Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

I started my plant based journey for health reasons. Of course, since then, I became vegan too, as my compassion for animals and concern for the environment grew. But today, I had my yearly physical and had a reminder about why I am plant based... a clean bill of health.

I never liked going to the doctors. I had such phobias when I was a kid, and it was part of the reason why I avoided going as an adult. It wasn't until 2012 when I had my first physical that I really started getting over my anxiety (although, admittedly, it's still there!). When I found out I was pre-hypertensive and that my cholesterol was elevated, it was a huge wakeup call.

Yesterday, my physical therapist did a reassessment and said I probably only need one more appointment in a few weeks. The exercises he gave me seemed to do the trick as my knee is so much better. The swelling is gone, no more pain going up or down the stairs and I can actually run again.

Many people are struggling with their weight, as I once was. I recently did a video to help Million Dollar Vegan with their recent campaign. A few comments I've read on some of the videos were about moderation. Nothing drives me more crazy than this idea that someone can eat something unhealthy part of the time without sacrificing health. Here's why I don’t like the everything in moderation talk.

Would You Want To Be Moderately Healthy?

When I finally lost the weight and it stuck, it was because I did it for my health. All other attempts to lose weight before this failed because it was only about the numbers on the scale. When I put the health first, the weight came off.

I had an awesome interview with Elisha Lee today. Elisha is founder of Eat To Live Daily and is helping so many people transition to a healthy plant based lifestyle and improve their health.

One of the questions during the interview had to do with my why. Why do I keep going and why do I keep eating the way I do. I answered that my why is health. But I was giving it some thought since the interview and my why has been even beyond health. I don't think I gave a complete answer because there are other whys.

I lost weight and a lot of people know about it. But what is more significant in my eyes is my transition to 100 percent plant based eating. I could have done my yo-yo dieting that I did in the past but that would have been only a temporary fix. What I wanted was something that would improve my blood pressure without needing medication and avoid diabetes. After a lot of research, I realized that plant based eating was the way to go.

So what did being plant based do for me? Take a look at some of these significant items: