These are the exact words my husband said to me when he was faced with a big decision. He had just received a letter from his company inviting him to participate in a health clinic in Santa Rosa, California. While reading the offer, he realized the idea behind the clinic was to make him a vegan.
Would a little backstory here be helpful? My husband is a big guy. He is tall, athletic and, unfortunately, he has struggled with his weight his entire adult life. He just has the body type to really pack on the pounds, making it difficult for him to compete in sports, be healthy, and feel good about himself. Now we admit that we are both reasonably intelligent human beings. We read quite a bit, learn quickly, and are generally capable people, and even so we find all the info out there on health to be baffling. What's the best way to eat? Is it all calories in vs calories out? Organic or pesticide laden, does it matter? What about eating paleo, vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, dairy free, non-GMO, low carb, low fat, whole foods, raw foods, or no food at all? Is there any food out there that SOMEONE doesn't argue about?
Where does exercise fit in? Should we be pumping iron at the gym, running marathons, pumping out burpees in crossfit, gracefully stretching in yoga class, or dancing to health in zumba class? Ok, so my husband never actually considered the last two . . . but you get the picture.
It never ends.
My husband has tried "watching what he eats." He looks at his plate and thinks "Yep, there it is, That's another salad" and then he eats it and he's still starving. He's cranky when he's hungry and no fun to be around and he still didn't lose much weight. It's not like we were eating at McDonald's every night either. I make dinner at home approximately 6 times a week. He eats lunch from home almost every work day. He really didn't eat a ton of food, but he was still "obese" according to the BMI. Then his blood pressure started to creep up. His mom and dad both have problems with high blood pressure and high cholesterol and his dad has complained about how awful blood pressure meds are for years. My husband's company contracted with a health company to pay their employees for their efforts to live more healthfully and he jumped on board. When they got wind of his blood pressure they really started to nag him on a weekly basis and then came the letter.
The letter stated that they thought he would be someone to benefit from a clinic they had sent many employees to in the past. My poor husband was outraged. "They want me to go to a fat camp?! Am I really that bad?!" I just thought that a free vacation in California and a week off work was an awesome idea and he should go for it. Here's another thing - I really like my husband. He is my best friend and I want to be old and party together when all our darn kids finally move out and if he is too overweight we aren't going to have much fun. I encouraged him to sign up for the clinic. Then he found out it was a vegan camp.
What?!
My mother describes my husband as a slap-half-a-steer-on-my-plate-and-I'm-happy kind a guy, which isn't all that accurate because we don't eat red meat that much, but still it's a fair analysis of his general attitude. I apologize to all the animal lovers out there but he has no compunctions about eating meat. He does have a problem with having high blood pressure and dying before his time so in the end, he went to the clinic. Not only that he told me he wanted to start early, in the security of his own home, so he began eating vegan about four weeks before he left. In that time, he made a few interesting discoveries. He felt better. He wasn't having stomach pains like before. He felt full and satisfied after meals. His digestive system seemed to function better. He didn't even have to eat a ton of salads. He stared losing about 3 pounds a week. Best of all, his blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose went down significantly. Whatever the pros and cons are about veganism, we knew one thing for sure. It was working really well for him.
So it continues. We have four sons, three of whom still live with us and our whole family is not vegan. But thankfully our kids are seeing the advantages of eating a plant based diet. They no longer think they have to have meat at every meal, because realistically I'm just not going to make two separate meals every night. We eat many vegan dinners, maybe with some non-vegan additions for those who care to partake, maybe not. I know for a fact that as a family we are eating way less meat. So the purpose of this blog will be to offer up recipes and meal plans for people who have a vegan family member or just want to eat vegan meals on occasion. The way I figure it is this - every time a family eats a healthy meal with less or no meat, the animals win, the environment wins, and our own bodies win. It's a spectrum of health and the farther along it you are toward unprocessed healthy foods, the better off you are. You don't have to be total vegan 24/7 to start being healthy. Try a little vegan food here and there. You might just like it!
No comments:
Post a Comment