Why have I decided to choose a whole food plant-based diet and lifestyle?
It all began in 2017. It was another regular morning in our lives (at that time we were already vegetarian and rarely ate meat). It was early in the morning and my husband, Dor, felt a sudden pain in his chest which he described as a burning sensation combined with heavy pressure on the heart.
"Call an ambulance NOW!"
I immediately called the emergency service and an ambulance was there after a few minutes. The medical team arrived and performed the required examinations to rule out a heart attack, and announced that we had nothing to worry about. We drove to the ER to do some more tests as a precaution. After hours of stress waiting in the ER waiting room without knowing what was going on, Dor finally came out with some bad news. (One important thing I forgot to mention is that we currently live in Berlin and at that time German was new to us. We couldn't communicate perfectly back then and things weren't so clear to us, especially medical terms.) Anyway they told him that his heart monitoring tests weren't normal and that we should go to our family doctor and proceed with more tests. So we did this, and even flew back to our homeland (Israel) to perform more tests and compensate for the language barrier.
Endless tests, numerous specialists and 0 diagnoses…
We took every possible test that could be relevant to the symptoms Dor was having. All the tests came back normal, and no one could tell us what the problem was. Dor was still experiencing a great deal of pain especially after meals. We were both stressed from the whole situation and desperate to find the cure. It was frustrating! We were tired and exhausted from this process and just wanted someone to give us a comprehensive explanation for what was going on with Dor. We met with cardiologists, gastroenterologists, general doctors, and other experts. We had just had enough of the conventional medical care and from being thrown from one prognosis to another without being asked even once about our nutrition habits or lifestyle.
The basic thing to expect when you have stomach issues, no?!
We had no other choice but to research it by ourselves. Then one of our friends recommended us reading "How Not to Die" by the one and only Dr. Michael Greger. So we read it but that was only the beginning of this marvelous journey. We discovered a whole new world of terms, experts and habits that changed our lives for good. You're probably expecting to hear a complicated explanation about what we did that eventually put us out of our misery…
But actually the solution was simple. It was all about the food!
"You are what you eat," you must have heard it millions of times… it's true. Once we changed our diets and habits and educated ourselves on how to fuel our bodies with the right ingredients, we could simply feel it in every vitality level. We felt better physically and mentally, and our energy levels were skyrocketing. It was a magical transformation and it keeps getting better exponentially.
I have to admit that this experience has turned me into a health addict, because since then I just can't stop following new research and books coming out in the nutrition field. There is such an incredible movement of physicians and caregivers out there that support and encourage this way of living without any personal interest except for saving this planet and everyone who shares it (humans, plants & animals) from diseases or extinction.