Evidence of Positive Changes
I might seem pretty hippy dippy, but I am also an Aquarian. That means I like science and evidence to back up my theories. So when I can see actual, measurable change, I like that. See, my theory is that I cannot experience what I do not truly believe in. When I put a theory to the test and find evidence to support it, it helps me believe in it, and if I believe in it, I can make it real.
Now that we've got the technicalities out of the way, I present my measurable, provable, scientific, physical differences in my physical body since I switched to a plant-based lifestyle on January 26th, 2021. I'm writing this in early March, so a little over five weeks in.
Chronic acid reflux
Before my restart I was downing Tums like M&Ms and worrying a lot about what the constant pool of lava in my chest was doing to my insides. It’s been going on for a couple of years, really bad, to the point where it probably required medical intervention for a less stubborn individual.
However, since going plant-based, not one single disk of flavored chalk has crossed my lips. And unlike some, I’m still drinking coffee! No acid. No reflux. No more Tums. It's just gone. Years of suffering, and all I had to do was get off animal proteins. Cured.
Heart stuff
I have a little heart arryhthmia they've labeled PSVT (Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia) that’s been with me for more than 20 years. My heart skips and jumps and takes off full throttle in reaction to certain triggers; alcohol, so I quit. Nicotine, so I quit. Too little water, so I drink more. Caffeine, so I drink less. Extreme stress, so I meditate. Powerful energy channeling, which can't be helped. Sometimes just stretching wrong can set it off. The rate shoots up to 200+ BPM and doesn’t slow down until it's good and ready. Five times, I’ve had to go to the ER and let them flat-line me for a couple of seconds. It's kind of a Force Quit command that makes the heart reboot properly.
I am so pissed that I haven't saved the EKG strip from one of those times. Proof of my immortality!
Normally, I have a few bouts of this a year. It would be more, but I usually can tell when one is coming and if I take a little heart rate stabilizer pill, I can usually avert it. So besides the few full blown episodes of PSVT a year, which leave me sore and exhausted, I probably have to take a pill to prevent an episode once or twice a month. That’s a lot. But that's all old news.
I haven’t had an episode of PSVT yet in 2021, nor have I felt like I needed a pill to prevent one. And the only thing that has changed is what I eat.
I have lost weight healthily, without counting or restricting or weighing or measuring or thinking about it. This feels like chains that held me to an old way of being have just fallen away. I am eating what I want, now. It's what I want that has changed.
Hubs and I are spending more time cooking and eating more food than we ever have in our lives. But now it's with our eyes open.
I’ve stopped second guessing myself now about nutrition, too. I've decided to accept what doctors and nutritionists have said over and over. If you eat until you are full and satisfied on a plant-based diet, you get enough of everything you need, including protein and calcium. I didn't trust that at first. I do now.
Some experts say you need to add a B3 supplement. I wonder if those lucky enough to spend our summers with our hands in the dirt are getting it there, and whether if we don’t peel our root veggies, we’re getting B3 there, too.
Sleep
I was barely sleeping five hours a night before the change. And this is one shift that took a few weeks to kick in, but I am now hitting seven hours pretty regularly.
Regrets?
I don't believe in regrets, as a rule. What's done is done, and can't be undone, and I try to focus forward, onward, upward. Excelsior! (Raise a glass to Stan Lee!)
But I really wish I'd done this one thing differently. Right before making this change, right before even thinking about it, I had to re-establish myself as a patient at the local medical clinic because I hadn't been there in so long. If they got any Covid vaccines, I wanted to be on the list. So I went for a visit just to update my chart so I could get in line for a shot. They recorded my height, weight, and BP, and that was it. (I've since got my first shot elsewhere.)
I wish I had asked to have a full blood workup done, so I could compare the changes now to the numbers then. But I had not even an inkling I would be making this change. So I'll leave it to others to chronicle their bloodwork numbers before and after. At my age these things take on a new importance.
I have to just go by the things I can measure. The Tums in the jumbo size bottle that's still full. The increased hours of sleep. The clarity. The energy. The increased levels of comfort and joy.
Moreover, there's the satisfaction of feeling as if I am taking excellent care of my body, and living in harmony with nature and the planet and with myself.