While I was Gout and About...

Author's Note: Composed prior to Valentine's Day, but posted after due to revisions and proofreading delays :)

This year is an iconic (read: ironic) year. As Valentine's Day rolls around there is a satirical, almost pathetic, irony to the fact that I do not have to worry about a fine dining experience at The Keg. This will be the first year in a very long time that I have zero stress about where to make reservations, how much to save up, and whether it will be *ahem* a good night. It will mark over 45-days since I've had meat, and half way through my second month of my veg*n diet. For me, that's a big life change.

Red meat was normal for me for a long time, along with pork, chicken, turkey and occasionally fish. For years, the big worry about meal preparation was "which protein" to choose from. Whilst I was out and about running my grocery errands, I would plan ahead for my meals with ease: Would I go with a steak? A stew? A chop? What meat did I want to prepare for my meal, as if to go along with the sheer coincidence that "MEAL" is made up of almost the entirely same letters as "MEAT". As such, logic dictates that to be a MEAL it should be almost all MEAT, right? That's normal.

I woke up with a foot pain one morning that wasn't normal. Sadly, it was ill-timed with a business trip. I was up all night, far away from home in a hotel room in agony to the point I was barely able to walk. I didn't have medical coverage in the US so I stuck to alternating hot and cold treatments, self-diagnosing the pain as a "twisted" ankle. Hobbling down the hallway the next day at the business office I looked ridiculous, a martyr, but I had to do what I needed to do and get home. Within a few days of prescribed pain killers, the ankle had "healed" and the pain subsided.

This happened a few times over the next few years. The doctors usually turned me away at the emergency room, citing my weight as the reason.

"The body isn't designed to carry such weight", the doctor would say.

"Ok, Got it. That's what you always tell me..." I'd reply, pleading," but can you just do an xray or something to make sure that's what it is?"

Sure enough, my joints were never fractured. Always "soft tissue damage" resulting from "overburdening".

Eventually, the same pain occurred in my knee. I woke up one morning to a familiar dull ache, but in my left knee. I chalked it up to sleeping at a bad angle on a makeshift bed I was on while visiting my dad. By dinner time, I couldn't walk. The next day, my knee was so swollen, red and sore, the joint was virtually frozen at a fixed angle, and to move it was an agony that I have never, nor shall I, ever forget.

The doctor's cited the same reason: My weight. It was suggested that I had torn my meniscus, or ACL, and only time and therapy - and weight loss - would resolve the issue. I physically could not exercise to lose weight, and inactivity bred more fat. Some days, I couldn't even put my own sock on. It was all I could do to dress myself, and thrive on a diet of Celebrex and naproxen sodium (Aleve). To this day, my only saving grace from ulcers and blood toxicity was the amount of water I drank, just enough to dilute the blood and carry out the flushing of my system.

Eventually, I had an MRI completed. The joint specialist advised me, once again, my joints were fine, they simply couldn't take my 335lb weight.

"Knee replacement is inevitable."

I lived that way for years. No answer. No reasons. No resolution. I couldn't work out to save my life. Literally. Hopes and dreams faded as my opportunity to enlist passed by, a career in policing became nearly impossible along with almost every other career requiring physically fit conditioning and my 30's crept up swiftly.

The best way I could describe my "typical" status was this: I could walk down the street, to get To and From, but if a pickpocket stole my wallet I could not chase them. I'd keel over like a cripple without his crutches.

Then one day it hit me - like the boulder on my late Uncle Rick's toe: maybe, it was Gout. It's hereditary, runs in the family and is typical of a middle-aged meat-eater. Almost seven years after my first episode, three doctors later, after multiple emergency room visits, an MRI and regularly completed bloodwork that said All Systems "Go", I attended a Walk-in Clinic and asked to have a test completed for uric acid levels, an indicator of Gout.

Sometimes, I wonder why they call it "Free medicare" in Canada. Maybe, it's because you get what you pay for. The only thing free was my final diagnosis, whereby I finally learned how to be free of pain because we finally had an answer as to why my knee ached: my uric acid count was off the chart. It would take six months of 300-mg per day Allopurinol tablets to bring my bloodwork back in line with a "normal" male. That's twice as long as the usual 90-day loading period. The delay was an indicator just how crystalized the uric acid was in my system, around internal organs besides the indicative joint pain, with the use of allopurinol mobilizing the other, previous unknown areas of concern. Basically, if untreated, Gout kills.

I now maintain a relatively gout-free status, with no inhibition physically. I could even chase a purse-snatcher confidently!

Over six years of my life I spent thinking I was physically damaged, requiring surgery and no one knowing what to fix. Fast forward to 2013, and my braces are off; Like Forest Gump, "I was running...."

Now, to figure out what to eat to maintain my balanced, plant-powered lifestyle. With that comes the complication of meal planning. In days prior, it was basically a selection of either aforementioned meat choice, or which processed food to throw in the oven, or on a "late day" from work the big question was what to pick up on the way home. Holidays were previously not challenging with ease in simply deciding which overpriced restaurant to book reservations with. This year is different.

Planning a healthy dinner takes more effort, especially to find a meal that feels well-rounded, so as to make sure you don't leave the table feeling cheated or like something is missing. For me that means at least three selections on the plate, each one representing a previously favored food group.

For the "main" piece of "meat" tomorrow night I may very well choose a hearty beet. Everything about an oven-roasted beet steak feels right for the main, "meaty" piece of my meal: it's dense, flavorful, requires chewing and is satisfyingly wholesome.

Some of my favorite sides now include steamed broccoli, brussel sprouts, or cauliflower. I'd like to not over-steam them, to retain as many of the nutrients as possible (research 118* Cooking). In the case of cauliflower though, I have fallen in love with pureed cauliflower as a replacement for mashed potato, a beloved food that calls to my Irish heritage.

Baked Kale is now a staple of my dinner time, with varying flavored toppings and seasonings, but nutritional yeast or turmeric and black pepper are among my top favorites.

I almost never have plain ole salad. The obvious choice of omnivores to incorporate plants into their diet screams for flavoring in the form of high calorie, low nutrient dressings that sabotage even the best of diets, unless of course you make your own. There are plenty of dressing recipes on the web. For me, its just an unnecessary step given my meals ARE plants.

The only thing I haven't conquered yet is dessert. Frankly, I'm trying to avoid it.Although flavored dessert tofus, Oreos or sorbets are an easy choice, I typically just skip them altogether. For the special occasions though, I might try the Engine 2 ice-cream recipe that calls for simply frozen bananas and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. In fact, recently, a reader recommended a modified version of this, by suggesting the inclusion of peanut butter while blending. I might have to try the E2 Ice-Cream sooner just to test the theory!

Either way, I'm sure whatever I serve will be healthy, enjoyable and far less expensive and far more healthy than any of my past Valentine's dinners. I recommend the same to all of my loved ones. Cook your hearts out, in a style that's healthy. Your significant others might love the food too. You can bet your hearts on it.