Food is the natural medicine provided by Mother Earth.

Before I went vegan, I ate for the simple pleasure of satisfying my taste buds. Tons of fried foods, cheeses, pizza, burgers, pasta, bread, all of the good stuff. I went vegetarian when I was 19 because I saw a PETA video about the realities of slaughterhouses and factory farming. I never looked back after that day and now I am celebrating a decade meat-free.

Even then, becoming a vegetarian wasn’t for health reasons.

In March of 2016, I came across Earthlings on Netflix as a recommended documentary. This was when I was freshly sober, just over two months in, and I was really into health-related documentaries at the time.

I watched Earthlings once, and my life has been changed forever.

The last two and a half years have just been completely engulfing myself in the vegan lifestyle and learning more and more. There were so many things being said about the vegan diet that didn’t make sense to me. People were saying I wasn’t going to get enough protein, or iron, or calcium, or vitamin d, or vitamin b12.

The reaction from the people around me was shocking!

Nobody has ever cared about what nutrients I was getting before I went vegan. I doubt they even paid attention to their OWN nutrient intake; I know I never did. This is when I started doing massive amounts of research. I’ve watched basically every documentary out there and read countless articles from both viewpoints.

Something interesting I came across after it was pointed out to me, was that almost all published data concluding that meat and dairy products benefit your health are actually sponsored by the meat and dairy industry. Everywhere you look, people are profiting off of the cruelty and slaughtering of innocent and sentient beings.

I’m only going to go over one example: The American Heart Association.

They completely promote the Vegetarian and Vegan Diet here.

This article goes over the importance of eating a well-balanced diet and how the vegetarian diet can be extremely beneficial to your heart health and prolong your life. Something extremely important that people everywhere should read is this:

“Protein: You don’t need to eat foods from animals to have enough protein in your diet. Plant proteins alone can provide enough of the essential and non-essential amino acids, as long as sources of dietary protein are varied and caloric intake is high enough to meet energy needs.”

This debunks anyone’s ignorant rebuttal of “You’re not going to get enough protein.”

They also have an article about how red meat can cause and worsen heart disease. They go on about how plant protein options are actually better for your heart health and even suggest a soy-protein substitute.

Why is it then, when you go to the Heart-Check foods section under Featured Meals, out of the four they have featured, one of them include red meat? Even though they clearly stated how bad it is for you?

If you click on the featured meal, it brings you to this recipe page. If you look right below the photo, it clearly says, “This Heart-Check Certified recipe is brought to you by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff.”

Cowspiracy goes over a lot of that, and I urge you to do some research for yourself.

Today, I am not here to rant about veganism and all of the wonderful things it can do for ourselves and the planet but to show you how easy it is to get all of the nutrients you need. Yes, it may be hard at first if you’re used to convenience foods and take-out, but I promise that it becomes so easy and second nature to choose the foods your body needs; Not what it wants.

Now, to be honest, my first two years of veganism were not very healthy. I was eating a lot of processed foods, and still cooking a lot of things in oil. There is soooo much vegan junk food out there, like chips, Oreos, pasta, fries! I can go on and on.

Even though I’ve been eating poorly, as far as veganism goes, I have still lost 50 pounds!!

I have been obese my whole life, and have tried every fad diet out there. The one thing I never tried though, was eating a diet abundant with colorful and nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables.

It seems like this would be a no-brainer since parents everywhere have been yelling “eat your vegetables” for decades, but almost 70% aren’t eating the recommended amount of daily fruits and vegetables. Even the CDC agrees that the diet that most Americans are consuming is the leading cause of heart disease, heart attack, diabetes, and many other weight-related issues. So what can we do to make sure we get in the nutrients we need?

The easiest way for me is to try to get in all colors of the rainbow.

There are tons of different resources online if you just search “food color guide.” I’m just going to show you this one that I found that I really liked. I thought it was super informative and easy to understand.

This has helped me so much with trying to eat healthily and I try to eat as many colors as I can. Also, I’d like to point out that before expanding my knowledge of different fruits and vegetables, I was not a big fan of a lot of them. Now, after learning how to prepare them and cook them properly, I love so many more foods than I did before.

This doesn’t mean that junk food, or your standard “comfort foods” aren’t delicious, and I believe that moderation is key! Just try to limit the intake of processed, sugary, salty and oily foods while increasing the amount whole, plant-based foods of many different colors of the rainbow.

Each color represents a different medicine your body needs.

Doctors are so quick to prescribe you medications, and skip telling you this information; That food is the best natural medicine out there. As soon as you realize they are only trying to profit over your health and look at the information yourself, it will be so much easier to take control of your health.

I am going to take you all on my trip to healthy living.

I have a binge eating disorder that I’m trying to overcome, and I still “relapse” every now and then. However, I have trying to truly eat healthily, and not starve myself, and stick with a lifestyle that is sustainable and nutritious. Be careful with the fad diets and people who tell you to eat 1200 calories or less. Anyone who is of an average weight and eating less than 1200 calories is putting their body into starvation mode and can cause more damage than good. When your body gets into this “mode” it stores fats more because it is trying to protect itself from starvation. This is why when you eat a deficit of too many calories, you gain it back immediately when you have one “cheat” meal.

https://tdeecalculator.net/ This guide will tell you what you should actually be consuming based on your measurements and goals for sustainable weight loss (or weight gain if that’s what you’re aiming for.)

One of the most helpful things I have learned along the way is that you don’t want to “diet.” Dieting is the idea of restricting yourself of something in order to lose weight. This usually results in people losing a bunch of weight, stopping the diet because they reached their goals, and gaining all of their weight back because their eating habits are not sustainable for weight loss. Who wants to continue to starve themselves forever?!

I know I don’t! That’s why I have started researching so much into this. I was sick of the typical Yo-yo diet scam that’s been fed to me since a kid. If anyone who has a weight problem can relate, comment below!

I am too nervous to post a before picture yet because I am completely ashamed of my body and what it has become, but I will eventually. I want to bring you on this journey with me of veganism and weight loss.

Since I’ve learned to like different fruits and vegetables when I didn’t think I would, I think that eventually, I can learn to like to exercise? Maybe?

Thank you so much for being here. I love you and I’m grateful for your existence. I hope this helped you in some way. Be sure to subscribe for e-mail updates for when I post a new blog. I post regularly about veganism, minimalism, personal development, self-love, and weight loss. If you have any questions, leave them below in a comment, or message me via the Contact Page. I’d love to hear from you.

Also, I offer tarot readings for anyone wanting answers or clarity to anything in life. Check out the Tarot Section on the Service page and then reach out to me.

You are a beautiful soul.

xoxo

Cowspiracy: https://amzn.to/2wUNVU0