WFPB Diet Weight Loss: Tim’s Story
By: Tim Kaufman of Fatmanrants.com
Plant-based diet weight loss before and after
Walking out of the doctor’s office, reality had finally sunk in. I was not going to be around for another year. My wife and kids would very likely not have a husband or father within the year.
My blood pressure was 255/115, I was on three medications to bring it down. My cholesterol (300) and triglycerides (279) were off the charts (literally). I was on a ton of heavy medications. I was also self-medicating and struggled with addictions of all kinds.
My weight became so out of control that the doctor could no longer weigh me in his office.
I was having trouble breathing and had severe sleep apnea. I was born with a genetic disorder called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and my joints are very loose and hypermobile. The excess weight was too much for my already destroyed joints to handle.
I was constantly on crutches, canes, and immobilizers. I was cast and fitted for very expensive leg braces that would hold my legs from buckling.
Life out of control
My wife was actually putting my socks and shoes on me in the morning. Nothing was working, and my life was spiraling out of control. I was going to die, and I don’t know if I really cared.
I would try diets and I would lose some weight and then gain it all back. It was a vicious cycle. The more I hurt, the more I medicated, the more I medicated, the more I hurt, and as a result, I had lost my passion for life. I was just surviving, hoping I would wake up the next morning. I was committing a sort of slow suicide.
Every day I could see the hurt in my wife’s eyes as I grew more and more unhealthy. We were in the process of dealing with my father and her mother both being diagnosed with aggressive cancer. It was very hard to see the pain she was going through.
One night I realized that she would soon have to deal with the same pain as a result of the choices I was making. I had become an expert on excuses and reasoning why I had become who I was.
In the back of my head, I think I knew that at least some of what I was going through was self-induced.
Time for change
A very long story short. If I even had a chance to save my wife from more pain, I was going to give it a try. Although I really didn’t care about myself, I figured it was pretty selfish to put her through another death that was self-induced.
When you watch someone cling to life and struggle to stay alive, you can’t help but appreciate life no matter how bad you think you have it. While I complained about how bad my knees hurt, I watched as my loved ones struggled to just breathe. Perspective is an amazing thing!
I made some phone calls and started the process to get a gastric sleeve. I had done the research, and this sounded like the best option. I was scheduled for the meetings and pre-op tests. I had to get clearance from my primary doctor.
This was just a formality, or so I thought. My wife was skeptical which was weird because, as an addict, you learn to become a master at manipulation. I just couldn’t sell this one to her. I thought by taking her to my doctor, he would assure her of what a good decision this was.
Plans crushed
She and I sat down with my doctor, and I told him my plan. He explained that he had okay-ed everyone that had ever asked for the surgery. He said many people have had success with it. However. he would not sign off on the surgery for me.
I was enraged, to put it mildly. I was not healthy enough, and he thought that my joints would become worse if I had the surgery.
Divine intervention
So there I was, my last hope had dwindled. I have no idea what transpired in my head that night, I am more than positive it was Divine intervention, but I grabbed a notebook and wrote down tomorrow’s date at the top, directly underneath I wrote, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.”
I got on my knees and I asked the Lord to give me enough strength to change just one small thing a day. Underneath that I wrote: goal- get up from chair 2x.
This whole notion was way out of character for me, writing things down is for old people or weirdos. Anyway, I figured if I could get up from a chair once, I could do it twice.
The next day, that’s exactly what I did. If someone saw me they would have thought I had lost it. Every day I added just one small change. Sometimes it was to just to walk up 4 extra stairs but it was always a little more than I did the day before.
I started to log my food, but I really had no idea what real food was. In time, my food choices started changing. I started to eat things that made me feel better instead of putting me into a food coma.
Little changes, many hours of research, and documentaries like (Forks Over Knives, Vegucated, Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, and The Gerson Miracle, to name a few) gave me an entirely new perspective on food.
The more successes and better food choices that I made, the more I wanted to stay focused. Since I started to focus on change, my life has completely flipped upside down. Every single aspect of my life has changed.
I hate going to sleep because I’m afraid I’m going to miss something. I’ve had so many opportunities that sometimes I think it’s all a dream. I’ve climbed mountains, hiked on the Appalachian Trail, cycled 100-mile centuries, ran 5ks, 10ks, a few half marathons and even a full marathon.
Doctor sending patients to me
My doctor now refers patients to me for advice. How cool is that? The best part of this whole thing is this: My wife has been there by my side every step of the way.
She has done nothing but support me, and she has been my rock. She too has had some major changes in her life.
As a result of my lifestyle changes, hers have changed by default. We love life together and are making memory after memory. I thank the Lord for my health and happiness every day.
Second chance
I am truly grateful for the second chance He’s given me, and I am on a mission to not only appreciate it but to pass it on to anyone who will listen. It’s not magic, but it is quite simple. Just do a little more than you did yesterday.
My wife and I are now thriving on a plant-based diet free of meat, dairy, and oil with starch, vegetables, and fruit as our main fuel source. My cholesterol is 117 and triglycerides are 74, I eat more now than I did when I weighed 400 pounds, and I am never hungry, and I never count calories.
If you are even thinking about changing your diet, please watch the movie Forks Over Knives. Read the Starch Solution and the China Study, Eat To Live is another great one! Also, check out Nutrition Facts.org
My mission is to document as much of the information and thoughts I have that got me this far. I have a long way to go, and I’m not even close to where I want to be, but I’m a long way from where I started.
I don’t have all the answers, and I may be wrong about some things, but I will do my best to be as real as possible and to help anyone who sincerely wants it.
Please don’t get freaked out about the plant-based lifestyle. If someone had told me I’d be eating this way 4 years ago, I would have tossed my burger at them! Give it a try, it won’t cost you a dime.
***results are VERY typical ****
“Eat plants and move your body, all ya gotta do is a little more than yesterday.”
Follow Tim at FatManRants.com and this is his famous Vegan Cashew Queso Recipe.
UPDATE (May 2018): Tim’s status on Facebook
“Imagine sitting in your doctor’s office for your monthly visit and seeing a look of frustration and hopelessness in his eyes. Trying everything to bring down your cholesterol under 300 with Lipitor, your blood pressure down from 255/115 using a calcium channel blocker and beta blocker, and getting your resting heart rate down from 125. Seeing fear in his eyes because nothing was working and all I was there for were more scripts for narcotics to numb the pain..
Imagine hiding all of the details from your spouse. Imagine tossing a script for Metformin along with your blood-work results in the garbage before she could see it. Imagine being in you mid-thirties and not being able to fit all your pills in a weekly pill organizer. Imagine the feeling that the only person that you thought could help you medically was grabbing for anything as your health was declined every month. How would you feel? How often would you think about it? How would it change your life? Imagine the day you realized that you wouldn’t live to your 40th birthday……..
Imagine finding one tiny, Divinely placed, nugget of hope that made you take a slight turn off your destructive path. Nugget after nugget the path lead straight to a gratitude and a whole food plant-based lifestyle.
Imagine sitting with your spouse for a dual appointment in your doctor’s office for your yearly check ups. Now, imagine the doctor, holding back his emotions with cloudy eyes to say to your soulmate, “I have never seen numbers like this in my career, they are impossible, you will live to 115 years old with these numbers, you are perfect.”
Imagine how that would make you feel. What if the doctor then turned to you and told you that your total cholesterol was 112, your blood pressure was normal, and your resting heart-rate was 46? How would that make you feel?
Imagine if instead of being there to get narcotics you were there to find sick people so you could help them do what you have done. Imagine when you doctor said to you, “just tell me how many people you want and when can we start?
Some people can’t understand why I am so passionate about this stuff. It’s not about weigh-loss, looking good, or being fit. Those nuggets saved my life and if I can drop a few nuggets on people’s path with the chance that they save just one life then the passion is justified.
This stuff is so repeatable and it is out there for anyone willing to change how they think. It’s simple, not always easy, but never complicated. Oh, and it’s free, which makes it really hard to sell.
Eat plants and move your body, all ya gotta do is a little more than ya did yesterday..”–Fatmanrants.com
Our plant-based starter kits are a great way to begin this new healthy lifestyle because they include a book, a set of DVD lectures from Dr. Neal Barnard, and a folder full of helpful literature from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Want more amazing encouragement? Check out these other Whole Food Plant-Based Diet (WFPB) Success Stories.
Ive been so inspired by your journey to good health. It was great to get to hear you in person this summer at the Rochester Vegan Society. I have a friend who suffers from diabetes, obesity, back and knee pain…and she ‘s just been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I’m beside myself with worry for her. She is resisting any appeal to give up her meats, pastries, sweets, and junk food-heavy diet. She gets zero exercise, of course, with all her pain and being short of breath and exhausted. I’m praying for a miracle, and continuing to put information under her nose (pissing her off, undoubtedly, but I’ll take the heat if it gets through to her). She’s been my closest friend for 55 years…and 67 is too young for her to be looking at disability followed by death. I hope she looks at your story that I sent her.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and all you do for others. I think that has been the most difficult part-waiting for others to get on board without preaching!
So glad God answered your prayers!
Yours is quite a story, but I know it is true. I have friends that have gone plant based, and have become much healthier and lost weight thus using less medications. I am working my way toward this lifestyle. Not there yet, but one change at a time..
Makes me have hope that I can change!
What a great story. Continued success in all you do.
Tim, what a wonderful story of life!! Congratulations!