Have you been enjoying the sessions on health and wellness? Remember it is very important that you ‘slow down and live. I am pleased to continue to bring you another  presentation from the Slow Down & Live: Health is Wealth virtual event that was held in January. I do hope that you were able to hear from Professor Jaipaul Roopnarine on Parenting And Behavioural Health In Caribbean Children. This week it is all about food and Hollan Hamid joins us to talk about Food As Medicine: Why A Whole Food Plant-Based Diet May Be The Answer To Your Health Problems.  Hollan Hamid is a big advocate of whole plant based foods as a way to prevent and treat health problems. 

 
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: 

You will identify how unhealthy eating habits can affect your overall health.
You will learn simple plant-based everyday recipes that can be used as an alternative to regular recipes. 
Hear Hollan give practical steps and tips on how someone can change to a plant based/ whole food diet. 

Episode Highlights
Eating Habits Affect Your Health 

Hollan reflects on how a lack of proper boundaries as it relates to food and her eating habits as a young girl affected her health and triggered auto-immune disorders. 
Hollan mentions how it impeded her life as a child as she had to stop from school at times due to illness and severe menstruation I’ll effects that later turned out to be endometriosis. 
Hollan also explores how after undergoing surgery and developing Kidney stones, she decided to take charge of her health. 

A Vegan Diet Improves Quality of Life 

Hollan gives a breakdown of what kind of changes she experienced when she switched to a vegan diet. 
She makes mention of  her improved  energy levels  and how much healthier she was as a person and even how much happier she was, as she lost weight and began to see improvements in her life. 

After the Self-Work Comes the Network  

Hollan took the time to educate herself on having a  vegan diet and made it her mission to teach others about it and its many benefits. She used her new found knowledge and background in foods to create recipes and mentions how she gained her love of food and love of health. 
After understanding more about herself and her health, she realised that everybody is different and she set out to help others start their own health evolution. 

Own Your Health 

Hollan challenges us to answer the question, “Am I willing to break up with my current beliefs?” She reminds us how generational patterns affect our eating habits and many of the diseases that we are faced with or impacted by has a lot to do with family decisions as a collective and as an individual. She mentions putting a stop to certain generational habits and how that changes the outcome of her own children by making the changes in herself first. 
A certain level of introspection is required to make changes in one’s diet in order for a person to own their health. 
Holland teaches practical ways of owning one’s health and how humans should see themselves as evolving beings. She provides ways  in which one can find alternatives to to lead a more whole food based diet and get the best of it and the importance of listening to your own body to stay in tune to what works and what doesn’t. 
Hollan explains that while she is not opposed to doctors and western medicine she believes that healing can come through just having a better/ healthier diet. 

Tips to Make the Switch 

Understand your WHY for wanting to do this
Educate yourself 
Take baby steps
Focus on Nutrient-rich whole foods 
Search and learn about Vegan restaurants and recipes 
Drink more water