child. In my early 20s, I had some lumps removed from both breasts and under each arm. Thankfully, they were benign. At 25 I had a tonsillectomy, at 32 a hysterectomy. In my 40’s, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. My asthma came back about the same time. In my 50’s, I had my gallbladder removed. All this time I was still suffering with leg pain and then I was diagnosed with nerve problems; the doctor called it Morton’s neuroma. He wanted to remove the nerve. I refused. By this age I was tired of being cut on.

I tried being a vegetarian, and it helped. I felt better. With my family not doing the same diet, I went back to SAD (Standard American Diet). I also went back to lots of pain. The past two years I spent a lot of time in bed. I wasn’t able to walk far and had horrible stomach pains. The doctor prescribed Omeprazole generic stomach medicine. It didn’t help at all. I changed doctors. He thought I was gluten intolerant. I tried the gluten-free diet, and it helped the swelling in my stomach, but I still had horrible pain.

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“The inspiration I received was to read the Word of Wisdom”

Candice BithellBy: Candice Bithell

For over 20 years I have struggled with stomach issues, asthma, and horrible seasonal allergies. My stomach issues and severe allergies both began when I was about 17 years old. I struggled with nausea, bloating, reflux, and diarrhea. I would get horrible hay fever every year that lasted from about April until October. I would get sinus infections. I was put on two allergy medications, including a sinus spray that I used for 26 years to prevent the sneezing, sniffling, watery eyes, and sinus infections.

I saw my first gastroenterologist at the age of 24 because I was having severe pain in my chest and food felt like it was coming back up when I ate. The gastroenterologist ordered a series of tests including an endoscopy, colonoscopy, barium swallow, nasogastric testing, etc. When I went in for my results I was told that every test was POSITIVE. I was diagnosed with H. pylori, reflux, esophageal spasm, esophageal stricture, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D). I was put on a handful of pills everyday, but I still struggled with stomach problems. It was during this same time that I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma and began taking an inhaler everywhere I went.

I lived this way for a long time, always looking for something to help my stomach. I discovered I was lactose intolerant and stopped eating dairy, which helped a little, but not enough. Over the years I have taken pills for nausea, pills for diarrhea, pills to slow down my digestive process, pills, pills, pills. About seven years ago my doctor discovered that I had hyperinsulinemia and was pre-diabetic. I stopped eating sugar, but I replaced it with sugar-free stuff, which hurt my stomach a lot. I felt like I couldn’t eat anything!

Because I was active, I thought I was healthy, but I was very thin and my diet was lousy. I took up distance running four years ago and struggled with what is known as “runners gut.” I would run with a feeling of nausea almost everyday.

Then about two years ago, I had a powerful spiritual experience in the temple. I felt the love of my Savior very, very strongly. I was going through some difficult things, and I really needed that feeling. It got me through that time, but I wanted that feeling all of the time, so I began to pray about what I needed to change. This led me to a path that included trying to do the will of my Heavenly Father and following the promptings for changes that needed to be made.

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“I knew I never needed or wanted to eat animal products again”

Paul & Jenni BroomheadBy: Jenni Broomhead

In high school and college I tried every diet under the sun, but ever since I’ve been married I have always eaten a normal western diet.

I became aware of plant-based eating when my friend had cancer and we read The China Study in our research to find a good diet for her. It made sense to me, but I wanted to compare it with the Word of Wisdom. I noticed a statement in D&C 89:13 that I hadn’t thought about before, which completely supported a plant-based diet:

“And it is pleasing unto me that they [animal flesh] should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.”

After I read that, I knew I never needed or wanted to eat animal products again.

It was a relatively easy change. I have always liked vegetables, beans, and legumes, so I didn’t have to learn to eat many new foods. I only had to cut out some of the old ones. With Pinterest, blogs, and other social media at our fingertips these days, it is very easy to find recipes and ideas for plant-based eating, even while travelling, and I have found that restaurants are very willing to accommodate my way of eating and provide me with delicious food ideas to try at home.

I didn’t demand that my family change. Although they think I’m weird, they don’t care what I eat or don’t eat. I hope that as my kids get older they will learn that plant-based eating is best for them and they will know how to do it because of watching me. Once my last two kids have left the nest, I don’t intend to buy or prepare meat at all. My husband will just have to eat healthier at home by default!

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