eXtremE wrote:Your food designing looks pretty good to me Becky. Maybe, I have asked you this bf. If I have, please forgive my bad memory. How long have you been eating plant based and are you 100% healthy (any health problems). You don't have to answer if that is too personal.
Hi eXtremE,
I have been eating a plant-based diet for the last 10 ½ years, ever since my husband had triple bypass open heart surgery. Prior to that, I was vegetarian (since around 1985), but of course, as we all know, dairy and eggs don't belong in a healthy meal plan. I also wasn't very good about keeping my food oil free during those "healthy vegetarian" years.
About the time I started switching to a vegetarian diet, I stumbled across Dr. McDougall's newsletter. As this was the mid 1980's, it was before the days of the internet. I was in a doctor's office waiting room and someone had left this "leaflet" that happened to be the early version of our good doctor's newsletter. I was already moving into eating meat-free, but what Dr. McDougall was teaching took my ideas to a whole new level.
While I believed what he wrote *immediately*, it took me about 20 years to finally take my own way of eating to this next level. During those 20 years I attempted several times to get the dairy, eggs, and oil out of my diet, with varying degrees of success (and failure). I can give you a long list of excuses of why I couldn't make this work, but the bottom line is, I didn't "just do it!". But, I still read everything Dr. McDougall wrote, attended his seminars whenever I could, and never gave up on the idea of finally making the total transition to this way of eating.
Then, in 2003, when my husband ended up in the hospital for open heart surgery, after two previous procedures to have stents installed, we both agreed that the time for dabbling with this way of eating was over, that it was time to fully commit. And that is when I finally gave up the dairy and eggs, and oil in my cooking. And, I'm happy to say, my husband has been symptom free from his previous issues since then, and has even recently discontinued his statin!!
As for myself, I am very lucky, and happy to say, I don't suffer from any health problems. I am 58 years old, and have what is probably the normal aches and pains and complaints of someone moving through her 6th decade of life. My cholesterol tends to run on the high side, even now. I've not been able to maintain that elusive 150 or below, but I know it's lower than it would be otherwise. I don't take any prescription medications or use any supplements outside of B12, which I take a couple times a week.
I did have a short bout with GERD a couple years back, which I was able to tweak with some dietary adjustments, and I documented here if you want to read about that:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=33674&hilit=GERDSo, that is the long (sorry) version of my transition to this way of eating!