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Adam and Shoshana Chaim on Eating Their Way Out of a Medical Nightmare: PYP 184

adamshoshana

Adam and Shoshana Chaim are the hosts of the most excellent Plant Trainers Podcast. Their journey of discovery and transformation is one that needs to be heard by everyone who may ever come into contact with the medical establishment. (And even more so by the members of that establishment.)

Adam was always fit and in good health, so he thought. Working out, playing sports, maintaining a healthy weight; what more could possibly be required, right?

Then one day while watching TV, he experienced a sharp shooting pain across his chest. He was too young to have a heart attack, he thought. Scared and confused, he went to the ER, his thoughts swirling around his young wife and one-year-old son. Was he going to check out this early in life?

Two weeks later, he received a call from the hospital, asking (out of the blue) if Adam had scheduled his oncology appointment yet. Oncology? Isn't that the study of cancer? What the f—?

Following the oncologist's examination, Adam was told that he had a tumor on his left kidney that was most likely cancerous, and should have his entire kidney removed. Now was the time for a second opinion, and a third. The second surgeon was slightly more conservative, suggesting removal of just 3/4 of the kidney. And the third picked up on the words “most likely” and suggested a biopsy.

You know, just for kicks, to see if whatever it was, was in fact cancer.

It wasn't. A fact that took over a month to discover, thanks to the glacial pace of the Toronto OHIP medicare system. A month in which Shoshana was becoming more and more pregnant (is that a thing? Can you get “more pregnant”?) and the stress of not knowing and fearing the worst was taking its toll on the young family.

Then came the phone call with the results. Good news and bad news.

It's not cancer. (Huge sigh of relief.)

But it's possible a rare genetic disorder, von Hippel-Lindau disease, which deposits tumors all along the central nervous system, and rarely allows people to live past 40. Adam and Shoshana googled it, which turned out to be a huge mistake. They were scared out of their wits at the future that awaited them.

Then a Friend Who Knows Things (thank God for people like that in our lives!) informed Adam that there was an easy way to diagnose von Hippel-Lindau for certain: a simple retinal exam. And that exam, once conducted, showed no sign of a genetic disorder.

It did, however, reveal clear blockages of the arteries of the eyes, a sure sign of progressive cardiovascular disease.

At this point, jerked around and fed up by the medical establishment, Adam started doing his own research. He vowed to heal himself without surgeries or medications, the two tools of choice of the medical establishment that had caused him so much needless suffering. He began by reading Thrive, by Brendan Brazier, and so lucked onto the path of plant-based eating.

Shoshana was dragged into the lifestyle, and they navigated a divided fridge for a few years. Then upon reading Skinny Bitch, she began her own transition.

[powerpress]

In our conversation, Adam and Shoshana and I covered:

  • the challenges of transitioning to a plant-based diet
  • “6 years of marriage pretending I couldn't cook”
  • how Forks Over Knives touched Adam, but not Shoshana
  • participating in a triathlon without knowing how to swim
  • the mystical, magical advice from a stranger at the pool
  • how Shoshana was moved by Skinny Bitch, and how she transitioned in her own way and her own time
  • Adam's shrinking tumor and healing eye arteries, and the bafflement of the medical profession
  • training harder and recovering faster
  • Shoshana's post-partum depression and anxiety: “I thrive with PTSD”
  • teaching kids about healthy eating at an early age
  • starting to convince doctors to take a look at this plant-based business
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Thrive, by Brendan Brazier

Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

Forks Over Knives

Adam and Shoshana's Links

Plant-Based Health, Nutrition and Fitness
Healthy Plant-Based Families
Contact Adam and Shoshana

In**@pl***********.com












Plant Trainers Website PlantTrainers.com
Plant Trainers 1 Week Plant-Based Meal Plan

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Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Disclosure

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Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

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I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.

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Hi, I’m Howard Jacobson, host of the Plant Yourself Podcast, co-author of You Can Change Other People and Sick to Fit, and co-founder of WellStart Health Coach Academy.

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