How To Eat An Elephant With A Spoon

By Wendy Renshaw

Ultimate beginner's guide to develop a healthy living mindset aided by a plant-based diet. Includes easy, delicious recipes. 

 

Are you struggling with your eating habits? Do you want to try a more balanced, plant-based diet but are feeling overwhelmed at the thought of all the changes you think you will have to make? If you are having trouble sticking to your new healthy lifestyle, you are not alone. No matter what your health goals, How To Eat An Elephant with A Spoon offers practical and simple guidelines to help you create good, healthy eating habits and break free from bad ones. 

 

How To Eat An Elephant With A Spoon is an entertaining and informative plant-based lifestyle book designed to help you tackle the silent, but enormous elephant in your life: your eating habits. You will discover:

• a step-by-step guide filled with fun and helpful challenges to help you transition into a healthier lifestyle
• key systematic steps for a healthy lifestyle
• the basics of nutrition, meal planning and food preparation
• tips and recipes for making delicious plant-based meals
• a deeper understanding of yourself and patterns of behaviour
• specific yet simple, essential exercises to help you create a healthy living plan that suits you

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leafy Kitchen LLC
• Release date: May 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223922063

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

On the second night of my vacation in Paris, I woke up in excruciating pain, feeling as if someone was repeatedly stabbing me in my right lung. I was rushed to hospital and straight to the intensive care unit (ICU). This was literally my wake-up call—my body was screaming, and I had no choice but to listen.

Blood clots filled my lungs, and I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism (PE). Those clots were smaller pieces of a much larger blood clot called a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in my left calf muscle. At the time, I didn’t know what the symptoms were for a DVT. I ignored the increasingly painful ache in my left leg because I was busy, and I had been told by a doctor that it was probably a muscle strain. I had a family to take care of—two beautiful young children—a full-time job, and I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t want to cause a fuss on vacation, which would spoil everyone else’s fun. Yes, the irony is not lost on me. Here I was in intensive care at the young age of 39, praying to all the gods to let me live.

For several weeks, I laid in the hospital, hooked up to machines, and was not allowed to move while the cardiologists and nurses worked to save my life. I was very lucky—the mortality rate for PE can be as high as 30% and up to 10% of patients die suddenly with acute onset PE (Bĕlohlávek et al., 2013). I will always be grateful to those doctors and nurses who saved my life in Paris. As many will tell you, after a close call with death, life suddenly becomes so much more technicolor and the roses never smelled sweeter.

Once back at home in the United States, the initial shock gave way to a vast range of emotions. I experienced everything from relief and joy to guilt, shame, depression, and embarrassment. A year later, I was physically getting better, but emotionally, I was a mess. I had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which led to me not working. Work was just too overwhelming and caused me to have panic attacks. This is common for survivors of sudden traumatic emergencies, and I encourage anyone experiencing the symptoms of PTSD to seek medical advice. To ease my anxiety, I began to meditate, which eased some symptoms and I recommend it to everyone experiencing anxiety. But I also had to face what I had been avoiding for a long time—myself.

In the words of David Byrne, How did I get here? The fact was I ignored a lot of minor chronic health issues, such as eczema, asthma, food allergies, and weight gain for a long time. I was stressed and used being busy as an excuse to not take care of myself first. I would occasionally go on a cleanse or do some exercise, but then fall back into bad habits. In truth, I knew how I had created this version of myself—this person who I avoided looking at in the mirror. For I no longer recognized this deeply unhappy, bloated, exhausted, self-loathing, unhealthy person who was looking back at me, but I didn’t want to admit any of this to myself. I didn’t want to address the elephant.

I was fortunate—I had been given a second chance, and I knew I had to make changes. While PE was traumatic, had it not happened, I don’t think I would have taken the steps necessary to change my life for the better. Gradually, I have learned to heal the causes of chronic inflammation issues and adopted a holistic approach to a healthier lifestyle. It’s been an amazing and transformative journey since that night in Paris.

It’s also been an interesting and often challenging one. Many expected and unexpected changes have happened to me. By making a conscious decision to listen to my body and commit to a healthier lifestyle, I am excited to say that I feel younger, healthier, and happier now in my 50s than I have ever been. We all have challenges thrown at us in life and we can all choose how to deal with them. It is never too late to change. Not only did I change my habits regarding eating, relationships, home and interests, but I changed my career path so that I could help others become healthier too, hopefully before ending up in the ICU like I did.

Because I’m a health coach, people often assume that I’ve completely mastered a healthy lifestyle. I haven’t—I’ve been a plant-based nutritional health coach for eight years and I am still learning new information every day. We can’t master an art that is a continual practice. For example, I can’t master eating vegan, gluten-free food every day. I perform this task every day to get better and better at it. You can get better at living a much healthier plant-based lifestyle—with practice, education, motivation, and support.

The most common issue I hear from clients wanting to become healthier is that they feel overwhelmed by the idea of becoming vegan and having to completely give up their way of eating even though they know it will make such a big difference to their health and well-being. So, I wrote this book that will help anyone feeling overwhelmed and stressed about eating healthier, but dreading the actual reality of what that entails. I chose the title How to Eat an Elephant With a Spoon because the best way to develop a healthy mindset is not by trying to change everything at once, but by choosing small key steps carefully and then implementing those choices with positive reinforcement to ensure success. Hopefully, the visual will serve as a salutary reminder!

In this book, I will share my expertise based on my years of coaching and my own personal health journey. I know a lot about how food changes us and our bodies—I am a real foodie! This book and the companion workbook are filled with information about all you need to know to help change your mindset and start on a fresh course. As you read the chapters, you will be referred to specific exercises in the workbook. The companion journal also has extra exercises, not referenced in the text, to help you further your journey because even though we know better, we don’t always do better. Change is scary and our brain wants to maintain the status quo where it feels safe. Even though our health is suffering. Understanding your mindset is as important as knowing what foods are good for you. In fact, it is fundamental if you are to live the rest of your life in a healthier way, not just do another two-week fad diet.

The companion workbook will help you apply all this health information to make real and lasting changes. We all know that healthy food is the key to a healthy life, but in my experience, we might not have a clue where to start. This book serves as a guide to the benefits of plant-based living and the practical work of setting expectations as you maintain your health goals. There is no quick fix or magic pill. I am sorry to tell you. But small, consistent tweaks will reap substantial rewards in the long-term and lead you to a much happier, healthier life.

So now it’s time to pick up that spoon. Let’s begin!

1

CREATING A BASELINE—WHAT IS HEALTHY TO YOU?

The famous James Brown once said, I feel good. Isn’t that what we all want? But what does feeling good mean to you? In this chapter, we will explore your current level of feeling good. Having a baseline is crucial and from there, we will begin the journey toward improving your health and well-being—one spoon at a time.

So, how are you feeling at the moment?

Take some time to ponder this question and complete the accompanying chapter exercises (C1–E1) in the workbook. We need to look at all areas of our life in order to get the full picture of our health status.

Journaling about your current feelings and state of health is incredibly helpful, but don’t allow yourself to be harsh with criticism. Your body is amazing, and you need to remember that when