I’m back today with part two of my posts on switching to a plant based diet. You can read my first post here which is all about why I switched and what I read. Today I am excited to share how a plant based diet has helped my health. I want to start by saying this is my story and my experience. I am NOT a doctor, but this has been transformative for me. It’s something I feel very thankful for due to the positive health affects primarily in the areas of migraines and infertility. I DID go cold turkey rather than starting slowly. It’s totally a personal choice, but I was looking for immediate health help and more easily saw the results this way.
Migraines and a Plant Based Diet
Since the motivating reason for me to try a plant based diet was my headaches and migraines, I’ll start there! Prior to starting the plant based diet and learning I had Chiari One, I had 6-8 migraine days a month and an almost daily headache to some degree. I was on a monthly shot (Amoivig which did help some) and a daily preventative medicine. I’ll say this, my head affected everything, and I spent my life trying to pretend it didn’t so I could function as a mom, wife, employee, family member, etc.
It took 3 weeks to a month of strict diet changes to start seeing the results. Gradually my headaches decreased to where I can honestly say they are now virtually gone. If not gone, they decreased in severity enough that medicine actually did something for the most part when they did happen.
Infertility and a Plant Based Diet
In this section, it is important to say I did not make these changes with my fertility issues in mind AT ALL. We were 16 months into the adoption process. We joyfully embraced this and were excited about our future as a family. I didn’t realize at the time all the research about how a plant based diet can improve fertility, and Russ and I were not trying to have a baby. I wasn’t tracking my cycle at all in any other way than keeping track of when my period started and stoped which was more for health reasons alone.
All of that being said, I started eating plant based in August of 2019. I had my normal scheduled period in early August and then did not have another period for two months. I even texted my OBGYN nurse to make sure I didn’t need to come into the office, and we jointly decided my body was probably just adjusting to the diet changes. I got my next period in October. I had a normal next cycle, and we found out we were pregnant in early December meaning we got pregnant in November.
I am an active, believing Christian. I can say without a doubt that this precious baby is a gift from God alone. Only he can perform miracles, and only he creates life. That being said, I believe he used 2019 to heal my body from significant health issues and used my diet changes to bring about my pregnancy.
Mood & Energy and a Plant Based Diet
Besides the other, larger things mentioned above, and plant based diet has had other positive affects for me. It has given me more energy! I also feel an overall improvement to my mood. By nature, I am a person who has periods of sadness and a tendency to be more melancholy. While I wish I was an extroverted, energetic, bubbly person, I just am not. Though not a cure, I believe eating a plant based diet has affected my mood positively.
Cholesterol and a Plant Based Diet
My mom is also literally the most supportive human being ever. I told her all about my diet changes, and she decided to try it out as well. Despite being an overall healthy eater, she had high cholesterol and was to the point where medicine would be needed. She went to the doctor 3 weeks after starting to eat plant based, and her cholesterol had dropped 25 points.
How a Plant Based Diet Has Helped My Health Concluding Thoughts
Again, these are just my experiences and personal results on how a plant based diet has helped my health. I never want to be preachy or obnoxious. Just hoping to be a resource when possible and answer your questions! I will be sharing more about what exactly we eat on my next post. Stay tuned and let me know if you have any questions!
22 Comments
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Nice, but sometimes I think that, people keep circling diet like it solves everything, which sounds nice until symptoms ignore your salad. I ended up there while I was in Dubai for a short partner meeting trip, headaches were stacking up daily and I kept blaming flights and coffee. Somewhere mid search I checked imbalance and it finally clicked that the pattern was not random. After that visit I tracked my condition over 14 days and migraine frequency dropped from 5 episodes a week to 2, which is not magic but very noticeable when you work on tight schedules. Funny how people in comments speak like causes are obvious, they are not when you are inside it.