Just for Me…
- Rosetta Mandisa
- Nov 23, 2019
- 4 min read
Going through some old photos recently, I came across some pictures of me in high school. I remember the day one photo in particular was taken. I remembered wearing the white skirt and matching jacket with the pink mock turtleneck. I topped off the outfit with a low white heel shoe. My friends and I were standing next to an arched doorway decorated in black and burgundy for the upcoming school dance. In high school, I was 118 pounds and a size 6! I have loved that photo since the moment I had it developed!
As with everyone else in this world, my weight has gone up and down over the years. At my worst I was 189 pounds and a size 14. At my best…155 pounds and a size 10. I’ve purchased gym memberships, walked my neighborhood three times a week, took up running, yoga, pure barre and participated in 5K’s all in the name of being healthy. For me, these things alone worked…for a while. A few months later, when life got too busy for me to keep up my exercise routine, the weight came back on.
I never bothered making New Year’s resolutions that included losing weight. I knew they wouldn’t stick. After losing my mother, brother and brother-in-law to cancer a few years/months apart, I knew I needed to get my health under control. I just wasn’t sure how to do that short of eating salads everyday. I knew I needed to find something that made sense and that worked with my busy lifestyle. One thing I did find very helpful was meal prepping my lunch every week. I found this to be a great way to help me focus on what I was eating everyday. Also,
anyone who is an educator will agree that schools can be the worst place for junk food! No matter the day, there are always chips, cookies, Skittles, Starburst and the like somewhere on our campus. I stopped keeping snacks in my room but Lord, help when I went into someone else’s room!
This past summer while on my road trip a friend talked to me about her journey on a Whole Food Plant-Based lifestyle and something called Forks Over Knives. I furiously explained to her what I did not want was another diet or food fad. I simply wanted to eat and be healthy. After about 40 minutes of listening to her story, I became interested in learning more. I wasn’t completely sold but what she’d said made sense. Then something crazy happened, when I stopped a few days later to visit another friend in a different state, she too, talked to me about how she’d changed her lifestyle by lessening her meat intake and include more whole foods and plant-based meals in her diet.
By the time I arrived home from my trip I’d already begun researching this Whole Foods Plant-Based meal thing. The research had some very positive reviews so I thought I’d give it a try. Nothing too drastic, I just thought I’d find some healthier meals that worked for me and slowly easy my way into it. Cutting out foods such as milk, eggs and cheese didn’t bother me much. I changed to soy milk when my son was younger and wasn’t able to drink dairy milk, I was never very fond of eggs and cheese was not my thing. Also, I’ve never been a big meat-eater so easing that out of my diet wasn’t hard either. After about a week of eating more vegetables, drinking more water and cutting back on the meat, I noticed that I didn’t feel heavy after I ate. I was full but not stuffed. After about thirty days I noticed some weight loss.
As of today, I’ve been incorporating more whole food, plant-based meals into my daily eating for about five months now and here is what I’ve noticed:
*Overall, I feel better and have more energy
*I no longer feel like I am forgetful and have a foggy brain
*I have lost about eight pounds, my dermatitis has cleared up and I haven’t had a sinus headache being that the worse time for my sinuses begins in September.
I’m far away from being perfect with this whole foods, plant-based eating thing but I can honestly say that I am enjoying it. I haven’t completely cut out oils yet however, I am using them a lot less frequently. I still struggle with chocolate candy (Snickers are my favorite) but I am not eating them everyday. I drink juice every once in a while and absolutely no soda. I think the key to being successful at this is taking it slow and not beating myself up when I mess up. When eating out, I’ve learned to ask how food is prepared in order to avoid the things I’m trying to stay away from. Google helps out a lot too.
When my daughter asked me how long I planned to eat like this, I was able to answer honestly with, “the rest of my life!” When I think about being healthy, I think about my grandchildren. I want to be around for them for as long as I possibly can and if eating this way will give me a leg up, I plan on keeping it up. In his motivational speeches, Les Brown often says that in order to get to where we want to be we need to include a having a health plan in our lives. We only get this one body to live out this life so we have to take care of them as best we can.
I am currently reading Beyond Blessed by Robert Morris and in it he writes that your body is yours to live in as a caretaker for eighty to a hundred years, but it’s God’s house your spirit is occupying. This is the perfect reminder for me that I need to be doing all I can to live my best life, a life God has planned for me.
It may not work for everyone, it works for me…:)
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