I’ve always viewed myself as a bit of a Buddhist, starting well before adopting a plant-based lifestyle. Believing that animals are sentient beings and in Ahimsa, the ancient Indian principle of non-violence that applies to actions towards all living beings. It’s a long shot to have a world where we take responsibility to treat every living being with respect, compassion, and kindness. Are we getting closer? I don’t know but a vegan lifestyle does take me into that vision.

Destiny inspired and ignited my plant-based lifestyle, integrating my values with my day-to-day life and beliefs, and I consider myself fortunate. This massive life change emerged from crisis and desperation. Circumstance created opportunity, and I took it without being aware of what I had done until well after the fact. Little did I know that food and change would be the catalyst for a new lease on life.

Looking Back

I had tried being a vegetarian and experimented with a Macrobiotic Diet in my early days. But drifted back into the socially acceptable “American Diet”. By this time, being overweight had become normal for me, but I didn’t like it.

I thought music would be my path, so I worked tirelessly to get accepted at the Boston Conservatory of Music as a violin performance major. What was I thinking? I had passion, but started way too late. I was to find out later that the real lessons were discipline, living your values, and believing in yourself.

Instead of being a poor musician, I became an entrepreneur looking for sweat equity opportunities. I finally found one as a partner in a downtown Boston restaurant venture. However, my business partners proved to be less than ethical. I lost everything. The good news was that fate had a plan and arranged for me to meet and later marry Sharon Codi, a nurse and sister of our bartender. She was of Italian-Scottish descent and loved to cook Italian-style food laden with meat and cheese. I overate every day and over the years grew to hover around 260 pounds. If that was not bad enough, I developed high cholesterol and hypertension. More on that later.

My various ventures led me to real estate where I went from a sales associate to a real estate broker and later started a company in Cambridge, MA, that I owned and managed for twenty years. Everything was going well, life was good until it was not.

Out of the Blue

We were vacationing and enjoying Miami Beach when Sharon’s symptoms first appeared. It proved to be colon cancer and the start of a more than six-year battle with cancer, radiation, and chemo. That passed, and then came breast cancer and her decision to have a double mastectomy followed by painful reconstruction. We were given hope then, yet again, only to learn during a routine exam that she now had stage IV lung cancer. There was less chance of remission this time.

We were both cigarette smokers for many years. We tried to quit together more times than I can remember. I was able to break the addiction, but she continued to her last days.

Looking back, Sharon’s final year was inspiring. She had evolved into a nurse educator and had obtained her Master’s Degree, knowing she would not have long to use it. She amazed her doctor and colleges by continuing to working, retiring only a few weeks before her passing. Our conversations often ran deep and were very direct, open, and meaningful. Strangely enough, of all the possible late-life obsessions, hers centered around what I would eat when she was gone. She insisted on trying to teach me how to cook, which did not go very far. I found another path, a plant-based lifestyle to reduce her (and my own) stress while trying to address what had become serious health issues.

Soul Alignment

My next physical underscored my poor health and the need to lose weight and curtail alcohol consumption. I was taking statins to help manage my cholesterol and other medications for my high blood pressure. I needed to turn things around.

By chance, I was introduced to Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live, which was timely and offered hope. I returned from a real estate convention to inform Sharon I was making huge dietary changes. I was adopting a plant-based lifestyle, going vegan, and she would no longer need to worry. She had no experience with my new lifestyle, and with that, we were both set free from worry.

Eat To Live promises a 20-pound weight loss in 6 weeks from eating all plant-based foods, so I jumped in. The weight dropped off as promised, if not faster. I never felt better, so I decided to never return to my old ways. After Sharon passed, I continued to lose weight, ultimately shedding a hundred pounds and never feeling deprived. No more meat or dairy, and no more statins or hypertension meds. Best of all, tragedy and its challenges helped me align my soul with my values. Switching to a vegan lifestyle was a good fit for me.

A New Beginning

Veggie Connection, a less-than-inspiring dating site, where I filled in membership info but decided not to sign up. To my surprise, months later, I received an email from the site offering access to an inquiring member for a price. I thought her photo must be one from high school, like other dates in the past. I decided to take a chance and was pleasantly surprised. Bonnie and I connected over a plate of root vegetables and common ideals.

Save

Bonnie is vegan for animals, and she exposed me to the full depths of the cruelty in factory farming, the dairy industry, and all of the related environmental impacts. Together, we’re continuing our plant-based, vegan journey, exploring ways where we might make a difference.

I believe that food and a plant-based lifestyle is the clearest pathway to change. Each of us has the power of choice like never before, thanks to technology. Each choice we make matters, and perhaps what we choose to eat matters most because we do it every day. Personal health, animals, and the environment are closely tied, and what we eat is at the core of changing our animal-based economic system.

I need to do what I can to effect change, big or small. I became a licensed Food For Life Instructor and created a consulting practice, Why Go Plant Based. My goal is to inspire, help, and support anyone interested in exploring or making lifestyle changes (or choices) that matter for health, animals, and the environment.

My Health Scorecard

Here is my scorecard from 2012 to now, showing the results of taking charge of my health. I live with the satisfaction of knowing that I am doing what I can to create an animal-free economic system and that my efforts, like a speck of sand, are part of a movement to reduce harm to the earth and it’s inhabitants. As they say, take care of yourself first, and then help others. I hope you will consider joining me.

Paul Turcotte