What? You mean I can be free from pain, bloating, congestion, constipation and multiple medications? What's the catch? Give up foods and drinks I love? Practice self care like yoga? That's weird and not living, no thanks! This reaction is all too familiar to my ears. There are always reasons and signs, but people like to put on their blinders because, let's face it, who wants to change? What? You want me to give up Krispy Kreme, McDonald's, dairy, Mountain Dew and steak?! Why the hell would I do that?! Well, to put it simply, it's all about choices. For my family and me, living a plant based life has been far from not living. We still enjoy warm meals like tacos or "chicken parm" and sweet treats like cinnamon rolls, cupcakes and donuts. The difference being what we use to create our masterpieces of health and wellness. Instead of refined flours and sugars we use coconut sugar and flours that contain more vitamins and minerals such as, garbanzo bean flour, quinoa flour and/or coconut flour just to name a few. For our meals we use nuts, seeds, rice, quinoa, mushrooms, flax seed, chia seeds, nutritional yeast and/or veggies to make burgers, patties or loaves. I could go on and on, as you can see, far from not living!
Being certified for a few years now in Vegan Nutrition has been rewarding, but I was wanting to further my nutritional background. So, a few months ago I enrolled in a course to become a Nutritional Counselor which is teaching me so much more on a technical level. I acknowledge and respect that the human body is an amazing machine, but just as with any machine, after years of abuse it eventually will breakdown. Knowing firsthand how the choices I make have helped me live symptom free from lupus, celiac and rheumatoid arthritis, I wanted to gain a better understanding of why things occur in the body and to be available to help others do the same.
All the technical mumbo jumbo is fascinating to me, but I realize for some I would be putting you to sleep spilling out all the scientific lingo so I'll skip that for the most part. If there is one thing you do in taking a step in the right direction, it would be to check out a previous post about testing your bodies PH level to gauge your health. PH is generally an easy topic to understand and test. I allow my kiddos to test their PH level as well and it's a great science lesson for them! PH level should be slightly alkaline, key word being slightly. In the world of PH, each little increment represents a 10 fold jump in clues to how your body is handling what you are putting into it. For example, if you test today on the acidic side at 6.0 and then test again after dinner with a result of 5.9, that is a huge jump in the wrong direction. Think about what you may have eaten or drank in those few hours that could have caused this. To go a little further, if you know you are eating a lot of animal products, processed foods, minimal fruits and veggies (by minimal I mean 0-3 servings a day) and your PH level tests highly acidic or highly alkaline that is not a good thing. If you test highly acidic or highly alkaline you should immediately go to the doctor for blood work and a complete physical. I don't care if you have the body of a model or professional athlete, stop what you're doing and call to schedule your appointment because you are a ticking time bomb. Choose to ignore it and you are the next story we'll hear about who died suddenly and "unexpectedly" for no apparent reason. Remember, there is always a reason, it's up to you whether you choose to do something about it.
