My Processed Food Awakening

In 2013 I got married to my amazing and beautiful wife. We had an amazing honeymoon in Thailand and I was the lightest I'd been in years at 94.5Kg. I was reasonably fit, and healthy, I cycled to work, swam in the local pool and jogged around the local area. That summer, my wife and I decided to welcome a black Labrador puppy into our lives (he's lying next to me now as I write this) and he opened our eyes - so, our New Year's resolution for 2014 was to go Vegetarian, which we did together.

Fast forward another 4 years and our awakening had progressed and in January 2018 we went Vegan together.

And this is where things started to go wrong for me -

When we were carnivores we ate meat, some processed (burgers, sausages, mice, etc) some not, we ate vegetables and some fruit, and almost 0 nuts unless peanut butter and salted peanuts count! Health-wise, probably above average for me as I ran, swam and cycled.

When we went Vegetarian, we ate a lot more dairy, specifically cheese and our consumption of processed meat alternatives went up. Broadly my health was similar, I was still doing the same sports I did before.

When we went Vegan, the dairy was out, and we ate more processed meat and dairy alternatives; vegan cheeses, vegan burgers, breads, etc along with all the other naughty foods we ate before - our unprocessed/whole foods consumption was low.

In 2019 I tore my Achilles, and from then on for the next 4 years I would go from injury to injury and never fully get back to full strength with my left ankle and not being able to swim or run or cycle! I transitioned through Gout, Plantar Fasciitis, Sprained Metatarsals, Muscle Atrophy, Joint pain (fingers and toes), Weight gain, and finally Heel Bursitis. I was a mess and a shadow of my former self! My bloods also went downhill and my Dr was worried about my triglycerides, which baffled me because I thought in my ignorance that as I was Vegan these should be low, as I ate 0 Cholesterol. I had a lot of the hallmarks of Metabolic Syndrome.

When trapped on the inside, it's difficult to see a way out and the mistakes you've made getting to where you are, especially when you don't know better and throughout your life all you've known is food in supermarkets, in plastic bags and boxes and you assume that this is food, and it's not.

I've managed to climb out and now look down at where I've come from and in hindsight, this deterioration in my health seems obvious - my diet was simply a collection of processed rubbish.

My climb out started when I decided to research and experiment with how to fix my joint pain, I realised that what was helping my joint pain, was cutting out certain Junk/processed foods, and when I read the work by Dr Robert Lustig, Dr Richard Johnson and others I took what I'd found further and realigned my health by cutting out 90%+ of processed foods from my diet with life-changing results.

I've written about being Vegan before and I knew I couldn't go back to being a Vegetarian let alone a Carnivore, so I had to fix what was wrong. Today my diet is more aligned with our ancestors and consists of whole Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, Beans, Legumes with Fermented foods like Tempeh, Kimche, and Sourcrout mixed in. We don't have any soft drinks (Coke etc) except the odd Kombucha, and Fruit juices are out. The main source of processed foods these days are things like hummus, some sauces and spice mixes - all of which I try to check for Gluten and other items I know irritate me. The odd piece of junk may find it way into my diet, i'm no monk!

With this new lifestyle my energy improved, my weight fell of (120kg to 86Kg at the time of writing) my health is rebounding, there's a long way to go but my bloods improved remarkably even in the first 4 months. I have energy, drive and motivation. I've not had a Gout attack in over a year and don't worry about getting one - my Uric Acid was 250umol at my last test, I'm back in the gym rowing and cycling, I'm walking 10-20k steps a day and for the first time in years, I'm excited to start running and swimming again and for my future.

If I can help spare one person the pain of processed food!

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