She Went Vegan in Her 70s, Lost 130 Pounds!

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the exam room live brought to you by the physicians committee hi i am the weight loss champion chuck carroll and this is the healthiest half hour anywhere online today appreciate you joining us right here on facebook and on youtube so here is what is on the plate today dr neil barnard will be here to answer your questions and get us ready for fall i know i know it's it's almost 90 degrees outside and it's sunny but fall is going to be here soon and that means the flu season and the current pandemic will be colliding together so dr barnard what possibly could that mean for us and how do we stay healthy this fall you're here to tell us today i look forward to that my friend we'll get ready for it and if you do have that question for dr barnard go ahead and post that in the comment section now or you can tweet that to us using the hashtag exam room live he will be prescribing answers when we open up the doctor's mailbag in just a little bit and also today it is motivation monday and we have with us here a woman who went vegan in her 70s lost well over 100 pounds and that's just the start of it because doctors told her at one point she would need to have her knees replaced but she was too heavy to have that done and now they say hey surgery is not even an option anymore you don't even need it the inspirational esther loveridge she is here today to tell us all about her weight loss secrets esther looking forward to catching up with you but first let's get caught up on the latest happenings here are your health headlines for monday august the 24th 2020. and we do begin with a look at the coronavirus the country now averaging more than 43 000 new cases a day that is one-third less than this time last month but still well ahead of the 30 000 cases averaged during the height of the original pandemic in april the retreat however not being felt in parts of the midwest and in the northeast nine states now reporting increases with the dakotas maine and wyoming reporting a 25 spike of infections over the last week alone deaths also up by more than 50 percent over the last seven days in virginia kentucky arkansas and iowa meanwhile as the new school year arrives harvard researchers say millions of teachers and parents are at high risk for cove at 19. a study published in the annals of internal medicine finds more than two and a quarter million teachers have conditions that increase the likelihood they will fall gravely ill if infected with the coronavirus additionally 90 million other adults who either live with children or are employed by schools in a non-teaching capacity also face that same heightened risk researchers accounted for the conditions such as obesity heart disease and cancer to make their projections and finally the nation's largest pork supplier get this is doubling down on its efforts to bring plant-based protein to dinner tables smithfield food says they are very pleased thus far with the performance of their meat alternatives and will be rolling out eight new options this fall under its pure farmland brand the new items are catering to what the company calls flexitarian consumers the packaging will also be made for more than 50 recycled material some analysts project the meat alternatives market will swell to have a value of more than 140 billion dollars over the next decade wow that's a lot time now to welcome dr barnard to the exam room live and dr barnard as i said you look out the window today the sun is shining the birds are chirping it's absolutely glorious it's going to be 90 plus degrees out there but pretty soon those autumn winds will be blowing and fall will be here and of course kids now heading back to class and we just heard that study about teachers and school employees being at increased risk for coven 19 and on top of that the flu season will be here they're going to be colliding and a lot of people have some good reason now to be concerned so let's try to offer them some hope here some steps to stay healthy this fall including how not to turn those cold weather calories into unwanted winter pounds so what can you do to to guide us along here exactly chuck that's the whole thing you know where did summer go you know it's all almost the end of august two weeks from now it'll be labor day and you know what that means not only will classes begin one way or another but that's when you start to notice the kleenex boxes come out people start sneezing and they start getting cold and all kinds of things happen here's uh here's what i want one of us to think about we need to get ready for this new season um and here's my list number one is that covet 19 isn't going away not quite yet hopefully it will trail off hopefully we'll get a vaccine better treatments but for now we've got to keep that on our schedule things to worry about number two weight gain yes that happens every fall for most people uh flu season is around the corner and seasonal depression come in so let's just tackle all those real quick um it is not your imagination you do eat more in the fall we are like the squirrels that start filling our cheeks with nuts because some from time immemorial as cold weather approached we needed to have the calories stored to get ready for the times ahead this graph was published in jama 20 years ago and let me walk you through this really quickly on the very left there you see october and then it goes to january april july uh and then the final october this is a year and what we're looking at is the average weight if you could take all the americans and stick them on the scale that's the weight that they uh their weight going up and between october and january the average person gains about 1.2 pounds doesn't sound like much does it um and then on january 1st at just about one minute after midnight people start losing weight because they all resolved okay i can't let this happen again i've got to lose weight they are disgusted by all the partying and so forth but i want to make it clear that weight gain did not come from just a christmas eve party or a hanukkah party or somebody's birthday that came from the fact that day after day after day after day our appetites are ramped up during the cold weather months the days are shorter they're colder we eat more and the holidays coming at that time don't help okay at midnight january december 31st everybody is disgusted they go on a diet and we do lose weight collectively about a half a pound on average through the spring months until maybe about april well the diets are gone and we start our weight comes up again a little bit up until the next october and then starting in october it all goes way way up now the total weight gain over the over a year on ab for your average american is only a pound and a half it doesn't sound like much does it pound and a half a year ah but in 10 years that means 15 pounds in 20 years 30 pounds now it starts to sound familiar so we need to conquer that this is from a research study that our team did a number of years ago where we put people on a plant-based diet and watched that what happened to their weight month after month after month and as you can see there isn't any gain it's weight loss so as we're going to talk about later in the program when people go on a plant-based diet regardless of where you are how much weight you need to lose or how old you are you're protected against the weight gain and you can start losing that unwanted weight okay let's shift gears um it's not your imagination the days are going to get darker our moods are going to start coming down a little bit that seasonal depression hits lots and lots and lots of people and researchers have found that when we when those times hit we often turn to food as a depression treatment and finally flu season comes now if you're thinking about getting a flu shot i have to say i have been a skeptic when it comes to to flu shots for everybody because not everybody is equally vulnerable to it for some people the flu is not such a threat for others it's a bigger threat if you're thinking about a flu shot i do have one recommendation and that's a certain brand that we have been using at the barnard medical center we have no economic relationship with them but it's called flu block and the reason we like it is that it is egg free it's also mercury free preservative free it's more effective and it's actually more expensive than others when we use it we ever it's the same price as for for everybody it's we make zero money off of this at all but i want to show you why we use flu block and why if you are getting a flu shot talk to your doctor about this one conventional flu vaccines use eggs you take the virus you inject a chick embryo into you infect the virus by injecting the chick embryo the virus enters reproduces and then you reopen the egg you kill the virus you inject it back into another egg see if it's gone for every single shot you need one to two eggs that's a huge number now that's not so hot from an ethical standpoint it's also not so hot from an allergy standpoint the com person who comes in and says i can't have any egg products i'm definitely allergic you can't give them the standard flu vaccine what do you give them give them a flu block that's the one that tends to work a whole lot better it's much more modern you don't use it you don't use the eggs at all okay so planning for the new season healthy vegan diet protects against weight gain and facilitates weight loss regular exercise will improve your weight loss just a hair but you know what it'll also do if it improves your mood so if you can start a weight an exercise program now and add it to a healthy diet it'll boost your mood and get you through that time get outside when you can get to whatever sunlight you can that will be a mood booster too and it'll give you some vitamin d don't forget your social network that is so important now and so challenging now when people are isolating build that up because that's important for mood it's also important for keeping us on the dietary straight and narrow finally consider a flu shot this season with so much else going on it might well be a good thing to add if you do ask your doctor for flubuck that's all i got back to you chuck you know just seeing the picture of the early dusk that automatically sends me into a seasonal depression here dr i'm such a summer kind of a guy um but okay i i know that uh we gotta do some business here so let's open up in uh the doctor's mail bag and today this is actually a really interesting question that goes to exactly what it was dr bronner you were just speaking about this question comes to us from jackie it's a really great one that so many people face she writes i want to start eating a vegan diet after reading more about it but my spouse has no interest can our relationship be as healthy as a plant-based diet or is it doomed oh you know you first of all jackie thank you for your question you are not alone there are so many cases where one spouse one partner uh one family member says wow a plant-based diet that's fantastic and then the other family members think you're not going to push that on me are you it's not just food if one family member starts decides to stop smoking stop drinking start exercising the other family members are worried what it means for them okay few tips number one recognize that other family members even who are resistant recognize that they have good intentions they mean well yes that person who is who's dragging their feet saying i'm not so sure about that they mean well here's what i'm saying they they grew up with the idea that you needed a balance of foods in your diet you need some meat some dairy some some grains and vegetables and fruits and they even though you have logic on your side and you have the very best science um going for you in the back of their mind they kind of have their fourth grade nutrition teacher telling them that they need meat for protein and so forth so anyway they mean well it's just as hard to overcome that all right so what am i going to do about it i would suggest several things number one there's nothing like sharing some education now often people don't want to read a book if they do great there's lots of them to choose from but they will often watch a movie so air pops and popcorn sit down and watch game changers what the hell forks over knives invisible vegan there's a million of these videos that will really pump everybody up and then if you just if you decide together why don't we do this as a short-term experiment you want to do three weeks on a vegan diet with me some of you have to be pretty hard-hearted to say no to that um if the answer is no you want to go vegan that's up to you but i'm not going anywhere near it at that point you have to have a heart-to-heart talk and you have to say okay but here is why this is important to me lay it out and say i'd like you not to tease me and i'd like you to support me as much as as you can during this time and finally a lot of times couples where one family member isn't quite there and the other is full on vegan sometimes you have to agree what you're going to do at home versus out so in the home i don't want the animal products here if we're at a restaurant whatever you have that's up to you so good luck you're making a good decision it's a normal thing to have a few bumps in the road but chances are with your good example you're going to be able to convince your family to follow your lead and you know i it was kind of similar for my wife and i when i first made the decision to to go vegan and i told her and she was already she was like you're already such a healthy eater why in the world do you want to do this and i said well look i tell you what just give me two hours watch this documentary with me and then let's have this conversation again and sure enough right after she sat down and she watched that with me she gave me that time that was all i was asking for was for two hours she got on board with it as well and it really did it just took having an adult conversation without some ribs and jabs and it's amazing what can happen that was really good advice dr barnard you know par part of it is also is that if it's in a movie it's not you talking it's somebody else sometimes the voice of authority and so uh it sometimes it takes more than one uh it takes somebody else to reinforce the message maybe a family doctor can help something like that but you'll get there it never hurts dr barnard appreciate your time my friend if you have a question for the good doctor that we didn't get to today have no fear we will save it and we will try to get you an answer on an upcoming episode or if one just popped in your head go ahead and post that in the comment section right now or you can tweet that to us or send it to us on instagram using the hashtag exam room live okay if it is monday it is motivation monday here on the exam room live we're gonna get your week off on the right foot and my guest today is someone who scrubbed away a lifetime of unhealthy tarnish to live her best life in her golden years get this at the age of 72 esther loveridge weighed 257 pounds and was in constant pain doctors said she needed to have knee replacement surgery but she was too heavy to even have it and just to get by every day she was taking mountains of medications and was growing desperate for change and that is when she discovered a plant-based diet as the weight melted away so too did esther's pain and her condition improve so much that doctors tell her you don't even need surgery anymore and her daily cocktail of pills slimmed down just as much as her waist did esther is indeed an inspiration and living proof that it is never too late to make that change and with that we welcome esther loveridge to the exam room live esther thank you so very much for being here today thank you for inviting me this is a wonderful opportunity what an incredible story we hear dr barnard earlier today talking about how people would gain weight gradually over the years i'm assuming that was kind of the case for you before you you reached 72. were you much of a yo-yo dieter oh very much so i i started gaining weight probably more in my 30s and 40s but as i got older yes it kept coming on and then it was just continually on me from oh at least the last 30 years you know it's very heavy and i actually had gone up to 282 three different times and came back up and down up and down but it wasn't until i was 72 and found dr mcdougall's book about the massive weight loss a plant-based diet that i switched over because i had no choice at that time and my husband and i we loved traveling and that was the death sentence if i couldn't walk so yeah so you needed knee replacement surgery and obviously you were in a lot of pain can you describe for us what that daily struggle was like for you yeah well it was it was uh intensified when we were in ireland on a wonderful trip over there and by the time we got to the airport after traveling all over ireland my knees were so tired and it just reached a crisis point so i didn't have a real long period of time of pain but i certainly had all those other diseases you know pre-diabetes high blood pressure by knee pain and i had gerd and diverticulitis and constipation but i wasn't sick i didn't think i was sick that was the funny part but when my knees hurt to the point that i could hardly walk to the gate at the airport that's when i knew i had to do something so let's talk about what got you up to 282 what was your diet like i mean you said that you weren't in uh you know you didn't think that you were sick so obviously you probably felt like that was normal did you then also think that you were eating a normal diet and you just drew the short straw um yeah i didn't i just knew that i ate the standard american diet and for some of those years my husband and i were traveling salesmen so we were eating in restaurants all the time and that's really a difficult place to look you know we moved on diets and we'd lose i could get down from 282 i need one time down to 220 and then back up again but um the other thing didn't help is i went on a high fat diet and that was fun because i could eat you know all those pork rinds and eat cream and butter and all that kind of stuff which i didn't like but it also i think created pancreatitis twice in my life and gallbladder disease and my gallbladder out so um but no one at that time saw any correlation between the high fat diet and those diseases too so yeah it was just but i i was desperate i didn't want to have my traveling days be over and we still have our life ahead of us so when i got a hold of that book that's all it took i thought i'm in i'm in talk about with with diets i always think back to there's this one time or this one point a fork in the road as it were where everything kind of goes off of the rails and you you slip up you think that you can have just one of something that you used to eat and you would be okay what was it that kind of sets you back when you were on these diets what what puts you back on the path toward getting back up to 280 pounds it's hard to say i think it's just accumulation of things you know you can be on a diet so long and then finally you're just craving real nutrition and and i didn't even know why but i think at some point your body just revolts and you have to get some good food in your body but um no one particular thing i just know that when i did find the answer i knew the answer and there was no turning back so it's possible and before you did stumble upon dr mcdougall's book what was your opinion of vegetarians and vegans was that anything that was even on your radar in the least not at all you know i didn't know anything about veganism i didn't know anything about the animals i didn't know anything about the planet i didn't know anything about anything except calorie restriction and portion control and doing all that and i knew of vegetarians because i knew of some people like the seventh the adventist who were primarily vegetarian and they had better health than all of that but no i was i was in the dark just in the dark about becoming vegan and knowing that this is a way of life to um to find the fountain of youth i mean it is so wonderful i can't explain how how wonderful it is for me i try to tell people i said you know it feels that i feel the same as if i had been on drugs and became drug free and with that intensity i do not want to go back i do not want that food in my diet in my life i just feel like i have total freedom to be who and what i want to be for the rest of my life and i found the answer and i'm sticking with it what were your expectations when you first went vegan obviously you know as you said you had been on a number of different diets before and they would work for a little while and then that weight would come back and then some were you expecting the same kind of thing here or did you just kind of know that this was gonna be different it was definitely different and it was definitely more radical than anything i had ever thought of before but in my mind i when i my friend gave me his book so i didn't even have to pay for it and then i started watching all the documentaries and then i started watching all the podcasts and got educated but um what was so exciting for me is i said to myself i'm gonna put that sucker to the test and what i meant by that was i've been on every other diet imaginable and i thought if i don't give this one 100 or as close as i can get 100 then there's no way i can test this program to see if it works or doesn't work so i jumped in with both feet and i was adherent and i thought i'm going to follow it right to the t as dearly as i can and if it works then that's going to get the credit so it's been a happy marriage between me and that program and veganism and just learning the answer to a lifetime of struggle and self-loathing and you know you hate yourself because you you failed and you try again and you fail and you get tired of like dr bernard said earlier ask your you know spouse for help and not to tempt you and i had that but how many times can you ask for help and not follow through right right so here's my question you know it takes it can take a while to lose all of the weight but a lot of times people tend to feel a lot better a lot sooner how long was it before you started to notice a change where maybe your knees weren't as painful as they used to be oh well fortunately i took my measurements when i started and it seemed like it was just a it wasn't long at all until my knees just the inflammation was gone and i don't know now it's probably five or six inches i've lost off each knee but right away it was four inches off each knee and i was shocked and then even when the scale didn't move too quickly at times i just noticed my clothes were getting looser and looser and so at my all-time high you know wear a size 26 dress mostly i was like 24 26 and now i'm down to a six and i'm still losing i mean i'm down to 122 now so i'm even a total of 160 pounds you know it's but you know the thing i want to stress is that most people especially women we get into a diet because of our appearance and we forget that without our health we have nothing and if and i was drawn to this way of eating for losing weight so my knees wouldn't hurt so i could travel but what i really want to stress is you know the health benefits that come from eating this weight and those aren't visible to people on the outside and even not only did i avoid having my knees replaced but i avoided having eye surgery and the last thing my doctor said to me my eye doctor in december of last year he said with your eyesight you don't even have to wear glasses so the results are so much more fantastic than just losing weight and looking good you know and all those diseases are gone all my medications are gone i feel brand new and how can i say i'm 76 now almost 77. go figure but it's the food it's the food we that we have to correct so your driver's license says 76 77 how old do you actually feel can you put a number on that when was the last time you felt this healthy oh i don't know i had lied on my driver's license for so many years it said 190 and i never bothered to change it they never bothered to ask but i would say i feel as good as when i'm in my 20s i mean it's just i feel alive i feel healthy and i keep wanting to get better and better so i listen to dr bernard and all these other programs you know because there's way to tweak it and and we can keep on making it even better and better maybe drinking more water maybe getting more rest and so forth but um i'm just alive i'm just alive and it's so wonderful and i just my heart aches for other people who just don't know this information like i didn't just four years ago four years i didn't know so i've gone through the college of learning and i'm ready to put my motherboard on and say i've graduated i'm just embarking on a new career and i just want to share the news with anybody who will listen and even if they don't want to listen i want to plan to see because maybe they'll hear something from me and then hear something from someone else and pretty soon that will all add up and they'll realize you know i have a choice in fact i loved your program with joseph being here she was 96 years old 96 and she changed her life and so i thought why am i going to be on this program i'm only 76 you know but every story has its point and not everybody hears every story so i just um i want people to know you can be your best any time in your life oh yeah but look i mean there's no comparing every story is a little bit different and you are no less amazing than josephine stagnero who who went vegan at 96. i mean you were equally as inspirational um you were just talking though about you know how how amazing this is i'm curious what was the doctor's reaction the orthopedists who you were seeing about your knees and now suddenly all of this inflammation is gone and you don't need the knee replacement surgery anymore what did they say well it's kind of interesting because the doctor who was monitoring me and was going to refer me to orthopedics after i lost 70 pounds i don't see him anymore because on that very second visit i said i'm attempting to go on a plant-based diet and he said well if i told people to eat like that they would say that's not real food and i thought oh yikes this is not the place for me and then he went on to say besides he said there's no health food stores in our area and i said all you need is the produce department of in a store so i had heard about a plant-based doctor where i go and he was full and wasn't taking new patients but um i thought if i could just get a consult with him maybe he would realize i won't need to be seeing him very much i wouldn't add to his workload and he allowed me to have a consult and accepted me and so i have a wonderful plant-based doctor now and he just he's so thrilled with my progress and he's fine one of my biggest cheerleaders he's just wonderful so i never had to go back to the other doctor although i'd like to go back um but so no i haven't been back so and oh i think you would be a fantastic case study for your original doctor and your story is so inspiring and you became so inspired you actually wrote a book about it i did actually the book is kind of interesting i wrote the book um in response to um a group i have on facebook it's called esther's nutritional journey and anyone can ask to join by answering two questions i want to know first of all what are their goals because if you don't know what you want in life you're not going to get there so i don't care what the goals are but you have to identify them and then i also ask if they've watched all the documentaries and interviews and so forth just so i know how far along they are on the path and um so after a while i i think of a word every day and then i expound on that and i put that in my facebook group every day and people started saying oh you should write a book you should write a book and i didn't really know exactly what they meant so i said well why would you want to buy my book when i post it free on facebook every day and they said no it's important and so what i did is i went through the post that i did for a full year and collected those and so i call it from donuts to potatoes because this is an important part too my husband owned donut shops for how many years before we got married and i met him in his donut shop and then we switched over to eating potatoes but he was like one of the guys that dr bernard talked about at the beginning of the podcast how he said oh i could never eat like you and i said okay so he liked to cook he did his thing and i did my thing and he was very supportive so i'm so thankful for that but back to the book is just kind of more of a motivational inspirational book it's not a how-to but i keep referring people to all the resources that have helped me and um so that's available but it's much it's much more advantageous i think to get one of the hardcore books to get the science behind it but if you want to guide along your way and just to hear about my thoughts and how i try to get people to think about their self-image how they think about themselves and what what they can change and how they can become positive in their life and no matter how many failures they had they've had once they get their head on straight and this eating this way does clear the brain fog too i will say that and makes you alive and what makes you want to think and it makes you want to know you can accomplish anything so it's a lot about mindset mindfulness and taking care to really identify what you want in life and go for it get the support get the education along the way esther loveridge love you thank you so much for bringing the inspiration to us today what an incredible journey and and congratulations on all of your success oh thank you so much thank you for spreading the good word it is my pleasure go check her out on facebook and definitely pick up the book as well and if you want to live life the esther way or you just want to take your health to the next level the barnard medical center is here to help doctors who view nutrition and food in the vein that it actually is and that is the best medicine so call and make your telemedicine appointment today if you live in any one of the following states let me rattle off the list here for you it is arizona colorado florida georgia illinois indiana kentucky maryland massachusetts missouri new york pennsylvania virginia or the nation's capital of washington d.c if you live any one of those locations and you say hey esther is on point i want to be like esther or i just want to get healthy go ahead visit barnardmedical.org or pick up the phone and call 202-527-7500 to schedule your appointment today now on the show tomorrow dr venita rahman she will be here to answer your questions plus we're going to be looking at the incredible success that patients had with our first series called fight coven 19 with food and so tomorrow the bell will be ringing for round two to get underway and you can take part dr rahman will be here to tell you how and give you the successful skinny on the fight kofi 19 with food series and if there's also ever a topic that you want us to discuss here on the show or somebody that you think would make a great guest for motivation monday we would love to hear from you as well go ahead and follow us on twitter or instagram at chuck carroll wlc or at pcrm or on the gram at physicians committee go ahead and send us your message there using the hashtag exam room live but for today that is all the time that we have my friend i greatly appreciate you being here my thanks to the crew behind the scenes that makes the magic happen and to the incredible once again esther loveridge for sharing her inspirational journey with us today on behalf of dr neil barnard and everyone here at the physicians committee i am the weight loss champion chuck carroll thanks so very much for tuning in and until tomorrow stay safe take a stand and keep it plant-based

Channel: Physicians Committee

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Id: ZHokVUcxcwM

Length: 34min 2sec (2042 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020