Archive for Word of Wisdom – Page 5

“I can’t believe the energy I have and how good I feel”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, November 21st, 2015

Brian and Tammi SevyBy: Brian Sevy

I knew I was clearly on the wrong course when a physician friend of mine pulled me aside at church, expressed concern about the way I looked, and point-blank asked me if I had cancer. This conversation occurred about 4 and a half years ago. A few months before that I had been increasingly concerned about my health. I was overweight and under a lot of professional stress. I generally didn’t feel good. At times I felt bad enough that I knew I needed to make some changes in order to avert a health crisis.

Based on a flawed assumption that my problems would go away if I just lost weight, I embarked on one of the high animal protein diets. I lost weight quickly, but I felt worse and developed a gaunt look. Other friends pulled me aside and ask if the weight loss was intentional, implying that I might be afflicted with a serious health issue.

As I contemplated what to do next, my daughter stumbled across a documentary called Forks over Knives. She and I had done the animal protein diet together and were both so tired of eating meat that the idea of vegetables sounded very refreshing. This documentary, and my personal research that followed, was life changing. The scientific and clinical evidence gathered over decades by Drs. Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn, and others was irrefutable. I have always considered myself analytical by nature, and so I was surprised and shocked to discover how thoroughly I had been duped.

In reviewing the research on causal links between animal-based foods and a host of chronic diseases, I was forced to consider the reality of my situation and the damage I had most likely done to my body over the years. My grandfather died of heart disease at an early age — only a few years older than my age at the time. The beautiful thing about this research, especially Dr. Esselstyn’s clinical work, is the evidence that a plant-based diet would not only stop the progression of these lurking chronic conditions but that it would actually reverse them.

As I connected the dots, I realized that this way of eating would not only improve the quality of my life but that it could actually extend it. Tammi and I have been blessed with a wonderful family. We are all very close and being with our family is our greatest joy. At the point I was contemplating this shift to a whole food plant-based lifestyle, I thought of our first grandchild who was about a month away from being born. My grandfather passed away when I was only 3 years old and so I really didn’t get to know him. I felt like I had been given an opportunity for a different course and a different outcome.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“The inspiration I received was to read the Word of Wisdom”

By Jane Birch · Comments (25)
Saturday, November 14th, 2015

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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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“This diet protected me from permanent disability, if not death”

By Jane Birch · Comments (7)
Saturday, October 17th, 2015

Grant RowleyBy: Grant Rowley

I was born in 1944, the youngest of nine children. I lost my mother to a heart attack when I was 15. She had suffered a heart attack earlier when I was five. She lost weight on the advice of her doctor, but died when she was only 56. Since that time five siblings have also passed away, three of them in their 50’s due to heart problems, and two with cancer and diabetes in their early to mid-60’s. My wife, Linda, and our children gave a sigh of relief when I was still kicking on my 57th birthday! There are three siblings still living. My brother Ralph is 81. Hugh is 76. I am 71. We three have been more conscious of our health and exercised more than the others.

I have been exercising regularly since by days in the Marines. When I wasn’t exercising, I put on weight quite easily. I have been seeing a cardiologist since I was 50 years old. One day, I got light headed while playing racquetball with a co-worker, and Linda and I decided I needed to see a doctor. They took an MRI and found that I had an enlarged heart wall and muscle. So I stopped playing any sports that required me to start and stop, such as basketball, racquetball, and softball.

A few years ago, a couple of men who worked in the same BYU office as my wife Linda started eating a more plant-based. They suggested some reading, so Linda read some books and got some recipes. We went on a plant-based diet for 10 days. It was very difficult to prepare the food and get used to it, but my cholesterol went down 100 points in that short time. We then tried to incorporate the diet in a modified form into our lifestyle.

In the middle of June 2013, I woke up and felt sort of weird. I checked and discovered my pulse was near 80. I drank some water and went back to bed. I still could not sleep, so we decided to go to the hospital. I had a racing heart, and they kept me in the ER for a few hours and stabilized me. After more tests, they recommended installing a pacemaker. I wasn’t too excited about that, but after talking with the doctors I decided to go through with the procedure. All went well, and the pacemaker has been a blessing as it lets me know when I need to not push myself too hard.

Then in the spring of 2014, Linda and I found out about Jane Birch and her book Discovering the Word Of Wisdom. I was excited to read this book. It confirmed some of the feelings I had about eating fruits and vegetables in season and meat sparingly. With a stronger desire to eat healthier, we tried to implement whole food, plant-based eating into our diet and into our lives more fully. As we’ve done that, I have found new energy and wellbeing in my every day activities. We have had breaks from it, but we are eating much healthier, and we can feel the difference.

As it turns out, this difference saved my life! Let me tell you what happened.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“We had a major awakening”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, October 10th, 2015

Chelsea PorterBy: Chelsea Porter

I grew up learning how to shoot a gun and using it to hunt animals. Each year we had pheasant, dove, and the occasional antelope meat in our freezer that my dad, brother, or I most likely killed. My parents also bought part of a cow every year. Our freezer was always stocked full of meat. I literally hated vegetables and rarely ate any. I drank a glass of milk with dinner and thought that counting carbs and calories (even in high school) was as healthy as anyone could be!

I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when I was 21. At that time I drank alcohol, massive amounts of coffee and caffeine, smoked cigarettes and never wondered about the food I ate. As soon as I had my answer that I needed to be baptized, my desire and dependence to all my addictions vanished. I still have no desire or temptation to have them in my body.

When I had my first child, a boy, I had gained over 50 pounds during his pregnancy. It took quite a while to lose most of it before I was again pregnant, with another boy. I again gained 50 pounds during his pregnancy and although I was “healthier” I was still consuming meat and dairy in substantial amounts. I ate much less sugar and because I was making meals at home, I thought that was at least better than restaurant food. My husband, Jordan, also gained a total of forty pounds during the two pregnancies. So, maybe the food I was cooking was not as healthy as I thought.

My mother-in-law gave me Herbal Home Health Care by Dr. John R. Christopher after our first son was born. It teaches a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet, and we tried living that way for a while. I did not have recipes ready and could not figure out how to cook that way; the cheese and meat were too tempting to leave behind at that point.

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“I intend to stay on this path for the rest of my hopefully long and healthy life!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (8)
Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

Carolyn CooperBy: Carolyn Cooper

I LOVE using the fresh food that the Lord has provided for my body’s fuel. Here’s my story:

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s in a family who ate the standard American diet, albeit a little bit more healthy than most. For example, my parents never bought “store milk.” We were in a co-op that went out to the dairy every week to get the “real milk” (unpasteurized) from the “real cows.” I used to hate being the one to go help my mom pick the milk when it was our turn because of the smell. To this day, all milk smells ‘cow-y’ like that to me.

My dad was a chiropractor who would say things like “sugar is a poison to your body” and “the whiter the bread, the sooner you’re dead.” So although we knew this, and we maybe ate a little bit healthier than some families, it was still the standard American diet. In fact, every Sunday we would have a roast, potatoes, gravy, etc. From the time I was 13 years old, my bedroom was directly below the kitchen so Sundays always smelled like a beef-fest down in my room, which got to be nauseating for me. I remember being about 15 years old in my room one Sunday and saying out loud to myself, “I can’t take this, I’m going to be vegetarian when I’m older!” I don’t know that I was actually serious at the time, but it surely must have planted the seed!

Fast forward several years to 1988: I read Diet for a New America by John Robbins and loved it! It validated so many things for me, and made perfect sense. It also matched up perfectly with the Word of Wisdom. I had always believed that when the Word of Wisdom says to “eat meat sparingly . . . ” and “it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” that it means exactly that. I’ve never understood any other way that could be interpreted; it’s very clear.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“I charged boldly ahead into a beautiful new wonderland”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)
Saturday, September 26th, 2015

Lindsay MaxfieldBy: Lindsay Maxfield

In the summer of 2014, on a night much like every other night, I carried one of my three children up the stairs for bed. It felt like the 100th time that day that I carried someone up or downstairs, and it very well might have been — just a few months earlier, our family of three grew to a family of five when I gave birth to identical twins.

Twin pregnancy is not for the faint of heart. It is a grueling, physically demanding task that left me nearly unable to walk by the end of those nine long months. Of course giving birth to two healthy and beautiful baby girls made it all worth it, but being able to finally reclaim my body as my own was the icing on the cake. What’s more, I gained a newfound appreciation for my body that no other experience could have given me. I was fiercely proud of what I had accomplished and realized that my body is indeed miraculous, incomparable, a divine gift, and capable of a herculean task given to few.

But despite this newfound respect, my body still was not quite able to do all the things I needed it to do as a mother of three young children. At least not comfortably. I realized this that summer night as I paused at the top of the stairs, ever so slightly out of breath, and had this sobering thought: My babies would keep getting bigger, and I’d still need to keep carrying them up and down the stairs.

I knew that if I wanted to be able to accomplish the physical tasks yet ahead, I needed to treat my body much better. Since my life already felt like a never-ending marathon of child wrangling and laundry basket hauling (among other countless household duties), I wasn’t about to turn to exercise to improve my health. Instead, I turned to diet.

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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“I dropped 80 pounds”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, September 12th, 2015

Jeff and Judy SorensenBy: Jeff Sorensen

Growing up I always felt like I was a little “pudgy.” When I got to high school I wanted to be on some sort of team. My mother wouldn’t allow me to play football so I decided to try out for the swim team. We didn’t have a very good team (we didn’t even have our own pool), but I made the team and began swimming and also became quite lean. I continued that way for the next few years and enjoyed being more slender.

When I left for my mission to South America I weighed 170 pounds. I maintained that weight for most of my mission except when we lived with an American family. The good brother worked in the oil fields in Venezuela and enjoyed the standard American diet. I had never eaten filet mignon before in my life, but each Friday night his wife would cook it for us, along with potatoes and gravy and all the other good stuff. Soon my weight jumped to 200 pounds! I could hardly fit in my pants any longer! After a few months I was transferred to the other country (Colombia), and my weight began dropping back towards normal.

In my last city I got ill and lost some weight, which got me back to 170 pounds. My mother was so concerned that on my arrival home she decided she needed to “fatten me up” to a healthy weight. My sweetheart Judy had waited for me, and we were married eight weeks after I returned home. They say that newlyweds gain about 10 pounds the first year, and we did! Before I knew it I had gained 40 pounds.

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“Dang it, there go the hamburgers”

By Jane Birch · Comments (5)
Saturday, August 29th, 2015

Paul & Orva Johnson closeupBy: Paul Johnson

My wife and I have always tried to eat with a mind toward health. But I enjoyed a good hamburger, barbequed tri-tips, chocolate shakes, ice cream, etc. In fact I would have been perfectly happy to have hamburgers for every meal. I still would—but I can’t do it, because I know too much about what that would do to my body, not to mention the cows’ bodies.

So my journey toward a plant-based diet came slowly. As my wife became totally plant-based, I supported her (easy to do since she looks amazing). We had mostly plant-based food at home, except for cheese and a few other things like that. She learned to cook meals that could be done completely plant-based or with a little bit of cheese or even meat thrown in.

At 46 I was in very good health, or so I thought. I was in a kick-boxing class, could do 80 pushups, and could run forever. But my feet started to tingle a lot. The tingling gradually grew into outright pain. Terrible, unbearable pain. I went to several doctors who simply couldn’t figure out what was going on. When they took x-rays of my feet they were astounded. My bones were disappearing. I was osteoporotic as an otherwise healthy 46-year-old male: practically unheard of.

After numerous tests, they discovered my kidneys were throwing out all of my calcium, causing my parathyroid glands to grab the calcium from my bones so that my body would have enough to function. The docs gave me prescriptions to help my condition. Nothing worked and the meds had weird, unacceptable side effects. During this time they also discovered I was pre-diabetic, glucose intolerant. Apparently my feet found out I was about to become diabetic and decided to get peripheral neuropathy early—thus the tingling, numbness and sharp pains in my feet. (I realize that numbness and pain don’t seem too congruent, but just ask anybody with neuropathy about that. They won’t be able to explain why, but they’ll make a pretty convincing case that it happens.)

So now I had two problems: diabetes and the kidney thing. I had also had two very bad kidney stones, requiring three surgeries between them because they would not pass on their own. I was given more medicine for the diabetes issue and was told to cut way down on carbs: go easy on the fruit and bread and eat meat. My wife was very supportive and went out of her way to make sure I could follow the standard American diet for diabetes.

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“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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“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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