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Archive for cholesterol – Page 4

“I’ve come to embrace my body as a temple”

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)

Saturday, July 5th, 2014

By: Lady Luna

“In Our Lovely Deseret” has always been one of my favorite church hymns, but the second verse often puzzled me. Being in a meat-eating family and culture, usually having it with every single meal, I wondered why the song included the line “they eat but a very little meat,” as part of the saints’ quest toward righteousness. It wasn’t until I was 23 that I began considering what this actually meant and looking over the Word of Wisdom with literal application.

My family has quite the history of weight problems, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Luckily my immediate family and I were (and still are) blessed enough to be free of any major illnesses. Still, my poor diet definitely showed up in my weight since I was in elementary school. When I got to college I became more physically active, so when a bit of the weight came off, my diet plummeted even more: bacon, eggs, and sausage for breakfast, and meat/dairy as a main course in every single meal. Soon I found that my blood pressure had risen, and I decided it was time to start taking better care of my body temple.

After a few years of yo-yoing between “fad diets,” I came across two documentaries about plant-based eating that changed my life. One was Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and the other was Forks Over Knives. I was fascinated and finally felt the glimmer of hope I’d been looking for. After searching for more about a plant-based diet, my focus changed from losing weight to restoring total health in my body. Also, I felt horribly guilty after realizing the cruel truth behind using animals for food and knew that upon my own conscience, I had to change to a more compassionate lifestyle.

Comments (4)

Categories : Single Adult

Tags : cholesterol, compassion for animals, weight loss, Word of Wisdom, young author

“Eating this way helps you come into the light”

By Jane Birch · Comments (7)

Saturday, May 24th, 2014

By: Lauri Mackey

My journey to whole foods, plant-based nutrition began after I was married. I love to cook. I love to bake. I wanted to wow my husband, Eddy, with scrumptious dishes at every meal. Most of the foods were from the rich American diet that we all enjoy. I can bake cinnamon rolls that will make you remember childhood memories, chicken-fried steak with thick gravy that will clog arteries instantly, and funeral potatoes that will win awards at church events.

The problem was, that after a couple of years, we had both gained a considerable amount of weight. I gained about 15 pounds, and my husband gained over 20. I had never been a big fan of “dieting.” I have a great metabolism, and weight was never a problem, but when I couldn’t button my pants without effort, it was time to consider something, anything! I found an app on my phone called LoseIt! that I decided to try out, and my husband, bless his heart, jumped on board because he knew that doing it with someone would be much easier. The deal was that you counted calories. ALL of your calories. I could count calories like nobody’s business, and it worked. We both started to lose weight. Good news, right? Wrong.

Comments (7)

Categories : Married-2 WFPB

Tags : cholesterol, compassion for animals, dairy, meat, Mormon, weight loss, Word of Wisdom

“When I changed my diet, an amazing thing happened”

By Jane Birch · Comments (7)

Saturday, April 19th, 2014

By: Lynn Henrichsen

As a teenage boy I could eat anything and never put on a pound. However, as an adult, I found myself putting on weight until I weighed over 50 pounds more than I did in high school. My job as a BYU faculty member involved mostly sitting at a desk or standing in front of a class. That led to physical problems. At age 40, running and even walking produced pain in my knees that reduced my activity level even further. Nevertheless, I accepted this reduction and the accompanying gain in weight as part of the normal aging process. I didn’t worry much about it. I exercised moderately and consumed a diet relatively high in refined flour, sugar, dairy products, and meat, which I had been taught were “good food.”

When I was in my forties and fifties, a high school or college classmate or family member my age, who had been a healthy or even athletic youth, would occasionally appear in the obituaries—usually a victim of a heart attack, stroke, or cancer. Also, among those who were still alive, I noticed a significant number growing (in their own words) “slower, fatter, and stupider” and accepting these undesirable changes as inevitable.

Comments (7)

Categories : Married-2 WFPB

Tags : athletes, cholesterol, chronic illness, dairy, diabetes, energy increase, heart disease, meat, weight loss, Word of Wisdom

“I felt whole in that moment, as if I had come home”

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)

Saturday, March 8th, 2014

By: Sandee Cherry

The “moment” came as I was reading the third chapter of The China Study by Colin Campbell. I had been in physical therapy for a couple of months when my PT, Rogan Taylor, asked me about my diet. I proudly told him how healthy I ate: not much red meat with a helping of carbohydrates and veggies. He asked if I would be willing to read a book about nutrition and health. I said, “Yes,” and he proceeded to leave the room and return with The China Study. I asked him if this book was about not eating meat and if he was a vegetarian. He answered affirmatively and testified that the book was based on many years of scientific research that supported diet as the source of health. Since he had been both a bishop and a member of a stake high council, I jokingly told him I did not know they called vegetarians, let alone vegans, to those positions! He laughed and said his wife, a Relief Society president, and all five of their children were vegans. Needless to say, I was impressed.

Comments (4)

Categories : Married-2 WFPB

Tags : cholesterol, chronic illness, compassion for animals, irritable bowel syndrome, Mormon, spiritual blessings, spiritual promptings, The China Study, Word of Wisdom

“I have found many hidden treasures”

By Jane Birch · Comments (5)

Saturday, February 15th, 2014

By: Ilene Christensen

It was November 1973. I was sitting in a bus with the rest of the BYU volleyball team in Durango, Colorado for the Regional Tournament. My coach had already told me I would be starting for the first time that season. I was ready and very excited. We were waiting for our coaches to board the bus so we could go to breakfast prior to the start of the tournament. It was strange that they were taking so long. I remember sitting there as Earlene Durrant (the athletic trainer) boarded the bus and started walking down the aisle. My first thought was, “My father, it’s my father.” But then it appeared she was going to walk by, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then she stopped and said, “Ilene, Sister Michaelis would like to see you in her hotel room.” I got off the bus, and the team drove away without me.

I went into Sister Michaelis’s hotel room, and she said the words no one wants to say, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your father passed away last night.” He was 46 years old. He died of a heart attack. My mother was left to finish raising six children on her own.

Comments (5)

Categories : Single Adult

Tags : athletes, cholesterol, heart disease, The China Study, Word of Wisdom

“I am a food addict”

By Jane Birch · Comments (16)

Saturday, February 8th, 2014

By: S. Scott Zimmerman

I have four confessions:

1. I am a food addict. I often seem unable to stop eating, and forage for food all day long, food that is often high in fat and sugar.
2. I have coronary artery disease (CAD) caused by an unhealthy lifestyle.
3. I have lost over 50 pounds three times in my life, only to regain the weight two of the three times.
4. During my 30 years as a professor of biochemistry at Brigham Young University, I always included principles of nutrition as part of my biochemistry courses for pre-medical and pre-nursing students, but I have recently realized that much of what I taught about nutrition was wrong.

So here is My Story of ups and downs in body weight and in nutrition management. It’s a story of a long, slow process of making mistakes, trying to learn from those mistakes, and finally finding the value of a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle. I’ll start with my first confession.

Comments (16)

Categories : Married-2 WFPB

Tags : cholesterol, chronic illness, food addiction, food cravings, heart disease, Mormon, The China Study, weight loss, Word of Wisdom

“I feel so good!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)

Saturday, January 11th, 2014

By: Laura Bridgewater

When my husband’s cholesterol crept above 200, his doctor cautioned him to take better care of himself, so we both started working to lose weight. After losing 10 lbs, he had his cholesterol checked again. It was still 204.

A few weeks later, I happened to sit next to Jane Birch at a meeting. When I commented on how lean she was looking, she promptly introduced me to whole food, plant-based eating. After reading The China Study at her recommendation, I talked my husband into trying the diet with me. Six weeks later, we were both down about 15 lbs He got his cholesterol checked again. It was 131. Amazing!

His cholesterol came down so fast and easily, though, I guess we weren’t really convinced of the importance of continuing to eat that way. Over the next several months we gradually went back to old patterns, especially during the holidays, and his cholesterol began creeping right back up. We realized that in order to avoid heart disease, we’d have to get the cholesterol down and keep it down.

Comments (3)

Categories : Married-2 WFPB

Tags : cholesterol, energy increase, featured, food cravings, headaches, The China Study, Word of Wisdom

An Answer to a Question I Did Not Ask

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)

Tuesday, November 26th, 2013

By: Jane Birch

It was Saturday, August 20, 2011. I woke up much earlier than usual to find the TV on and tuned to CNN where Dr. Sanjay Gupta was previewing a program called “The Last Heart Attack.” Dr. Gupta’s investigation of a “heart-attack proof” diet initially sounded very strange. I thought he’d be debunking some quack idea because it seemed impossible that a person could become literally “heart-attack proof,” but I soon realized Dr. Gupta was serious. Based on his research, he believes a “whole food, plant-based” diet can prevent heart disease. This was interesting to me, not because I had any risk factors for heart disease, but because I knew it is the #1 killer in America.

That very morning I started researching the diet on the Internet. I quickly learned what a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet means. “Whole food” means very limited or no processed foods (including refined oils) and “plant-based” means meals based on plant rather than animal foods (meat, dairy, and eggs). It includes four food groups: vegetables, fruits, legumes (beans and lentils), and whole grains. In other words, whole plants, packaged as God (or nature) designed them.

I found plenty of solid evidence in favor of the diet and was surprised that it looked much more compelling than I had expected. I learned that the evidence demonstrates that a WFPB diet doesn’t just reduce our chance of getting heart disease, but actually eliminates it. This impressed me. It isn’t easy to make big lifestyle changes, and I don’t feel motivated when it only reduces my chances of having problems; it feels like a gamble. Eliminating my chances of getting a disease, especially the #1 killer, felt very motivating to me.

Comments (4)

Categories : Single Adult

Tags : cholesterol, The China Study, weight loss, Word of Wisdom

Archive for cholesterol – Page 4

“I’ve come to embrace my body as a temple”

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“Eating this way helps you come into the light”

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“When I changed my diet, an amazing thing happened”

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“I felt whole in that moment, as if I had come home”

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“I have found many hidden treasures”

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“I am a food addict”

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“I feel so good!”

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An Answer to a Question I Did Not Ask

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Archive for cholesterol – Page 4

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