I am a dancer by profession. I am moving my body for no less than about 8 hours a day, sometimes more. The demands upon my body are really incredible. It's just something I live with.
About 2 years ago, I started feeling a little stiff in my joints; not pain, really, but stiffness. I just could not fathom such a thing at the time. Two years ago I was 25 years old. I am very limber, of course, but there was this stiffness just the same.
I started investigating what remedy I should go for. I asked around, and one friend suggested that I become more conscious of my diet. He even suggested that I become a vegetarian. It was a foreign idea for me at the time, but instictually I thought it seemed like a good thing. I need to be light on my feet, to say the least, in my work. And a heavy diet of high fat, high protein foods seems the wrong way to go. I became a vegetarian, reading books by Dick Gregory and Dr. John McDougal.
Well, to make a long story short, the diet was the problem, my old diet that is. I just simply don't have the stiffness anymore. It's a major relief for me. My physical condition is my livelyhood. I don't know what I would have done if I had not found the answer to my problem.
I recently became engaged to a wonderful lady, Maria. She and I are both vegetarians, as I pretty strongly suggested that she also become a vegetarian 2 years ago. I'm very glad that she agreed, dispite the problems it is still causing with her family. I believe that the longer the two of us stay vegetarian, the happier we're going to be about out decision.
Also see: Maria Valdez