Encouraging results

This blog has been sadly neglected this past month.  We have strayed far from our healthy eating goals recently, and I decided to just take a break from the blog and kept hoping that I'd snap back, and once again focus on healthy eating. Never happened.

But this week, we found out that my husband, Chuck, has improved his health and I think it's at least in part due to the plant-based diet. Chuck hasn't been exercising, he hasn't changed anything other than his diet and yes, he does occasionally eat foods not on our plant-based plan. So we were not sure if the changes were helping us or not.

His employer this past week provided a health check right at the office.  They had the same program one year ago, and at that time, we saw a lot of room for improvement in Chuck's health. This year, there actually has been improvement! We are extremely encouraged about the effectiveness of the plant-based diet, which we based on the Forks Over Knives program.

Chuck weighed 235 pounds this time last year and, according to the results of this week's testing, he's down to 194 pounds.  And that's about all he needs to lose, really, now he just wants to firm up and to do that, he needs to exercise.  But he's not planning on giving up on the plant-based diet, either.

His body mass index decreased 2.6 points, from 29 to 26.5. The health care worker  doing the check up told him the ideal is 25 or lower, so he hopes to change that.  His cholesterol reading went from 160 down to 150, and his waist went from 43 inches down to 40 inches.  His glucose (blood sugar) reading showed significant change, down to 73 this year from 142 last year. But Chuck said that immediately before testing last year, he had downed a big piece of sugary birthday cake, so he doesn't get too excited by this change.

The only area that showed no change was his blood pressure.  However, his doctor has recently halved the amount of blood pressure medication that Chuck is taking, so I'm taking it as a win -- with half the meds, he's still keeping a healthy blood pressure!

Okay, so that's all well and good and I'm proud of Chuck for sticking with the plant-based diet and seeing real results. But, like I said, this past month, we have pretty much given into our old patterns of fast food and just eating whatever we find in front of us, without thinking about our health.

These great results have encouraged us both to get back on track.  We are putting together a grocery list today and we're going to get back to eating healthy. I had actually gained back five pounds (I have lost 25 pounds since changing my diet) but I've lost two of those little devils, so overall, I've gained three pounds.  I want to lose those back, of course, and keep my eye on the 50-pound loss I had set as a goal previously. Chuck, as I said, really doesn't need to lose more weight, but he needs to decrease his BMI and he needs to keep everything else under control.

We're trying to set small goals for now, because honestly, baby steps work best for us, but in addition to getting our diet back in shape, we both want to start exercising more (in my case, that would be exercising AT ALL). So I'm gonna hop back on my treadmill, which I just realized last night has been sitting idle for nearly a year!!!  When I was walking everyday, I felt better, I was happier, and I could walk with far less back pain.  All of that has reversed to the same levels I was at before I started walking. Not good.  And Chuck has a very sedentary job in computers, so he doesn't get much exercise either.  I'm not sure what he's going to do, but he's also planning to change that, so he can tone up and firm up and regain some strength.

And I'm recommitted to keeping this blog updated.  I have some new foods to try, even a new cookbook I'm planning to check out, and I am going to try to develop a better grocery-shopping plan, too. I'll let you know how we're doing on all fronts as the weeks go by.  Wish us luck!