Me at around 300 lbs August 2008
Most of us as children want to do things different than our parents did- for one reason or another. I watched mine struggle with their weight my whole life. I never wanted to have that struggle but there I was 300 lbs if not more. It was August 2008 and I had spent a summer dealing with a bad knee, plantars faciitis that hurt so badly, and was developing sleep apnea. All of this was related to my weight. I knew I had to do something. I was killing myself. I was eating large amounts of horribly fat foods. I could down a whole salami and cheese pizza by myself. My husband and I could wipe out almost a whole half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. I would go to McDonalds and buy a large fry, 2 double cheese burgers and 2 McChicken sandwiches and I would eat them all. If I had bought more I would have eaten more. I ate for comfort. Over the years we had lived places that were isolated from the community- I was lonely and that gave me plenty of reasons to eat. Food had become my friend. I also had 6 children to take care of and home school. I hid behind my kids, my husband and my weight. I was one lonely lady. Which led me to eat more.
While sitting in bed watching The Biggest Loser (while I was probably eating a pizza or a huge bowl of ice cream) I decided I had had enough. I didn’t want to be known as the fat and lazy Mom. I wanted to be active with my 6 children. I had let myself go. I wasn’t living the life I wanted. I wanted to be a better mother, a better wife, a better daughter, sister, friend and most of all a better Christian. I knew that my weight was keeping me from serving God to the best of my ability. I knew I needed to get healthy in order to make this all happen.
The first change I made was to get active. I started walking. At first I could only go around our large block. We lived out in the desert at the time- so it was a big block. I did this twice a day until I could go longer. After a couple of weeks my husband and I was walking 5 miles a day. Through sand and over sand dunes. Everyday without fail. I started riding the quad runners with the kids, playing with them more. Then I started applying what I was learning from The Biggest Loser. I reduced calories and fat. I was faithful to this though I was hungry all the time. I went to bed hungry many nights. I had to stay at 1500-1700 calories. I never was less than 1500 calories but it wasn’t enough. It took me until December to lose 30 lbs. I must add here that within a few weeks of walking my knee and plantars faciitis was gone. I felt better than I had in such a long time.
By December I was nursing my husband back to health after a horrible quad runner accident. I was also dealing with some health issues of my own. I decided to just work on maintaining until we got through it all. We also decided to move back to CA. We were not happy where we were living. I was successful at maintaining for several months. By this time I was back to eating all of my favorite foods, I just spaced them out so that I was still able to maintain my weight. I knew I needed to get back on track. I was just kind of floating along.
In early April I was at a thrift store looking through the book section. A book caught my eye “The Picture Perfect Diet” I thumbed through it and found it intriguing. On one side of the page there was a picture of a typical high fat meal showing the calories . On the opposite page they showed a ton of food, plates and plates of food for the same calories or less. All healthier choices of course. Beans, whole grains, vegetables, fruit. Treats of low calorie popsicles or tootsie roll pops. I bought it for .75 and came home to read it. I am looking at all of this food and thinking why would I eat this when I could eat enough food for 4 people for less calories. That was the start. Those pictures were the key in helping me to see how I needed to eat. It was pretty much a vegan diet with the exception of creamsicles and fudgesicles that had 10-20 calories. I started applying what I had learned from the book. I stocked the freezer with low calorie desserts. I had a bucket of tootsie roll pops in my closet for when I needed a sweet treat. I started eating lots of beans, whole grains, fruits and veggies. When I needed a snack or a sweet I ate the low calorie alternative.
By mid April I had lost 8 lbs. One day we went to go visit one of my husbands clients Danny Vierra of Modern Manna Ministries. I was so excited to meet Danny again after 16 years. I used to listen to him on a radio show called Health Line. He preached the benefits of a vegan diet, natural living and healing with herbs. I learned all that I know about alternative medicine from Danny. I have very healthy children because of him. I shared with him my health problems and he told me that I needed to cut out all dairy products. It was like a confirmation that what I was already doing what was going to help heal my body. I told him that I wanted to volunteer at the upcoming Christian Youth Health Conference that his ministry was holding.
That day my husband and I decided to go completely vegan. Later that week I got a call from Modern Manna asking me if I would run the kitchen for the conference. Wow! This was a big step outside of my comfort zone but I knew I needed to do it. I said yes. It was to be a huge undertaking. They were expecting 500-1000 people. All meals were free so we were focusing on easy meals. Something I believed in- being vegan doesn’t have to be difficult just simple, healthy ingredients.
By the time of the conference in mid June I had lost 20 lbs. This conference was a real eye opener for me. I found that I loved serving others and I loved cooking good healthy foods. I was way out of my comfort zone. I was away from my family for 3 days and I was sleeping in someone elses home, I am a person who doesn‘t even like camping. I was meeting so many new people. In the end it was the best time I had had since I don’t know how long. I was able to help people with tips on how to eat healthier and I was feeding people healthy food. They were so appreciative. It was an awesome experience. I learned that I had not served God to the fullest of my capabilities because of my weight. I kept saying to myself and my husband “50 lbs ago I would have never done this.” I was on my feet 12-16 hours a day. I was so tired by the time I got home but it was so worth it.
I came home with even more of a desire to help others. I had handed out my blog address to everyone who wanted help in learning how to eat healthy. They all loved my food so I decided to keep cooking and keep posting my recipes. Vegan Family Style was born. Whatever I cook has to be appealing to the whole family. It also has to fit into my budget. I can’t afford some of the higher priced vegan food items that are out there. I cook a lot from scratch. Trial and error. The kids hate my lentil patties but they love my spicy sausages that are made with white beans and gluten flour.
The kids were eating what I made but they sure missed cheese. They found they could live without meat but cheese.. “Come on Mom!” I had gotten some great materials from the conference about factory farming and the hormones and such used to increase milk supplies. I read this to the kids and that was the last time anyone complained about wanting cheese. They are all on board with this way of eating. They get excited when I make something that tastes very similar to the non vegan counterpart. Most recently I made vegan pizza. It had vegan pepperoni, vegan sausage and vegan mozzarella cheese. They were in pizza heaven.
Somewhere along the blog highway I noticed that other bloggers were testing products for companies and writing reviews on their blogs. I said to myself that I would love to do something like that but had no idea how to break into that market. After much thought I figured out how to tap into product reviewing and the response has been wonderful. I have packages showing up several times a week. A lot of products that I would not just go out and spend the money on. Let’s face it, vegan premade foods can be pricey. Knowing that they have been well received by this family of 8 in Northern CA makes it a lot easier for a family somewhere else to make that purchase. Now I know what vegan premade food items I want to stock up on when they go on sale. What products we can’t live without no matter what the price. In the process I have met some amazing people who have all be so very supportive of me on my journey. I have tucked all of their kind words and encouragement in the back of my mind for just when I need them. One of my favorite things to review is cookbooks and healthy living books. I love working with the publishers. I have gotten good response on my book reviews and I just love doing it. I love to read and I love to learn about healthy living- so it was a perfect match for me.
Now my blog provides recipes, healthy living tips, and product reviews. My family is totally enjoying testing all of these great vegan food. I am always creating new recipes of my own, testing recipes from new vegan cookbooks, or testing a new product and they are happy to be on the receiving end of this adventure. So far we haven’t reviewed anything that we have disliked. I am thankful for that. My daughter loves to bake the sweet stuff. My 6 year old makes the homemade peanut butter, that is his job and he is proud of it. I love trying new recipes. I think my family’s favorite recipe is my Spicy Sausages. It is an adaptation of Julie Hasson’s recipe from Everyday Dish TV. One of our favorite foods is red pepper hummus. It is great by itself but it also wonderful in a taco. It has a cheesy flavor so I spread it on the tortilla before topping with beans and other toppings.
In the beginning of October a publisher sent me 2 raw food cookbooks. I had done the raw thing a couple of years ago. I liked it but I had went from the Standard American Diet to raw vegan. After a month we went right back to eating pizzas, burgers, and such.. I gained back all I had lost. I had continued with many aspects of the raw diet- especially after going vegan. Green smoothies, raw meals, lots of salads.. But I had no intentions of going back to 100% raw. Then these books came.. I had been struggling. I was maintaining just fine but for some reason hadn’t been losing weight in a while. So I took it as a sign from God that maybe I needed to look more into this. I decided to take a raw food cooking class and I got certified to be a raw food chef. I started reviewing more raw food books. I also experimented more in the kitchen.. I went on an 11 week challenge starting October 16. The challenge was to eat a high raw diet for the whole 11 weeks. This could be how ever you wanted it to be- all raw until dinner, 100% raw most days with an occasional cooked meal when the opportunity presented itself (like a dinner out, a party etc..). I started losing right away. Then found myself leaning more and more towards all raw. The more all raw I ate the more I found that cravings subsided, I got full much quicker than with a cooked meal. In the 11 weeks I lost 37.8 lbs! I am finally under 200 lbs! I am wearing a size 16 jeans. I feel awesome!
I am continuing my journey in my certification with raw food cooking- 1 more class and I will be certified to teach raw food classes. I want to teach classes to others- not just raw food but vegan cooking classes as well. At this point I am 100% raw. I found that when I added cooked food I suffered from cravings for sugar.. It is important that I get this weight off so my husband and I decided that I would stay 100% raw until the weight was off. Then I can introduce some cooked vegan foods into my diet. I don’t believe that you have to be 100% raw to experience the benefits. 50%- 75% raw is sufficient for most people. If you have health issues or a lot of weight to lose then upping that amount may be needed- that is for you and God to figure out. Having a supportive family sure helps. My girls do most of the cooking these days so I can concentrate on me. That is a blessing.
We are excited for 2010. We plan to move closer to Lodi so we can help out more with Modern Manna’s ministry. We believe in all that Danny and Daniel are doing to help people get healthy. If we are closer we can help more.
I am grateful for all that I have learned from Danny and Modern Manna Ministries. I am grateful to God for leading me in the right directions so I could finally get healthy. Now it is my heartfelt prayer that I can help others to get healthy also. I know there are a so many moms like me who have been hiding behind their weight and telling themselves that they are too busy taking care of their children, husbands and home. I know- I have been there. Yes, we should make it a priority to take care of our children, husbands and home but we can also serve God. We can also include our families in serving God. My “aha” moment at the conference last June was amazing. Ever since I have been working towards getting more weight off so I can serve God even more. As Christians we need to be healthy and strong so we can fight the enemy. We are to be soldiers for Christ. Soldiers should be healthy and strong.
My journey isn’t over. I have lost over 100 lbs now. I still have 50-70 lbs to go. I am thankful that I am almost there and that I am already helping others to get healthy as well. With God’s help and the help of others that God has placed in my life I have added years to my life and life to my years!
Me at 198 lbs. in December 2009