About Karen

Up until my 30’s I was eating a regular standard omnivorous diet containing a range of meat, fish, diary, fruit, vegetables, and nuts, etc. Then in our early 30’s, my partner and I made the change to go vegetarian. We had enough of buying, preparing/handling and cooking meat and fish, and we didn’t even particularly enjoy eating it.

The change wasn’t too difficult, since we really didn't like the fact we were contributng to the death of animals. Back then the labelling and availability of meat free options were also limited. We also cut out foods containing animal derivatives such as gelatine and animal rennet, and food colouring from animals such as Cochineal. This was trickier to figure out without proper labelling on the packaging and our limited knowledge of being a vegetarian!

We got better at being vegetarian the more we learned about it, and we knew more about what to look out for. We started eliminating anything made from animals such as leather shoes, belts, jackets, furnishings, silk scarfs, etc. We avoided visiting tourist attractions where animals were couped up in captivity, and we felt healthier.

As vegetarians we travelled extensively before emigrating to Australia in 2012. We had significantly reduced our reliance on eggs and dairy, and our mission was to go fully plant based when we settled in Australia.

Soon after arriving in Australia, we were in our 40’s, excited about the new life and the opportunities we had been given. We had reliable food sources, a kitchen and all the amenities we needed to make going fully plant-based work and we made the commitment to eliminate dairy and eggs altogether.

This was more challenging initially than becoming vegetarian as we were craving cheese,  ice-cream and nice plant milk. The vegan alternatives were either non-existent, mislabelled i.e., containing gelatine, or animal rennet and just stating rennet, and didn’t even taste so good. Same with the plant milks which in the early days were limited and pretty aweful!

Becoming vegan didn’t happen overnight, it took us a while to learn and find the right kinds of foods. And we did slip back from time to time in eating things that weren’t vegan or sustainable food sources. But we did start venturing locally to the farmers markets and bought more seasonal and fresh products.

Unfortunately, though, we were also buying a lot of ultra-processed foods high in salt, sugar and fat and using a lot of what we thought were healthy oils. It was a time of great stress in settling down, getting businesses off the ground and settling into our new life down under.

In 2019 I got an unexpected call from my nephew in the UK. He was at the hospital waiting to hear more about my dad who had been rushed in after having a serious heart attack. Another call soon after was the worst news of my life.

Dad had passed away in the emergency room after the medical team tried to pass a catheter through a blocked artery. His heart was severely damaged after years of neglect with smoking and poor eating, and his heart attacks and needing his leg amputated due to peripheral arterial disease, and several bypasses, were just symptomatic of a heavily diseased and damaged heart. He just had nothing left to give.

Knowing my family history on each side, I knew that heart disease and cancer ran through my family. We were fast approaching our 50’s and I was aware of how things can change especially for women after 50.

In 2020 at the age of 48 I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune blistering disease called Mucous Membrane Pemphigoid (MMP). From that day forward I thought my life would never be the same again. I was prescribed immunosuppressive therapy and still continue to attend hospital every month for treatment to manage it.

In 2022, we also lost mum. She had been chronically ill for years but her body could take no more. This was obviously another wake up call that we had to start doing something different with our lifetsyle. Being plant based wasn’t enough if we were hooked on vegan junk food and overeating.

Mums passing was the final wake-up call. I had lost mum and dad, and developed my own chronic condition, the time was now right to make a change.  I had to do something to manage inflammation and mitigate risk of more disease. I ventured to the local library on my lunch break. I wasn't sure what I was looking for but I came across a book, sat down, and started to read. 

The book was called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease; The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD. Wow! I had never read or come across anything like it! I was blown away by the work and science that had gone into this and wondered why I didn't know about this stuff before!

After taking it home and spending a few days reading it, I felt compelled to have my own copy. So, Paul, my partner, bought it for me along with a Kindle cookbook by Dr Esselstyn's wife and daughter which was full of recipes based on a no/low fat whole food plant-based diet.

From there it opened up a pandoras box. I was all over the research journals and bought more recommended books based on the same theme of preventing and reversing all manner of diseases including diabetes, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, Alzheimer's, autoimmune diseases, depression...the list went on. This 'new' wave of science got me so excited at the endless possibilities of how we can mitigate our risk of suffering so many serious, life threatening and prematurely life ending, conditions including mental ones. 

This was just what I needed. I already knew a lot about promoting health and preventing disease from my health psychology post-grad training but reversing it too?! This was never something I had come across before. So, in 2022 we changed our diet again and adopted a whole food plant-based diet with no oil!

It wasn’t easy giving up all our vegan junk, this transition seemed harder than the last, but we took it slow and applied the principles we knew from our previous transitions. This one seemed more onerous at first since we had to keep our eye on labels and spend more time cooking from raw ingredients rather than buying fridge or frozen packeted foods.

What is also critical  is the support we received and the resources we used along the way to make a whole-food diet work and to maintain our energy, weight, and motivation levels to stick with it.

It's so common for people to report how solutions they try don't work but the main reason anything doesn't work is typically because we don't prepare well enough, often give up too early, don't persist with the process or regime once we hit barriers and challenges, and don't seek enough of the right kind of support to help us stick with it!

Whatever dietary change solutions you are looking for there are ways and means to get you there once you have made the commitment and support to do it! With your motivation and good intentions, and my expertise, knowledge, and resources in implementing the changes you need to make, you will be in a great place to do it too!