My name is Tracy R. Jacox. People know me as Ms. Tracy. I am the founder of Original Origins Health and Wellness, LLC. I am the proud daughter and descendant of Vie. She was the third child of my grandparents, MaDear and Dad. Vie was the sister of Francie Mae, Tippy, Lil Bro and Rom. This blog is a way to pay homage to my mother, leaving a legacy of love, laughter and courage. So, you see, VIEbrations was intentionally spelled that way to honor her memory.
My mother transitioned to our ancestral realm at the age of twenty-six. I was five years old and my brother, Kareem, “Bop”, was only eleven months when she passed from liver cancer. She did not use tobacco products, illicit drugs or alcohol. She is alive in me through her spirit and she is my personal guide. This is my story.
I have been in the healthcare field for over thirty years. I began my medical career when I joined the Air Force in 1988. My initial career was as a medical laboratory technician. It was this career that gave me exposure to other various medical careers. I decided that I wanted to become a physician assistant. I have been practicing as a certified physician assistant since Oct 2004. In 2016, I realized the healthcare field was getting it all wrong. We are actually practicing sick care! There is no money in the preventions or the cure. It wasn’t until I went on my own journey of knowing thyself, which included optimizing my own health and wellness, that I realized we needed to do something different. Thus, the birth of Original Origins Health and Wellness, LLC. I have been practicing holistic health and wellness since then.
You see, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when I was in my mid-thirties. The only symptom I had was a yeast infection that would not go away in spite of multiple treatments. I did not have the typical signs and symptoms of diabetes: increased thirst, increased hunger and/or increased urination. If you experience any of these symptoms, please go and get evaluated by a medical professional. Well, I had some labs done and my blood sugar was over 300mg/dl (a non-diabetic level should be between 70-100mg/dl). My A1c (a 90-120-day average of glucose level), was 10.6%. A non-diabetic level should be 5.7% or less. I was in bad shape, y’all!
I was immediately started on insulin and prescribed multiple pills. Here is the irony of it all. I was on medications that kept my blood sugar at an acceptable level. I had a false sense of security, so I foolishly kept my same routine. I had a love affair with fast food and restaurants. I kept enjoying my number 11 with an additional cheeseburger and a diet coke. How crazy is that?! I was injecting insulin in my abdomen multiple times a day, pricking my fingers multiple times a day and taking multiple medications multiple times daily; however, my blood sugars were now running between 70-100mg/dl, so I continued sabotaging my health daily. I had a safety net with my medications, so there was no real incentive for me to make any authentic lifestyle changes. I began to make some lifestyle changes and was able to eventually get off of the insulin; however, I was still choking down poisonous pills multiple times a day.
When I lived in Texas, I was at my heaviest weight as an adult. I am just shy of five feet three inches tall and tipped the scales at 230 pounds! In the African-American community, it is culturally acceptable to be “thick”. I did not realize that I had gained that much weight. I weighed anywhere between 140-150 pounds when I was in the Air Force. I just about fainted when I stepped on the scale on that day. My journey started on that very day.
I was working out like a maniac; however, I still didn’t make the changes in my nutrition. I figured since I was working out, I could still somewhat eat as I pleased. I eventually was able to get down to 170 pounds or so, not too bad. I managed to lose a little more weight and maintained it for years. Life happened and when I arrived in South Carolina in 2015, my weight had escalated to 213 pounds! I had vowed to not allow my weight to go above 180 pounds, even though it was still too heavy. There was a lot of guilt and shame that went with that, especially as a medical professional. I knew better. I also knew my family’s history was significant for diabetes, hypertension and glaucoma.
In October 2016, I decided to become vegan. That means I stopped consuming animal products, including fish, dairy and eggs. The problem with that is I stopped cold turkey. I definitely would not recommend doing it this way. The problem with being labeled a vegan, is that there are a lot of mock “foods” that are advertised as plant-based, yet they are highly processed, which is still not healthy for us. I kept researching information about health and wellness. Lo and behold, I discovered a whole food, plant-based lifestyle! This literally changed my life and the trajectory of my health and well-being. It is because of this lifestyle, I was able to get completely off of all of my medications!
A whole food, plant-based lifestyle focuses on eating fresh foods from these four food groups: fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes. The first reaction that I usually get from most people is “I AM NOT GIVING UP MEAT, ARE YOU CRAZY?!” or “WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY PROTEIN FROM?” My response is, “Where does the protein you consume get it’s protein from”? Think about it, what does a cow eat? It’s not eating other cows, pigs or chickens. The truth is that all primary source of protein is from plants. The largest mammals on earth are vegetarian/vegan: elephants, giraffes, horses, gorillas, you get the idea.
The mission of Original Origins Health and Wellness is to educate, equip and empower our community to adopt a predominately whole food, plant-based lifestyle; which will improve quality of life, optimize health and wellness, prevent, delay, reverse or eliminate chronic illnesses that plague our community. I say predominately because I am a realist. I know that most people will continue to consume animal products. I would rather have those that entrust me with their health to have some animal products in it, ten percent or less, with ninety percent of more of total nutrition coming from whole food plant-based foods. My caveat is our diets have no room for pork! I don’t compromise on this, not up for debate. I came up with a slogan, “If you eat of the pig, a grave you will dig”. We are literally killing ourselves with food. I refer to it as self-inflicted wounds.
We are capable of doing anything if we commit our minds to doing it. As the saying goes, how does one eat an elephant? The answer is one bite at a time. I have my patients and clients commit to making one to two changes at a time and build on it. Those baby steps add up over time. Exercise is important to our health and wellness; however, it only constitutes fifteen to twenty percent of our total health and wellness. You don’t have to kill yourself at a gym. Just walk thirty minutes a day, even if you walk ten minutes at a time. It adds up. Eighty to eighty-five percent of our true health and wellness stems from what we put in our bodies. We have to remember that we are living beings and we need to feed our divine temples with living foods that give life, not dead flesh that bring death. Imhotep (not Hippocrates), was our ancient Egyptian ancestor, who excelled in healing and medicine, said “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. We are what we eat. We take better care of our pets and our cars than we do ourselves and our families.
Let me make it clear that I am not anti-medication. Medication has a place in our lifestyle if warranted. My position is we need to have more education and less medication. I work with my patients and clients to taper them off of their medications. Healthcare professionals overprescribe these man-made, synthetic chemicals, which are poisonous to us, especially to melanated people. Studies are coming out frequently that many of these medications are carcinogenic (cancer causing). It has been my experience that medications, especially over time, are causing kidney and liver disease. Please take the time to read through the package inserts included with your medication for potential side effects. Also, educate yourself about what condition your medications are for.
As you can imagine, I receive a lot of resistance when I expose people to this whole food plant-based lifestyle. Some people say I am practicing alternative medicine. I have a different view point. I am educating the community about getting back to our original way of life. We were never designed to consume the “foods” in our present society. Our ancestors ate fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains and legumes. Very little animal products were in their diets. My challenge to you is to connect to your authentic self and get back to your original way of living. I consider our current, traditional way of practicing westernized medicine as alternative. The Standard American Diet (SAD), is literally killing us. The American diet is highly processed, full of chemicals, hormones, antibiotics and gmo’s (genetically modified organisms), which are contributing to our current health crisis.
So, here I am, Vie’s baby girl, being obedient to my God-given assignment, as daunting and draining as it may be at times. Once I started doing my own research and discovering the misinformation and downright lies that we have been indoctrinated to believe, I made it my life’s mission, my ministry to expose the truth to as many people possible. What they choose to do with this information is up to the individual. It is my prayer that this life changing, life -saving information will be applied by as many people as possible. We are in a state of emergency when it comes to our health. Melanated people, especially men, are not living to see the age of fifty. Melanated people tend to have more aggressive forms of illnesses, especially cancers and we are dying at a younger age from them. We are not getting run over by buses or suffering from unexpected tragedies of this nature, we are doing it to ourselves, self-inflicted wounds, one fork full at a time. Chronic illnesses and some cancers are preventable in most cases.
Unfortunately, the most severe forms of chronic illnesses and cancers tend to reside in those who are considered at poverty level. This is usually because there is no access to decent grocery stores, healthy food providers or farmer’s markets. We usually refer to these areas as food deserts. Food swamps are areas crowded with corner stores and fast food restaurants, abundant in low quality, unhealthy food options. Studies have shown that residents that live in food swamp/food desert areas develop unhealthy habits of consuming fast food and junk food. As a result, children that live in these areas often have an aversion to vegetables, fruits and other healthy food options. Food swamps tend to have higher obesity rates in adults and children, which is a significant risk for cancers and other chronic illnesses.
The fact is that health issues begin to develop in our bodies when we are around five years old or so. Is that surprising to you? Think about it. We have gotten away from breastfeeding our babies. We are the only mammals who chose to feed our young another species’ milk. There are exceptions to the rule; however, you will not find this anywhere in nature. When have you seen a lion nurse a baby giraffe? Our milk is meant to be species specific. A female’s mammary glands (breasts) were specifically designed to nurse our young. Cow’s milk is specifically designed to be the building block for a sixty to eighty-pound calf to develop into an eight hundred to one-thousand-pound cow. The composition of cow’s milk is specific for calves.
In contrast, the average human baby weighs between six to eight pounds. The average adult human weighs between one hundred twenty to one hundred eighty pounds or so. The fact is humans were NEVER meant to consume cow’s milk. Also, where in nature do you find that an adult mammal goes back to consuming milk once they are weaned from their mother’s teat? The answer is NEVER! We were never meant to consume milk after we wean from our mother’s breast. Most countries who practice breastfeeding their young wean their babies around four to five years of age. This means that not only are we not supposed to drink another species milk; however, we are not meant to consume milk after the age of five years old. Dairy increases the risk of prostate, ovarian, and breast cancers. It also increases the risk of autoimmune conditions such as lupus and uterine fibroids. Dairy also has been linked to osteoporosis (weak bones), which increases the risk of bone fractures. Dairy also increases the risk of chronic illnesses, such as diabetes. Milk does the body good? I don’t think so. It does, however, make the dairy industry very wealthy at the expense of our loved ones.
This is a concern for me because people who live in food deserts/food swamps tend to be recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)/ Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) benefits and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits. This is dictated by the government and these vouchers require recipients to purchase dairy, eggs and cereals. I recently learned that WIC only allows for eleven dollars a month for fresh produce for pregnant women. What’s wrong with that picture? I am not sure if there is a Food Share program available in all areas. I can only speak about the area I live in, Columbia, S.C. Food Share is a program that allows SNAP recipients to use their benefits to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. A large box cost $20 and a small box cost $15; however, SNAP recipients can purchase a large box for $10 and a small box for $5. Food Share provides this service every two weeks. This is one way to be healthy in spite of living in a food desert/food swamp area. I urge SNAP customers to not sell their EBT cards. This is an illegal practice that is common. Some EBT recipients sell their EBT cards for half the value in exchange for cash. Unfortunately, the money is often used to purchase cigarettes, illicit drugs or alcohol, which also contributes to chronic illnesses and cancers. Tobacco use tends to be higher in lower socioeconomic areas. A lot of children are exposed to cigarette smoke while in the womb and/or second-hand smoke.
Change your health, change your life! The beautiful thing about a whole food, plant-based lifestyle is that it reverses, eliminates, prevents and or improves just about every condition. I am a living testimony to that, as well as many of my patients and clients (the ones who actually apply what I ask them to do). I implore you to start making one or two lifestyle changes that will improve the health and wellness for you and your family. You are more valuable than your car or your pet. Give yourself permission to treat yourself better and know that you and your family deserve better health.
A very special thank you to my Auntie Francie Mae for allowing me this amazing platform to speak a truth that has been hidden in plain sight. I also want to thank my beautiful auntie for standing in the gap and being there for my brother and myself in the absence of my mother, Vie.
Tiana, my beautiful, fearless and wise daughter and Vie’s eldest granddaughter, thank you for your wisdom. I am finally taking myself seriously and I QUIT! You bring me joy. I love you more than you know, and I am so very proud of you!
Larry, J. Gunter, a very special thank you for giving me the strength, love, support and courage I needed to bring this to fruition. Let’s keep staying the course!
My dear, sweet mother, Vie, to whom I am forever bonded, thank you for your love and protection from the heavenly realm. I know you are smiling upon your family with pride, giving us the strength to continue this journey. Your spirit lives in me forever.
Please visit my website at www.originaloriginshw.com. I can be contacted at (833) 678-7229 and my e-mail is originaloriginshw@gmail.com. In order to have something you have never had, you have to be willing to do something you have never done. Your health is your wealth, love you guys!