I find it fascinating that when Chuck asked me on the podcast what I first started eating when I gave up pizza, I couldn’t really remember?! How HILARIOUS that I based most of my life off of taste pleasure and getting my next fix of pizza and as someone who identifies with being a food addict, I couldn’t really articulate properly what the heck I ate. How far I’ve come! I wrote about what I eat in this post and spent quite a bit of time posting on my pizza_addict_to_vegan Instagram account, but I wanted to better answer this excellent question and dive deeper into a few others.

What did you replace the pizza with initially?

I ate all of the normal familiar foods everyone eats, just veganized. I ate vegan hotdogs and burgers, french fries, ice cream, fettuccini alfredo, spaghetti marinara, tacos, lasagna, soup, sandwiches and wraps, salad, curry, stir fry, pancakes, breakfast scramble, sausage, mashed potatoes and gravy and more. As a vegan, I’m endlessly fascinated by what do people eat!? The reason is, there’s soooo many darn options and combinations that the options are truly endless. There are things I make that my vegan friends probably never make and vice versa.

During covid, Rip Esselstyn moved his typical in-person Plantstrong Retreat to a virtual platform. For like $50, I was able to sign up and immerse myself in a weekend of learning. It was epic and fantastic. I later went and purchased the ability to watch all prior Plantstrong retreats they had recorded which further enhanced my learning and love for whole foods.

At the start of each retreat, Rip gives his talk on the 7 pillars of health and I found a recording you can watch here, but another must watch video would be the one by Jeff Novick on Calorie Density. I really encourage you to watch both and gain an understanding of the calorie density concept.

Rip put up a slide like the one above showcasing that 21 POUNDS of watermelon is equal to just 2500 calories. As a volume eater and someone who not only LIKES to feel full, but overfull, this spoke to me as a beacon of hope.

Rip is quoted as saying ‘have a whole stinkin’ watermelon for dessert, it might be 350 to 400 calories, why not?’ So I did that. I would have watermelon cut up on hand and I would eat to my heart’s content without guilt. This allowed me to have a belly that was full without eating too many calories which calmed down the part of me (bingey mingey) that likes to overeat and binge. For the record, I was only ever able to eat a half of a watermelon in one sitting!

What are your bloodwork numbers? What are some of the issues you had?

It bothers me that I didn’t have my bloodwork numbers handy and failed to remember my own health issues, but you can check out my past Bloodwork post as well as my Family Diseases post for more info. On the podcast, I failed to mention that I have a fatty liver which is cleared up now, a hypothyroid (likely will always be on medication for this) and I have a gallstone.

I never actually understood my fatty liver issue and this podcast clip on non-alcoholic fatty liver describes it perfectly: 15:55 mark to 17:41.

Transcribed here ‘When you overeat too many calories, you blow up your body fat and it starts to leak out and now you have fat that leaks out all over your body. The organ that picks up that fat is the liver. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a condition where you overeat, the fat flows out of your fat cells because they can’t hold anymore. You’ve strained the fat storage capacity to the limit, the fat leaks out into your cells, it’s trapped in your liver and your liver cells become replaced by fat. It used to be alcohol and hepatitis that were the biggest causes of liver transplant, now livers are failing all around the country because of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This is a silent epidemic, it’s nasty because when your liver fails, that’s your detox.’

That can be intimidating for people to have that kind of a backbone with their significant other. It would be difficult to tell your partner I’m no longer going to bring animals/animal by products into the house for you.

I have a husband who I believe is naturally more compassionate than me. He was the one who suggested we go vegetarian in our 20’s after reading about the connection between animal agriculture and climate change. He has always been against zoos and using animals for entertainment. He asked me not to go to Sea World when I went alone to San Diego over a decade ago and I didn’t listen. Not only did I go, I sat in the first row. Ugh. The first picture I took, my camera got splashed and ruined. I deserved that. Then I went home that night and the Blackfish documentary was on as it had just came out. I watched it and was disgusted with myself for going, but unfortunately didn’t make the vegan connection at that time.

My husband was also on this journey with me by default and he was listening to what I had on the stereo in the house and car and also on the TV.

I recall the fist Veganuary we did together, and I read the daily email I received during my lunch break which included an article on The Last Pig: What Humane Slaughterhouses Don’t Solve. I was working from home that day and went upstairs to tell my husband about the article I read and I couldn’t even get out the words without breaking down in tears. He gave me a hug. He saw me break down in tears and he did too during every documentary we watched.

So when I told him I wasn’t bringing animals and animal by products in the house, he understood.

Ethically, I no longer wanted to purchase these products even if I wasn’t eating them. My heart sank and I felt sick to my stomach and utterly heartbroken walking down the aisles with animal parts and animal secretions; parts that once belonged to a living being. Vegan author, Judy Carman, came up with a saying that helps me when I walk down these aisles in the grocery stores ‘I see you, and I love you.’ That helps me because animals are exploited and slaughtered largely out of our site and it this saying acknowledges their suffering and death and that someone cares.

Paul understood all of this as he had to listen to me continually process all of the new information I was learning. Each day, I’d share with him new and horrifying facts I had learnt about animal agriculture and each day, I became angrier and more heartbroken that I had to live in a world of such utter disregard for living beings and disgusted I was both conditioned and fooled to take part in such exploitation my entire life.

He understood all of this and there was no fight; dead animals and animal secretions stopped coming into the house after that.

What separates folks like Chuck and myself who can be around animal and animal by products now and not eat them?

I’d like to answer by breaking down my ‘I’d rather die than go vegan’ comment. What I meant when I said this, was I valued taste pleasure over MY OWN life. At the time I thought I actually don’t care if I died early and part of me expected to die early given neither of my parents made it to age 50. My thoughts were if I lost some years of life, it was worth it to continue eating pizza. How could I possibly care about an animal’s life, if I didn’t even value my own?

Where things started to turn for me, was learning about a whole plant food diet and in particular, about the fact that our top lifestyle related diseases are due to what we stick in our pie hole. Cholesterol and saturated fat are wreaking havoc on our lives and we do not need to consume either of these. Our liver makes all of the cholesterol we need and saturated fat is not essential. We are killing ourselves, animals and the planet for taste pleasure.

Watching Forks Over Knives helped me realize that my notion of an early death was misguided. Yes, I probably would have an early death, but I was missing the fact that before death may be living with a lifestyle related disease such as type 2 diabetes. Forks Over Knives features folks on a plethora of pills (I hate pills) and have a reduced quality of life such as lacking mobility.

It became clear to me, like Bill’s story I wrote about here, that death wasn’t my worst case scenario, but I was young enough to survive a heart attack or stroke and have to deal with the consequences of that.

So all of this learning helps me to ultimately understand what I was really choosing when I said, I’d rather die than go vegan. What I was choosing was NOT just an early grave, but potentially a reduced quality of life while I’m alive. No thanks.

Ultimately, I think I decided I loved myself and the quality of my own life more than I loved the taste of animals and animal by products.

Ultimately what got you over that hurdle was looking for compassion and love outside of yourself. Have you thought about that?

I believe the love and compassion I was starting to develop for myself was pivotal to my journey. I read the book Self Compassion and this really helped open my mind to becoming aware of and changing how I speak to myself. It’s still a work in progress to be honest.

Towards the end of 2019, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear and I re-visited the part where he talks about adopting the identity NOW, like before you have become the thing or reach your goal. So if you want to become a marathon runner, but haven’t ever exercised, you can adopt the identity of an athlete now, you don’t have to wait. Adopting the identity now will help you achieve your aspiration. So I decide after taking the free Animal Justice Academy course, that I want to adopt the identify of animal advocate now. Before I’m fully vegan, I sign up for action alert emails from both Animal Justice and the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and I take all of the actions from the comfort of my own home that they suggest. I veganized my social media feeds, I unfollowed what no longer served me and started to follow vegan content creators. I started small and I started speaking up for animals before I was fully vegan. The animals need all the help they can get, don’t wait to become vegan to stand up for animals. The animals cannot organize a march for themselves to demand we stop exploiting them, we must be their voice and we must stop supporting industries who exploit animals.

Adopting the identify of an animal advocate I believe is what ultimately is key to keeping animals and animal by products off of my plate. Animal advocacy takes me from helpless to hopeless. I could sit here and cry and do nothing, or I can take action and I choose to take action. As one of the few in this world who are awake, I feel it is my duty and privilege to speak up for our most vulnerable beings.

Were there any documentaries that you watched?

Pivotal to my initial journey was watching What the Health on Netflix and Forks Over Knives. Interestingly, we had watched Forks Over Knives when it was first released. I even purchased two copies of the DVDs (one for me and one to lend out) AND some of the books from folks featured on the film such as Engine 2 and The China Study. During our transition phase, we weren’t able to find Forks Over Knives for free, but luckily had the DVDs on hand. I was clearly moved by this documentary when we first watched it, but I didn’t understand HOW to eat this way. Today, there’s so many content creators with free vegan recipes ,documentaries ,challenges and support that anyone can get started.

If you made it this far, thank you. You’re a rockstar.

Peace, love & plants,

Michelle 🙂

p.s. Do you understand the immense amount of research out there that exists that a whole plant food diet is our best chance to reduce our risk of our top lifestyle related diseases? I didn’t understand this before. Dr. Gregor’s presentation on How Not to Die: Reversing our Top Fifteen Killers is an excellent place to start.