Love being vegan and love how healthy I feel!

I became vegan in 2011 after watching "Best Speech Ever" by Gary Yourofsky! Right before I went vegan I had my blood work done and my total cholesterol was high, 168. I was also getting sick like allergies twice a year. It was causing drainage accompanied with weazing and infections which was why I got my blood work done.

6 years after going vegan I had to know my bloodwork. It was down to 125! I wasn't sick that entire time. And I had only removed animals and their secretions. I did nothing else.

For that first 6 years I only knew what not to eat but really didn't know how to eat until 2017. I started studying nutrition a little and learned about a whole-food, plant based diet and how it's the healthiest.

When I realized no one needed to eat animals at all (unless they're in extreme desperate circumstances of course) I also realized it was likely hurting everyone; the slaughterhouse worker, the consumer, the health care system, zoonotic disease, on and on....
I became very intrigued by nutrition most notably. If the healthiest way to be is vegan then why kill animals at all?
So, now I have devoted my entire life to learning what I can about nutrition, advocating, and capturing other people's vegan stories for vegan linked. ❤

In Des Moines, IA, I plan monthly dine outs for a group of vegans, vegetarians or want-to be's. Everyone is invited, as long as they order plant food for that evening's dinner.

I became vegetarian ten years prior to becoming vegan. I became vegan for ethical reasons.

I became a vegetarian as a child, then was educated about the dairy industry, and went vegan.

I went vegan after watching Gary Yourofsky's best speech in 2011. I literally did nothing more than stop eating what little animal I was eating already and just ate more of everything else I ate, including french fries. In 2017 I had my bloodwork done to save money on my insurance. My total cholesterol was 121!

In 2017 I remembered that I had my bloodwork done in late 2010, right before I happened to go vegan. My total cholesterol was 168! 6 years of vegan, doing nothing else, brought my LDL and Triglycerides down and HDL up significantly. I also lost my the visceral fat fast that had been progressively accumulating just like my father, and both of my grandfathers. And still now at 50 in 2023 I'm basically the same as I was when I was in my late 20's. And, I no longer get sick. Before going vegan I would usually get sick twice a year at the change of the seasons; hence the reason I had my bloodwork done in 2010.

All of this intrigued me. So, I started listening to doctors on YouTube. I also just started walking in my neighborhood for the first time. So, I would take these long walks and absorb so much of it that I started eating more whole plant food, digging deeper into nutrition, and that leads a little into science, biochemistry, anatomy, evolution, and logic, looking at how others are doing around me, how I've improved but my family didn't when they were in their 30's. I'm now 50 with the same body I had in my 20's and very sedentary with all this editing and not being very happy with walking in this neighborhood anymore.

In 2017 I realized everyone can be vegan and may even be significantly healthier eating a well planned vegan diet. I asked, "is there any reason to eat animals?" and no one could justify it for anything other than social conformity.

I realized in 2017 I needed to become an advocate. So I started VeganLinked as a website directory but didn't have the budget or help to do much with it. I took a break from working on the site after a few months into it and just left it on autopilot while I was building up the YouTube.com/VeganLinked channel.

In the beginning of 2023 I spent almost 2 months relocating the site to a better server, troubleshooting, and getting the core functionality sufficient enough to at least be usable, something I can use alongside the growing channel.

I had always wanted to have a directory and do something meaningful with video work. I use to try merging the two together and do this with musicians for fun on the weekends. I was also a weeding videographer on the weekends. My regular day job was a mental health counselor for 15 years; prior to taking my business neofilm.us (AKA Live in the Music) on fulltime in 2011.

As neofilm, I did a lot with some local restaurants that I had built relationships with over the decades but I gave all that up when I started VeganLinked. I just couldn't continue working for businesses doing exactly the opposite of what I'm all about.

In 2020 my main clients for neofilm (data centers) deemed me "non essential" due to COVID. So I started doing everything I could for VeganLinked and now this passion project occupies my time more than a full time job. This is what has led me to doing almost nothing other than VeganLinked up to this point in March 2023...

I have already captured enough content for the rest of the 2023 from my work in 2022. But there's still a lot left to edit. I'm about to start traveling again though in April kicking off a trip to Fort Lauderdale Florida for interviews at the Vegan Bodybuilding Competition. I'll be trying to get a few in route. May, June, July are booked up enough now too. I can't wait to look at it all come this time next year. 🙂 I'm hoping the channel will break 100k subscribers this year!