Dr. Ro's Ten Secrets to Livin' Healthy

Secret 1 To Change Your Life, You Have to Change Your Mind My mother, Larvenia Brock, who got pregnant with me, her only child, when she was 44 years old, died from stomach cancer when I was 9. She was diagnosed with the deadly disease the same year I was born. Larvenia had a very independent, entrepreneurial spirit-she owned a successful cab company in Washington, D.C., which she ran during the week, and operated a thriving juke joint on weekends-but she couldn't translate her business smarts into smart health choices. Though my mother in her younger days was a shapely bombshell with an hourglass figure, she didn't lose her pregnancy weight after my birth and remained heavy throughout my childhood. To add insult to injury, healthy eating wasn't on her radar screen. Believe me, you rarely get stomach cancer unless something is really wrong with your diet. And something was definitely wrong with my mother's diet. Larvenia never met a steak she didn't like; she ate chitlins on holidays and downed pig feet and whiskey on weekends at the juke joint. Though vegetables were plentiful in our house, they were usually prepared with lard or fatback and either deep-fried or slow-cooked until all the nutrients leached out. That diet finally caught up with my mother, and she became very sick. The overweight powerhouse I had known for my first nine years ended up confined to bed, a tiny, shrunken shell of her former self. During her final days she was unable to keep down even a forkful of watermelon, which had been one of her favorites. Her best friend, Rosetta Lewis, would send me off for it, saying, "Run to the store as fast as your little legs will carry you." I did, thinking if I could just make it to Safeway, get my mom's watermelon, and race back without delay, I could somehow stop the bandit that was robbing me of my precious mother. I was wrong. Even the love and unyielding dedication of a 9-year-old could not stop the inevitable. Finally, the person I depended on for everything, even life itself, died. The devastation of that blow crippled my spirit. On her deathbed, Larvenia left instructions for Rosetta to raise me, with the assistance of my extended family, to adulthood. Rosetta was a wonderful second mother to me, but unfortunately her health choices weren't any better than Larvenia's had been. She overate on a regular basis. She had lived through the Depression, so throwing away food was unthinkable. A native of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Rosetta was accustomed to eating standard southern fare: greens seasoned with fatback, pig feet, potato salad, chitlins, pork chops, and anything smothered in rich gravy, including crispy fried chicken and rabbit. Over the years, I watched Rosetta battle heart disease, high blood pressure, and breast cancer-all illnesses that probably could have been prevented, or at least delayed or lessened, had she chosen a healthier lifestyle. Despite the duration and variety of her ailments, Rosetta lived to be 86, so I got to have her with me until 1996. Some of you might ask, "What's wrong with that? She lived a long life, right?" Well, yes, she did, but it certainly was a hard one. Her kidneys had failed, her heart problems weakened her, and eight years before she died she suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed on her left side. That she had a long life is true. But was her quality of life what it could have been? I think not. A Product of the Environment By now I have learned an enormous amount about food and physical activity and their relationship to health, but when I was growing up I had no concept of a healthy diet. I ate what my family ate: country ham and fried salt fish (sodium count through the roof), scrapple, fried potatoes and onions, fried apples, hoe-cake (a corn bread of white cornmeal and water cooked on top of the stove in a skillet), and my grandma's "stand-up-straight" coffee (we called it thBrock, Rovenia M. is the author of 'Dr. Ro's Ten Secrets to Livin' Healthy', published 2007 under ISBN 9780553585582 and ISBN 0553585584.