MY VEGAN STORY
I had been feeling for quite a long time that I and we as a couple needed to be a bit more healthy. We were moving towards this steadily but we were eating a lot of dairy. For a few years now I was trying to cut down on meat. We were aiming to eat meat a few times a week like say three times. Then we wanted to eat fish at least once a week. In fact we were eating meat on a Friday not for a religious reason more to do with tradition.
I was feeling pretty good about our steady process to get healthier. I had also started to think about ejecting all toxins out of my life. However, to be honest I was not sure how to do that and I am still working that out.
For a long time I thought that I could not do much about my diet, and I thought I was doing all I could. I had this niggle (which I would call the Holy Spirit) in the back of my mind though that this was not the case but I didn’t know how. I was starting to look at recipes now and again. I would go through phases of looking at my recipe book. With lockdown I had lots of time to bake and try new recipes, I was trying to cut down on sugar but it was really hard and I was failing on a regular basis. I did though have good diet in mind thinking about the fertility journey which we were/are on, but that is another blog for another time.
That was July, it’s now nearly May and my life looks very different particularly in the area of diet.
Back in August on top of Lockdown I was diagnosed with a health condition during my fertility journey which was a complete surprise to us which span us into a whirlwind. It really took me out and set me back, thankfully I had been thinking that diet, supplements etc could make a massive difference when it came to diseases and sicknesses. Still, I never thought that I would need to have these thought processes. I thought I would just be doing it in a precautionary matter and not a fighting one.
Thankfully work gave me a bit of time off and my husband and I decided to go on the weekend away we had planned which just so happened to fall August bank holiday weekend coincidentally (though if you have ever read any of my other blogs you will know that I don’t believe in coincidences)
The reason perhaps why I never felt I could go the whole hog when it came to eating healthily is that I thought it would be too expensive, and I didn't have the time to make everything from scratch I mean why bother when companies do it for you. I imagine there are many of us that think like this.
The weekend was nice although sadly there was a cloud over it because I had not had a scan at that point and didn’t know the extent of what was happening. To some degree I still don’t but I know as much as I can. I know I am being mysterious but I am still right in the middle and although I feel emotionally much better than I did we have a long way to go, although I have lost count of the times I have been prayed for so believing for divine healing.
As soon as I got the diagnosis I was on google looking up foods that could beat it. So straight away I started to put these things in our diet I looked at recipes with such things as citrus, walnuts and watercress three important foods.
When we got back we watched a youtube about a lady who went from near death to full health by going vegan or what I would call a daniel fast. This is because vegan does not cut out sugar and processed, in fact there are many processed food designed for vegans which I kind of thing defeats the object of going vegan. Still some people go vegan because they don't like meat, others because they don't want to kill others and then there is those who want to live a more ethical lifestyle. I suppose you would put me in the group that wants to live a more ethical lifestyle but that has to do with my Christian beliefs about being good stewards, I believe we should be way a head of greenpeace at Christians but I go off on a tangent.
So I had tried being a vegan a couple of times, though I would call it a daniel fast. I remember for two years, in January. So that would be no sugar, no processed and just beans, lentils, vegetables and nuts no dairy and no meat. Both times I tried to be a vegan in the past I have failed. My body felt like it was going through a blender, I really felt the detox and the feeling of withdrawal of sugar and chemicals my body was going through. Plus I always felt constantly hungry and on top of that I seemed to have no energy and might have ended up having borderline anemia.
This time was different, perhaps it was because I felt like I had no other option, I had to do all that I could to get my body healthy and beat this thing trying to attack me. Straight away I kicked out sugar and processed foods which I had starting doing but this time it was drastic.
I really went through a melt down at first because I didn't know what to cook. I read lots of Instagram's and blogs about recipes and some would say this is good for you and others would say something else was good for you. I didn't know who to believe I just had to be guided by the holy spirit.
I was concerned that everything I ate could be causing more harm than good, but I just had to move forward with the knowledge and revelation if you like which I had.
I found there were all kinds of ways to substitute dairy in my diet. I discovered that nuts are amazing they can be used to make cream, cheese, powder much more than just a snack. I realised that vegetables are so versatile. A friend sent me a post about how you can make sweet potato toast, what an amazing find. It is delicious with avocado, nut butter and if you weren't cutting out sugar you could have it with jam or chocolate spread but then again we are talking about being healthy here.
I think one of the reasons we either give up on being healthy or we think its too much hassle is because we have been conditioned to think this way. Everything has been shouting at us that we don't have the time and well it's so easy to pick up something in the supermarket. If they are selling it, it can't possibly harm us could it? I used to think people who look at the labels of foods or the calories were extra but now I look at the ingredients of everything. I want to know exactly what I am putting in my body. Actually I only try to buy raw ingredients and organic where-ever I can. We have a local farmer who brings us Veg and it's so good.
I realised that I personally have gotten so lazy when it came to cooking, lockdown even before the diagnosis I had time to eat differently. Some years back I had decided that gluten was not my friend so I started to eat gluten free bread but I thought gosh how many chemicals are in this so I stopped and started making alternative lunches.
Actually with a bit of planning with both our time and finances we can have a healthy diet, it just takes a mind shift like many things in life so if I can do it you can do it.
