Giving Plants a Chance and Winning!

Do you have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis? Arthritis? Heart Disease? Diabetes or more? Would you love to be able to reverse any of this plus boost your immune system?

The Beginning:

My journey probably started out similar to yours! I went into the doctors for a routine check up about nine years ago or so give or take a little, at that time they felt my neck and discovered that my thyroid was enlarged. So after the physical I was sent to the lab for some testing. This only led to the discover of increase thyroid antibodies and increases triglycerides for my cholesterol. At this point they just told me to eat healthier and loss weight. I am sure everyone has heard that before. They also said things like we will just continue to monitor your levels to see when the spikes occur that we will have to treat with medicine. What they didn't say was that this could be reverse or even controlled without medications.

Why???

After changing to a Integrative medicine provider and her referring some reading materials did they why become clear. When a standard medical provider goes to school they learn more on pharmacology- which is the branch of medicine concerned with the uses, effects, and modes of action of drugs, than they learn about nutrition and/ or natural medicine. In my understanding of this is that we are teaching our medical providers to only treat with medicines and not anything natural. Which tends to lead most doctors in my opinion to snub their noses at anything natural and believe that natural doesn't work, only synthetic man made medicine works. My mind was a little blown after learning this, but made sense. Especially after seeing some of this working in the medical field, and in my opinion seeing the wrong kind of primary care providers for years. It only took one book and a different kind of healthcare provider to change my mind along with some very supportive friends who also did a lot of research into naturalistic medicine. This help me on my journey big time.

Recommendations:

My recommendations for this type of lifestyle or super super simple and I almost feel like I recommend this to everyone. They are only to read some great book by some very knowledgeable authors that have spent years in the medical field as well as doing their own research. The first one is Fiber Fueled by Will Bulsiewicz, and not only does he have a great book but he also has a facebook page to join. The second recommendation that I have to to read The Gut Immune Connection by Emeran Mayer. His book goes into more detail than the first but also offers great knowledge on just what diet and exercise can do for your body along with many other things as well. He has some great ideas the only reason why this is listed second is that I have some disagreements with certain aspects that he mentions in the book, but other than that its a great book. You will also want to go into this forgetting everything that has been taught over the years from inaccurate science, to fad diets and more.

Results:

I am looking forward to continuing my journey on this plant based whole foods lifestyle. After only being on this for a week, I had my labs done for my routine 3 months check up and everything was starting to normalize itself. My thyroid level are perfect, my triglycerides dropped over 100 points and everythings else is steadily increasing back to normal. Wahoo!! right?? Yes, for sure but this need to be continued to see continued preventative and restorative measures. For if I go back to the way I was eating my triglycerides will rise, my LDL, and HDL will go back to the way they were and my Hashimotos would surely have to be put back on my medical records after working so hard to get it removed. I would have an increased likelihood of getting colds, flu, and other viruses, as well as heart disease, cancers and diabetes. Just to name a few thing that this helps with. On top of my levels normalizing I feel better, and the weight is decreasing as well, more so for inches but both are a great achievement. I am slowly healing from the inside out.

How did I do it!!

First and more important of how I did it was with the help of my primary care provider. The second thing was to read Fiber Fueled and then changing the way that I ate. I was slowly pulling out foods anyway so it wasn't hard to fully change. We are currently about 90% whole food plant based, we will on occasional consume meat products. However, I cut out as much processed foods as I possible could, I know this isn't easy when traveling but can be done. We also incorporated as much organic fresh fruits and vegetable into out diets as possible. Cut out fruit juices, and more. I will try to provide as many recipes on this blog as I can to help you out on your journey as well as with helpful tips and tricks that I learn along the way. Always remember to consult your healthcare provider. Also you will want to make sure you do not suffer from constipation before starting, and you will want to start low and slow with adding in fiberous foods(fresh fruits, veggies and whole grains and minimally processed grains) and taking away meat. Low and slow is the key especially if you have been eating an all American diet. We will go over diets at another time. Adding a pre and probiotic while starting may help as well, however they will not help your gut colonized new strain of microbes on their own. You will need to eat a diversity(eat the rainbow, and I don't mean skittles) of plants to help. Also if adding prebiotics starting low and slow is key otherwise it can lead to constipation or other digestive issues.

Links:

Bulsiewicz, W. (2020, September 8). Book - dr. Will Bulsiewicz: The Gut Health MD. Dr. Will Bulsiewicz | The Gut Health MD. Retrieved October 16, 2021, from https://theplantfedgut.com/book/.

Emeran Mayer, MD. English. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2021, from https://emeranmayer.com/the-gut-immune-connection-book/.

Log into Facebook. Facebook. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2021, from https://www.facebook.com/theguthealthmd.