Wendy Swiger – Shares her Plant Based Weight Loss Journey

Wendy Swiger – Shares her plant based weight loss journey.
She is a true inspiration!
She create and founded the FB group WVegan.

Questions

How much weight have you lost?
…..56 lbs so far, still losing. Was193 on Feb., 2019. Now 136-37ish at 5’3″ → upper end of healthy BMI. Have been overweight/obese 40 yrs, esp. after having first child in 1985. Lost significant weight 6 times since then (20-35 lbs each time), using various crazy diets including Atkins — but the weight always came back. This is the longest sustained weight loss I’ve ever experienced, and the biggest. Certainly the healthiest.

Tell us about growing up. Did you and your family face obesity issues?
…….No. I was just pudgey, not fat until after children.

Talk about your addictions (do you have them?)… What impact did they have on your life?
…….No real addictions other than ones of habit. I learned to use wine to relieve the stress of a terribly unhappy marriage. I drank heavily for the last 15 yrs of a 29yr union which produced 2 kids.
My alcohol capacity is extremely high, so it takes an entire bottle of wine for me to begin to feel a happy buzz. I can still touch my nose, walk a line, and function quite well after drinking an entire bottle. After the marriage ended, I continued to drink for stress management, and because I was suicidal. When remarried, I continue to drink out of habit. I really like it!. I was able to successfully quit entirely for one year (2016 ish) during new marriage, but picked it back up again. After much reading on the toxicity, and after success with a potato reset, I quit the wine 4 months ago. I’ve decided to abandon it all together because one glass of wine won’t do anything, and I never drink just for the taste of the wine. I want the buzz, the dopamine (or whatever it is that happens with alcohol high). I realized it was driving my blood pressure up. After having corrected blood pressure with this lifestyle change (got off the meds), it was alarming to see it shoot up to 180 / 90 after a week of drinking at the rate of one bottle a night…. Even though I had lost a lot of weight and my heart numbers were normally good. This was 4 months ago (April 2020). I have quit all together now, with intention for lifelong abstinence. I had been unaware of the impact of alcohol on my blood pressure until doing some deep reading about the effects. If I’ve ever had a monkey, this was one of the biggest, right up there with the massive food addiction issues that are so hard to break.

Before you began your plant based journey….What health issues were you faced with?
…….Chronic high blood pressure, high cholesterol since my thirties, (but I don’t know much about history because we didn’t have health insurance and didn’t have regular checkups). I am 64 now, so it’s been at least 30 years of high blood pressure and high cholesterol that I was unaware of. In 2009, at 197 lbs, I was trying to save a crumbling marriage.

Decided to try one more time with this crazy potato idea. Within 3 days of the reset, my normally swollen ankles appeared again and I was light-headed. Ran down to the doctor who suggested I should get off of blood pressure meds.

Did the doctors support you to change your diet? What did your doctors say or do for you along this journey?
……. knew better than to ask Doc… Just did it. I am now on no medications at all, and have achieved upper-end healthy BMI at 64.

What are you most proud of?
…….the huge Weight loss and recovered health ♥️🤩♥️. I never ever thought I would EVER see a number as low as the scale read this morning.

Gives a day in the life of Wendy…. What do you eat in a day?
……I gave up breakfast when I realized I’m not really hungry in the morning… It’s just habit. as long as I have a nice big hot cup of something, I’m good.

What advice can you give to those who are just starting out plant based?
…… Highly recommend doing a potato reset to recalibrate the palate for clean plain vegetables. Use it to shed addiction to excess salt oil sugar.

I’m so grateful for this new freedom from obesity. I feel just GREAT!

My new husband has recently had a heart attack induced by a car wreck on August 29. Thankfully he survived it even though his Widowmaker artery is apparently 70% occluded. We didn’t know about this until he had an angiogram after the wreck. If he can successfully transition and follow me to this heart-healthy lifestyle, perhaps we can enjoy all the savings he has worked so hard for.

Through the vegan Potluck club I started here in 2013, I *personally* know two people who have walked away from stage 4 cancers (breast and lymphoma) specifically
because of this diet.
I decided to get off the disease train. It’s worth the road rash from the jump.