I love that I have already had a few questions and requests for resources for vegan meals, you all are awesome!  For those ready for change NOW and want to know what I do immediately here’s my top tips of what I did that worked for me:

• Learnt about WHY a 100% whole plant food diet is optimal for health and disease prevention and why animal flesh and their secretions are so bad for our health.  Watch:  How Not to Die and How Not to Diet.

• Learnt about health topics of concern from the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine’s website (PCRM).  PCRM’s Website Link.  Took a FREE course on Diabetes. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to register for the free diabetes class starting in February 2023.

• Developed my WHY for wanting to improve my health and I posted it somewhere visible so I could read it often.

• I worked toward cutting out all animal products and by products. I didn’t go all in immediately.

• Heavily focused on my habits and set my environment up for success. Two books I listened to that helped me get started: Atomic Habits and Tiny Habits.

• I aspire to eat approximately 30 grams of fat per day (spoiler alert, I am generally over that amount).

• Learnt about calorie density and consume the bulk of my food from the green items in the chart below (pasta, legumes, grains, vegetables, fruit and potatoes).  Watch:  Rip Esselstyn Calorie Density.

Today I wanted to reflect on one of the first people who gave me hope to believe that I could change.  A man named Bill in Weight Watchers would regularly post detailed explanations on his food addiction and seeing those posts and seeing his results gave me so much hope.  He articulated exactly how I felt, better than I could have at the time.

Thirteen minutes into this podcast, Bill shares  a story about a memorable visit at the doctor’s office.  He shared with his doctor that he wanted to stay alive for his family.  The doctor said to him ‘do you think death is your worst-case scenario!?’ 

The doctor elaborated and said that Bill was young enough to survive a diabetic stroke or heart attack but there’s a likely chance it would leave him handicapped for life.  The doctor further added that Bill’s worst case scenario was not only losing the ability to earn money for his family, but the physical care of him would fall upon his children and his wife.  His family would have to replace everything Bill brought to the table.  That story always stuck with me and planted a seed for me to focus on optimal health.

WEEKLY CHECK IN: 2.8 lbs | 32.6 lbs to goal | 10.9 lbs lost in the month of January.

It’s been a pretty uneventful week over here.  Things are easy for me as now as I enter my second year as a vegan.  Most of the hard part of this journey has been about both learning and unlearning and the heavy lifting of that part of my journey is complete.

Now I get to put into action everything I’ve been learning for three years to help me cross this finish line to my current goal. I understand the last bit of weight is hard to lose so I am dreading when it gets to that point, but so far so good!

Peace, love & plants,

Michelle 😊