WFPB - What's That; Another Craze?

The acronym, WFPB, stands for whole food, plant based. Is it another craze or trend? Probably for some. For me, it's life.

So why did I choose to switch to a whole food, plant based diet? Because the science is clear. It's the only diet in the world that has been proven time and time again to reverse our major ailments such as heart disease and diabetes.

The reason I believe that it is a bit of a trend right now rather than a way of life is that there have been many documentaries like, What The Health and Forks Over Knives that have become popular recently. Now this isn't a bad thing, but some people will try anything and if it doesn't work within their time frame, they give up and move onto the next big thing.

That being said, I tried it for two weeks, feeling rather skeptical, and the immediate results were fantastic! It helped with my IBS almost instantly. Inflammation went down allowing me to lose a good bit of weight quickly. I finally had energy and I could finally go to sleep rather than toss and turn all night. As of today, I've been on this journey for 61 days. My insulin resistance has improved drastically. Normally, I'd wake up with very low glucose levels (50's or below) and this morning when I checked them (after 12 hrs of sleep) they were at 89.
After eating, my blood sugars don't really get any higher than 110 and all I've been eating is carbohydrates and some fats. Before, I could eat an apple and they would spike to 130 or higher. For me, this is incredible and I'm happy with the results.

Not only has it helped me physically, but emotionally as well. I struggle with depression and lately, I've been able to keep my emotions in check. I've gone from having weeks if not months of feeling hopeless from something little triggering it to the same situations getting me frustrated but only temporarily. I no longer have this constant state of anxiety or stress either which is amazing for me.

And the last major thing I want to point out about this way of living is my eyes. I have an eye disease called cone-rod dystrophy and it basically breaks down the lens of the eyes over time. I'm not sure if this can be reversed, but when I went to my eye doctor he was so excited that he would be able to adjust my prescription to allow me to see 20/20. The whole 20 plus years that I've gone to see him, I've never had that kind of success in anything I'd done prior!

Anyway, this is a blog about PCOS and not my eyes!

Okay, okay what does whole food, plant based eating include?

To begin, WFPB basically follows the same food guidelines as veganism. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish, no animal bi-products. But here is where it differs, it also requires that you avoid all oils, added sugars and added salts. All of these have negative affects on our bodies and while I'm still working on avoiding oil, sugar and salt, I still fall short here. I do however, still see major health benefits from just cutting out any animal products.

Whole foods means to eat a plant in its entirety. So don't avoid fat, but rather eat whole nuts, seeds or avocados. Avoid sugars but don't say no to whole fruits. Fruit juices, however, are not a good choice. Even juicing them yourself could still be harmful. And while I'm on this, berries and bananas can be blended up for smoothies or juices as they don't seem to have the same negative affect as fruits like apples or oranges.
Separating the fructose from the fiber basically gives you pure sugar. The fiber in fruit is what helps slow down the absorption of sugar into the blood.
Now, a lot of people get mad about having to avoid oil, but when you eat just oil you're eating pure fat. It does not matter if it's coconut oil, olive oil or canola oil. When separated from their whole form, they cause issues in our bodies from paralyzing our arteries right after eating to heart disease.

Here's a video by one of my favorite YouTubers. He goes into the studies showing about the dangers of oil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbtwwZP4Yfs

I hope that helps you understand why, if you are using food to heal your body, that it's better to eat whole foods instead of processed foods.

Then you have plant based. It basically means just that - eat plants. Any plants! We do have issues with major crops and GMOs around the world. I personally try to avoid soy, wheat or corn that do not have the GMO Free stamp on them. If you are not sure what these are, leave a comment and I'll do a blog just on those!

Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of a whole food, plant based lifestyle.

PS: I will go into the different aspects of PCOS and see what the science has to say about each and how a wfpb diet can help. Also, September is PCOS awareness month, so I will be setting aside one weekend to do an entire blog, possibly vlog using cronometer.com and my glucose tester to show everyone what I typically eat day to day and how much I'm eating as well as how it's affecting my glucose levels. Stay tuned!

PCOS - What it is and Why You Should Care

I hope everyone got a chance to read my very first post here. I go into detail as to why I'm making this blog and why Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is the focus of my blog site. It's something I've dealt with for several years now and I only heard about it in 2012 when I did a little research and then had an OBGYN confirm it. 
The frustrating part is, we as women, may not know we have it and when we do find out, we're told it's treatable, but there is no cure.
To make matters worse, there is so much controversy over what actually causes it that doctors do not know how to prevent it. Then when you do your own research, you find information that is confusing or overly simple. 

An example of the overly simple solution is - "exercise and lose weight." 

Now, exercising is great advice. Everyone, regardless of their condition, should be exercising regularly. However, I personally tried exercising while still eating in accordance to the SAD (standard American diet) guidelines. For about six months, I would wake up at 7AM - eat a breakfast of cereal with milk and fruit with coffee or tea. Spend time with my family as we watched the morning news. After it went off, I would run on the treadmill until I had gone 2 miles. Next, I would work out on the Wii - at this time I was doing a 20 min a day premade weight loss program via EA Sports Active. (Please note, I was drinking a lot of water at this time too). After the 20 min work out, I would finish off my morning with about 15 - 20 min of Yoga. After my work out, I would eat an egg and yogurt or chocolate milk and some unsweet mint tea. I would then work on chores or whatever else I needed to do for the day. Then at lunch, I'd have whole wheat skinny bread with jalapenos and cream cheese, cooked in butter with some fruit juice and some tomatoes. Then I'd get ready for work. At work, I'd have whatever snack the kids were having. It was usually some form of "healthy" chip and yogurt or cheese with juice or milk. After getting home, it'd be dinner time and my parents would have some dinner made and it would always be white starch with some sort of vegetable and a good bit of meat with it. All of it was cooked in oil or butter depending on the meal. Then I'd spend the evening with them and go to bed about 9PM or 10PM and read until I fell asleep.
Now, I did lose some weight - about 25lbs total I believe and I did look a little better, but it wasn't sustainable. 
Here's a picture of me when I was doing all this:

While I did lose weight, my PCOS symptoms did not improve at all. I'll go into the issues in a moment, but I wanted to address the sustainability part. When I moved back in with my husband, we continued to eat the way I had been at my parents. I believed this was healthy and wanted to keep it up. However, I started working more and didn't have time to exercise like before, so you can imagine that my newly somewhat smaller self ballooned up once I had to stop all the exercise. I ended up gaining all of the weight back and then some in spite of me still eating "healthy."

Hopefully now you can get an idea of what I've already tried based on the overly simple and completely logical advice. Hopefully, you can also understand my frustration. From that point in my life until today, I have tried every bit of advice possible. The ultimately lead me to Kym Campbell who I will discuss in another blog later on. I want to get to the point here about what PCOS is. Here we go!

What is PCOS?

According to WebMD the definition of PCOS is as follows:

Polycystic ovary [or ovarian] syndrome is a problem in which a woman's hormones are out of balance. It can cause problems with your periods and make it difficult to get pregnant. PCOS also may cause unwanted changes in the way you look. If it isn't treated, over time it can lead to serious health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease.

The complete article can be found in this link.

PCOS is a hormonal balance that affects 1 in 10 girls and women from ages as young as 11 to women in their 40's. Many different sites will tell you different age ranges, but from what I've read those are the youngest and oldest ages I've found. 

So what are the symptoms?

Since they had a larger list of symptoms, I used belmarrahealth.com; you can click the link for the full article.

Most common:

• Weight gain
• Fatigue
• Hirsutism (unwanted hair growth): hair growth may appear on the face, arms, back, chest, thumbs, toes, and abdomen. Hirsutism is a result of excess androgen.
• Thinning of hair on the head
• Infertility
• Acne
• Changes in mood
• Pelvic pain
• Headache
• Sleep problems

I'm not sure why these were not listed, but you can also have PCOS but no ovarian cyst. Insulin Resistance is another symptom of PCOS.
Every symptom varies depending on the woman and I believe you have to have at least 3 of them to be diagnosed. For me, it was my insulin resistance, high testosterone levels and no period.



In conclusion, PCOS is one of the most common causes of infertility in women and while it's treatable, there has not been any recorded cure. In the next article, I am going to shift topics and focus on the whole food, plant based movement to tie it in with PCOS and why this is something I'm willing to try to combat my PCOS.

Who Am I?

My name is Stephanie. Currently 29 and the pictures above are of me in 2006... I was skinny and this wasn’t even my skinniest size. The sad truth is, I was anorexic - I lived off a handful of veggies, possibly a pack of cheese crackers, soda and coffee each day. In 11th grade, was down to 107lbs (though in the collage, I’m a high school senior and around 112lbs). Even so, I didn't feel it was good enough.
It all started when a boy I had a crush on called me fat. It was then that I decided to make it my goal to lose 50lbs. I did - in a month. It seems like a huge accomplishment, but I was killing myself over nothing.  I was hungry all the time, sluggish and miserable. The only thing that made me feel slightly alive was walking or listening to music. At this size, though, I thought I was still fat! I wanted to be smaller, but my parents caught on to what I was doing to my body and had stepped in. They were monitoring me as much as they were able and holding the threat of sending me off to get help if I continued to lose weight. In the above pictures, I was dating my high school sweetheart who is now my husband of nine yearsm, also made sure I was eating enough. No one cared what I was eating, as long as it was something. 

This next picture was taken on my wedding day. I have no idea how much I weighed. i remember eating salads everyday for months - with loads of bacon bits, cheese whiz, ranch dressing and pickles while drinking a ton of water. It didn't help me at all lose the weight I wanted to before the big day. I look like I'm pregnant here and I was probably pretty bloated feeling. My husband and I didn't have time to eat anything before heading off to our honeymoon destination so we stopped at Taco Bell on the way there. My diet was so poor and you could see it on the outside. I could feel it on the inside as well, though I had no idea what it was actually doing to me.

The picture to the left was a few years after I had been married. We were still eating rather poorly - both in the financial and health related way. We didn't have great jobs and so we bought as little as possible. I was eating maybe once or twice a day and when I did eat, it was chips or only meat and always cheese. Move back a little to our college days, my husband wanted me to eat all the time since he was afraid I'd start starving again so we ate Taco Bell everyday - sometimes multiple times per day! I was gaining weight - so fast - yet no one said anything to my face about it. I was now on the opposite end of the eating disorder. I had become a binge eater and was putting on the pounds like you wouldn’t believe. I developed a disease called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) which caused a lot of grief and suffering on my marriage. We tried for two years to get pregnant before we went to see specialists. My OBGYN told me to lose weight and put me on three different types of medication without really explaining it to me. After several months of feeling sick from the metformin and birth control, I decided to stop taking any of it. It was dangerous for me to come off the medication cold turkey and I do not recommend this to anyone.
I wish my OBGYN had known about the role food plays in PCOS and she may not know to this day. I spent a lot of time blaming her for my condition getting worse, but what I've learned in recent months is that most doctors are not taught about nutrition in medical school. I more blame myself now for not doing my own research.
PCOS causes a lot of different issues in women, but my main concern at this point was infertility and all I ever wanted to be was a mother. The reality that it may never happen sent me into a spiral of deep depression, self-hatred, denial, overeating then starving myself, turmoil in my marriage and eventually a nasty separation from my husband. The last time I remember weighing myself I was over 190lbs. If you don't know me, I’m less than 5ft tall, so you can imagine how that much weight looks on a short person, and needless to say, I didn’t take many body pictures at this time.

These last two pictures are the most current of me. Here, I’m down to 150lbs and while the weight is starting to come off, it’s not as quick as before - which is great - it’s in a healthy and sustainable way now. I made the choice to change my diet to a whole food, plant based vegan lifestyle. I am  hopeful that in doing this I will be allowing plants to heal my disease. 

This is where the blog title comes into play "Plants Vs. PCOS". I want to see how going vegan is going to help me overcome this disease so that maybe other women might be able to overcome this as well.
As of today, I’m on day 47 and down to 148lbs in my vegan transition. I haven’t felt this good in so long. I can finally sleep well, get the rest I need, think straight and concentrate better. I'm no longer in pain on a daily basis and I have a ton of energy.

I am excited to start this blog and hope it'll inspire others! Thank you for reading.