Going Vegan: It's a Process
I was surprised when, about four months ago, my doctor started my annual checkup by handing me some papers that detailed the benefits of going vegan. I was even more surprised to find out he had started down the vegan highway because he had been on both high blood pressure and cholesterol medications. I was shocked because he was a few years younger than me at 45 and he looked to be extremely fit owing to his three day a week jogging routine.
He went on to explain that so much of our health is pre determined by genetics and, depending on the person, exercise and weight watching can help but only up to a point. A doctor friend of his had given him The China Study by T. Colin Campbell PhD. that detailed a 20 year study of rural Chinese people who were able, in some cases, to reverse some serious cardiac diseases after going vegan. My doctor told me that after adopting a vegan diet about three months prior to my appointment; he no longer took any of his medications.
This sounded pretty good to me as I'd been trying, without success, to get off my own high blood pressure medication. I went with some of the dietary ideas that were part of the papers he had given me and began my own vegan adventure.
I was under no delusion as to how difficult it would be to change after fifty years of eating anything I wanted and the fact that I love eggs, cheese, steak, fish and ham didn't help as vegan means no animal products, none, nada, zilch. I started off by substituting oatmeal for eggs at breakfast three days a week and eventually got that up to only one egg breakfast per week. The next step was to eliminate beef which wasn't as hard as I'd imagined because I had already almost entirely stopped eating anyfast food over the last two years. I found that beans of all kinds can be a good substitute for beef and, in a pinch, I can fall back on a veggie burger every once in a while. I've definitely increased my vegetable and fruit consumption and I've developed a real fondness for the Portobello mushroom sandwich.
Without trying I dropped almost 12 pounds over a three month period and I cut my high blood pressure medication from every day to every third day. All was going well until Thanksgiving rolled around.
Like many Americans, I find the holidays and the overabundance of food that comes with them to be impossible to escape. But now that the calendar has moved on to another year my resolution is to get back on the vegan highway because I've seen firsthand how effective it is.
Published by Stephen Pinder
Stephen loves travel and travel writing. He also enjoys sports and golf with old friends and new ones he meets on the road. View profile
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