I do tend to refer to myself as “vegan” rather than “plant-based,” because I’m definitely in this for the animals, too. Eating meat never quite seemed right to me (especially after having to visit a slaughterhouse floor when I was working as a chef).
I come from a family who ate like most Americans eat, and got the diseases
that many Americans get. I lost my father to liver cancer, my mom to leukemia,
my sister to brain cancer, and my grandparents to heart disease and cancer.
The pain of losing so many family members took its toll. I became bogged down in
grief. At the same time, I was going a mile a minute in my professional life,
attending the Culinary Institute of America and becoming a chef. Between the
grief and stress, I stopped taking care of myself. My health began to
deteriorate until one day I woke up and weighed 679 pounds. I remember looking
in the mirror and thinking, “Who is this person?” At just 34 years old, I had
Type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and kidney disease so severe that my kidneys had
shrunk down to the size of walnuts. My blood pressure was so high that anytime I
went to the doctor, they sent me to the emergency room after seeing my blood
pressure.
The Spinal Injury
One day in 2016, I was out walking my little dog. He was playing and getting
into something he shouldn’t have been, so I bent over to grab him. When I
did, I felt and heard a pop. I sat down on the curb and thought, “Something
is wrong.” The left side of my body started to quickly go numb. Luckily, I
live across the street from a city hospital, so I staggered my way over
there. By the time I got seen by the desk nurse, I’d lost almost all feeling
from the neck down. I weighed almost 700 pounds and couldn’t lift myself,
couldn’t help the hospital staff help me. It was an awful feeling.
Once they had me stabilized, I learned that a disc had slipped so violently
out of the side of my spine that it pulled my spinal cord out of place. The
doctors told me that I most likely would never be able to walk again, and
that I’d need to prepare to live in a wheelchair and need 24-hour care.
Life-Changing Reading
I spent many months in the hospital, working with occupational therapists
and eventually getting some feeling back in my hands. After about five
months, I was able to go to the hospital library in a wheelchair to look
through books. That’s when I came across The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn,
which outlined a plan for transforming your health, starting with a 28-day
diet focused on unprocessed plant-based foods. I’d heard about plant-based
diets before, back when my mom was going through cancer treatment and I was
looking for things that might help her. At the time, I was reluctant to
really consider overhauling the way I thought about food. But now, in the
hospital and desperate to regain more function and mobility, I knew that I
had to give it a try.
The hospital had few plant-based options, so my lovely wife would come to
visit and bring me fruit and quinoa and things like that. I ate a lot of
apples and grapes every day. And I saw changes almost immediately. The dark
circles under my eyes began to recede, and color returned to my skin. My
legs had been like balloons; they were just so puffy that I barely even had
discernible toes. But after a few weeks of this new way of eating, the
puffiness in my legs went down so much that I finally had toes. And I was
able to start wiggling them. After a routine scan, my doctor told me that he
didn’t know what I was doing but that the amount of inflammation in my
spine, midsection, and legs had significantly gone down.
Surviving Setbacks
I continued to regain more movement in my arms. But because I was still
unable to get up and walk, I was at a higher risk for blood clots. My mom
was a nurse, and I knew the symptoms, so when I started experiencing
tightness in my chest one day, I knew immediately that I was experiencing a
pulmonary embolism (a blood clot that traveled from my leg to my lungs). I
technically died and was revived by the doctors twice that day. I was very
grateful to have survived that ordeal.
Afterward, I continued focusing on eating plant-based, and continued
shedding weight. My blood pressure went down so significantly that my
doctors took me off my blood pressure medications. They were over the moon.
In January 2017, after nine months in the hospital, I was finally
discharged. A month later, I was hit with another health crisis when I
noticed a large lump on the side of my neck—something my excess weight and
beard had probably camouflaged until that point. I thought, “Here we go.”
And sure enough, it turned out to be cancer: stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The new diagnosis gave me even more motivation to eat as healthy as
possible, so that my body would have the best chance to heal itself.
Thriving Today
Five years later, I’m still here. My cancer is in remission. My liver and
kidney disease are in full remission, and I haven’t had diabetes in more
than four years. I still have some neuropathy in the left side of my lower
half, but with the help of occupational therapists, I’ve been able to regain
function in my upper body and right leg, and I’m able to walk. I’ve lost
more than 400 pounds. When I first got out of the hospital, I had to take 22
pills a day. Today, I take three vitamins. That’s it.
I still eat a lot. In fact, I eat more now than I ever did before, in terms
of volume. I eat bags of greens a day, and a whole lot of fruit, quinoa, and
beans. Every morning, I enjoy a smoothie made with greens, peaches, or
berries. I try to keep it very simple because I’m a creature of habit. I
choose not to eat vegan imitation meats and cheese, as I try to avoid highly
processed foods. But I do tend to refer to myself as “vegan” rather than
“plant-based,” because I’m definitely in this for the animals, too. Eating
meat never quite seemed right to me (especially after having to visit a
slaughterhouse floor when I was working as a chef).
I was unable to return to work as a chef directly, because of the neuropathy
in my leg. Instead, I develop plant-based menus for gyms and help them to
set up plant-based educational workshops. I also help other people who are
transitioning from being an able-bodied person to being a disabled person.
I’m passionate about fitness and work out daily, doing almost two hours of
bodybuilding and adaptive CrossFit, which is for people who have
disabilities.
People are always asking me how I made this miraculous health
transformation, thinking there must be some secret trick, and I tell them to
just try this diet for themselves. I’m a Puerto Rican dude from New York who
never thought I would be plant-based. If I can do it, you can. Give it a
chance. See how your body responds. What you put into your body either feeds
sickness or helps fight it, plain and simple. I’m living proof.
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We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to take a pro-active part in their own health. We believe the articles and information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice. We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found. Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body. If you have a health problem, see your own physician.