My Journey to Plant-Based

I had always been active, participating in group exercise classes and even trained for a half-marathon. I thought I ate healthy. I bought organic, minimized pesticides, chemicals and plastics, and cooked at home frequently. I drank red wine, used olive oil, and drank plenty of water. I followed the US dietary guidelines but still found myself trying every diet from Sugarbusters to Paleo to drop the excess weight that continued to accumulate. At the thought of taking my first daily medication, I began to read everything I could get my hands on about autoimmune and gastrointestinal disease. After 3 years, 12 books, and a GERD episode so severe I thought I had a ruptured AAA, I read the last book on my list: Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It changed my life. I jumped in with both feet and immediately overhauled my entire diet. Within 48 hours, I noticed changes in all of my symptoms.

I ultimately lost 40 pounds in 8 months, reversed my Graves' disease and eliminated my GERD. It was unbelievable to me that it was so simple. No calorie counting, no macros or micros, and no tricking my body into metabolic states. I began to re-consider the conventional way we practice medicine and the infamous quote of Hippocrates, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” The answer to the the problem is not more medicine, it is whole food.