Running on Plants

For the first two years after being diagnosed with knee OA I searched. I searched for brace that would fix my pain, pain pills that wouldn't have too many side effects, therapies that would repair my knee, all to no avail. I kept looking to the outside world to fix my problem when all along it was what I was eating that could relieve my pain and solve my chronic inflammation.
I still have knee OA. That doesn't get reversed. But how I manage it has been changed by how I eat. I no longer wake up every. single. night to pain. I no longer predict rain by how sore my knee is feeling. The fear that on a run my knee will give out or intense stabbing pain will hobble me isn't a concern any longer. You would think anyone with OA would want a piece of this. Heck, I would have paid thousands of dollars to get this magic pill to relieving my knee pain 2 years ago. Oddly enough, the cure is actually saving me money.
I went plant-based. I was a vegetarian growing up since my single mom was a vegetarian. I never really thought much about it at the time, I just ate what we had in the house. My mother isn't a preachy vegetarian, she made the choice when she was 13 so she pretty much always ate that way. Then I met my husband who came from your rural meat and potato-eating family on a very tight budget. He had me try bacon, then came the chicken, pork chops and steak. Eventually my vegetarian diet become the standard American diet. I had no idea how weak it was making me. We ate this way right up to a month ago when I was sitting outside thinking about my personal health. I realized it had been a long time since I felt full of energy, full of life. In fact, I realized, the last time I felt truly physically great was when I was a vegetarian. Now that's saying something. I have run marathons,  and ultra marathons all on the SAD (standard American diet). I, of all the people I know, should have felt great. But I didn't. In fact, it started to seem like I was developing health issues I had no control over. I decided to make a change. But exactly to what?
Then, serendipitously, I stumbled upon a lecture online called "Why am I still fat?" With more than a few injury pounds to get rid of I was getting frustrated at my slow weight loss progress even though I was running 60kms a week. So I watched it and then watched "How not to Die". After watching that documentary I was shocked by the claims made about the vegan diet. So I looked up a few more. I watched "What the Health" on Netflix and became angry. I was angry at my own lack of common sense that food companies had no interest in health, they were only interested in making products that we are already addicted to and will sit on store shelves long enough to turn a profit. We are being used a profit vessels. Watch a tv commercial next time from a food company (think about the latest bacon and/or cheese burger). You can bet the claims about the food's deliciousness will center around the meat and dairy in the product. Why? It is NOT because they are healthy, it's because meat and dairy producers pay for those ads. Vegetable farmers don't. Common sense right?  I was also angry at the so-called societies that claim to help those with specific ailments (Cancer society, Arthritis society, Heart and Stroke foundation, etc.) Those groups are also profit driven, and they sure can't survive if their patients keep getting healthy, so they take funding from the meat, dairy and pharmaceutical companies. If you are stuck on an endless cycle of pain pills that don't actually solve the source of your illness, then you are just putting a Band-Aid on your cancer, heart disease or arthritis. I've been down that road and all it leads to are more pills. When was the last time you heard someone say, I took XX pill and now I no longer have heart disease. Never, right? They continue to take XX medication to "help" with the disease but XX pill never, ever cures the disease. That wouldn't be profitable, right? Those CEOs have to feed their families too ;-)
So I made up my mind to go cold turkey and turn vegan. At first it seemed daunting, then I started trying out vegan meat alternatives and realized this wasn't going to be "hard" at all. In fact, nothing could be easier than grabbing an apple or a banana for a snack. I still had a few hiccups where dairy was an ingredient that I wasn't initially aware of before I ate something, but I've gotten better at reading the packages of food I buy. Then my meat-enticing husband said HE wanted to try veganism. This was WEIRD, especially coming from the guy who turned me onto meat, but I was happy that he was taking such a radical leap. The first week was rough. He didn't like any of the meals I made and kept saying he was just trying this out for a couple of weeks, then he'd be back eating meat. This week though has been better. I found a few different meat alternatives that taste really close to the real meat thing and he's been slowly coming around. He hasn't noticed any huge health benefit yet, but I'm hoping he'll hang on long enough so he feels like he doesn't need to take his heart burn meds as much or at all any longer. Time will tell. I know my own vegan journey though, will continue.