Going into 2021, we all have something personal that has caused a change in our lives that we will carry with us from 2020. Whether it be missing the person who we may have lost, personal friendships you missed hanging out together, a job situation that challenged us to seek other employment or readjust to working from home (with kids attending online school at the same time), or other negative circumstances. Hopefully, maybe some positive changes have occurred in your life too. Maybe the pandemic brought to light something that you didn’t know was wrong or caused us to rethink things differently. At any rate, we all have been affected in some way.

As far as my 2020 went, in my last post, “Covid-19 is changing our Social Habits, Is there something else we should be focusing on instead?”, I discussed that I was starting to feel like the real crisis may not necessarily be Covid in general, but that it puts a spotlight on the unhealthy habits most of us have and don’t even really think about it because the high-risk people are at greater risk for severe symptoms and maybe death. What I mean by that is, in reality, our chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, etc., could be managed more effectively or in some cases even eliminated or lessened, just by deciding what passes through our lips. Therefore, the risk of getting severe symptoms when contacting the virus, should be lowered because of a healthier immune system.

As someone who has “heart disease” I have tried over my adult life to eat as healthy as I could and exercise regularly. I feel as though my immune system is pretty tough and even though when you list out all my “health issues” out in a long list, it doesn’t sound that great. Although, I am a fairly healthy person, but never claiming to be invisible. I admit, these habits are hard to stick with at times and I have to continually work on being better. But, as with anything, YOU are the one in charge of how you respond to situations and choose the changes, you want to make, if any.

I’d like to tell you about some changes and my own personal growth during 2020 in regards to my health. To start off with, sometime in the summer, I saw on Facebook a Chef that teaches cooking classes, which intrigued me. I’ve always liked to cook, but not anything spectacular and tried to follow recipes. If the meal turned out great – good recipe. If not, throw the recipe in the trash. However, this guy doesn’t believe in recipes. His goal is to teach people the “methods” of cooking which then you can cook anything with any ingredients and this enables you to make great meals all the time if you know the “how and why” cooking and then your meals turn out great. So, I began watching and learning all I could about these cooking methods. His name is Chef Todd Mohr and offers his courses as Web Cooking Classes. I tried many things and saw improvement in my cooking immediately. I now am a lifetime member for all the classes he offers within his Web Cooking Classes. I am excited to continue my education in cooking.

The second change that I started to implement as a result of finding another social media personality who offers workouts for women over 50. Her name is Schellea Fowler and her brand is Fabulous 50’s and she is on all the social media platforms. She is a very lovely person and one who can encourage you to workout a little every day. Her workouts are short and to the point. I have been faithful at times, and then sometimes weeks will go by without checking in with her. A cycle I wish didn’t happen, but remember “we are the one in charge of the choices we make,” so it’s only up to me!

While searching on YouTube for the Chef Todd videos and the Fabulous 50s workout videos, I stumbled upon a video that discussed a longevity lifestyle know as the “Blue Zones.” Dan Buettner researched areas of the world where they have the oldest living people that are free from the typical diseases that we hear about everyday which cause so many deaths. There are five of these zones in the world. This fascinated me so much that I became almost obsessed with learning more and more about this lifestyle. It’s true, what we eat has a tremendous impact on our health. All these zones typically follow a plant-based diet, along with eight other lifestyle practices.

Well, I never thought too much of what a plant-based diet was. I have always heard the term “vegan,” and thought – that’s not for me. I don’t want to eat salad the rest of my life! However, the more I kept watching and reading, the more interested I got, which then led me to watching more videos and documentaries regarding plant-based diets. Adapting a plant-based diet is not the same as a vegan. Incorporating meat and fish in moderation is ideal.

All of what I had been learning, beginning with the cooking methods, the exercise routines, and eating plant-based meals started to all fall into a clearer picture of how I can maybe live a wonderful life to a ripe old age like my Grandma, who died at 96. Although she didn’t live in a “Blue Zone” or follow a plant-based diet or exercise like we typically think of, she checked the boxes of a life lived well and was inspirational, not only in her spiritual conviction, but that she was never on any medicine for the typical diseases that a lot of elderly people face when she died.

I approached John and introduced him to the Blue Zone lifestyle. He had already started to notice a difference in my cooking and watched me exercise off and on. He’s always been so much better at making exercise and walking a priority. It didn’t take long for him to become open with learning more too. We have watched countless videos regarding longevity and plant-based diets and are convinced that this is something we should try. Story after story featured people who had very severe disease such as diabetes, heart, depression, acne, or just being overweight which causes them to take numerous pills. They told stories of how they were tired of living that way and by implementing some simple changes in their eating, were able to eliminate medicines, c-pap machines, lose weight, and feel the best they had felt in a long time. We began to wonder if we could get John off his high blood pressure medicine and maybe I wouldn’t need to take as much medicine either. So, we are slowing changing our food buying choices and meals we eat.

I also had my routine six-month checkup with my cardiologist and told her what I was planning on doing, because you should always consult with your physicians before making changes in exercise or diet. She was on board and looks forward to hearing how things are going for us too.

Have I intrigued anyone so far? Maybe you’ve struggled with your own problems, or have tried diet plans, exercise plans and nothing seems to be working, but maybe just a change in your lifestyle can make all the difference. So, if I have intrigued you, even just a little, maybe through our journey we can inspire and show people positive changes from us and maybe it would be something for you to try when you are ready or join us now on ours. Heck, you can’t really go wrong, even if you try for one month, I’m pretty sure you won’t starve yourself.

To help, I have created a few new pages for this site to allow you to get caught up on our research and meal tips. I added a Plant-Based Eating section which breaks out into two sub-sections, Research and Meals and Grocery Tips we’ve tried. There may be some recipes there, because I’m not as familiar with how to make plant-based meals just yet to know how to alter them, but this is a starting point, at least.

In wanting to live a full life, this all reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas movies, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” staring Mickey Rooney, and he ends the movie with this quote, “Life is what you make of it.” How true that is, especially during this time. We all have time and I want as much as I can give myself to enjoy my family and friends and continue “Making Memories.”

Enjoy our Journey.