My past journey with the vegan diet.
Lioness Holistic Health- www.lionessholistichealth.com
*Pictured below is an example of how creative I got on this diet. It is loaded tator tots and the "meat" and "dairy" are vegan products*
From the middle of 2013 to the beginning of 2019, I was consuming the vegan diet (besides cheese 3-5 times a year and fish twice a year or less) and to make it all work, I had purchased and consumed all the necessary supplements (I mean ALL) and engaged in tons of research on how to properly navigate this diet. I was the strict "healthy" vegan, and I am someone that is extremely thorough and dedicated when I am passionate about something, especially when it is for compassionate, empathetic, or personal health reasons but within the last 6 mos. of this diet, I began experiencing bouts of dizziness, lightheadedness, and fatigue, an increase in spiritual attacks, and feeling generally weak, achy, and delayed. This was the beginning of surrendering to the fact that I couldn't sustain myself on this diet anymore. I felt very good the first couple years (and I do believe this diet can be a great cleanse plus, I was abstaining from the highly processed GMO foods that are loaded with preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, artificial sweeteners, etc.), but towards the last 1.5-2 yrs., my gut just couldn't digest anything anymore. I was riddled with IBS, SIBO, malabsorption, and leaky gut from all the grains (lectins and phytic acids) that I had been consuming excessively to "get enough protein" on this diet and then in the last month, I broke out with the MOST severe facial eczema that I have ever seen (both in my professional and personal experience, and throughout all of my online research), and NOTHING provided relief. One of the days of this 2-week ride in H E Double hockey sticks, I woke up with my eyes halfway swollen shut! At that point, I went to conventional doctors and they were stumped because my labs were normal. I had just recently got allergy testing (even though I intuitively knew combined with personal research that it wasn't from allergies) but the only positive was corn, something I had been consuming my whole life, and it was only a mild positive.
So, after no success with Conventional Medicine, I started on a self-treatment experimentation journey (not really a new thing as I had already lost faith and trust in the Conventional Medicine world, long before my vegan journey). The first day, I fasted and started on an excellent quality probiotic along with diatomaceous earth 2xday. The next day, I continued the fast, besides a small hemp hearts protein shake and handful of grapes. The third day, there was a slight improvement in the eczema and in the evening, I surrendered to what my body had been telling me long before the severe facial eczema and ate some wild caught Alaskan cod. Literally, the next day, the eczema was 60% gone and it was just the aftermath (extremely torn up dry and flaky skin). So, that evening, I ate half of an organic grass-fed T-bone steak from a local source (yes, even after 5 years of abstaining, it was purely satisfying, delightful, and felt natural, mind, body, and spirit). The 5th day, I ate the other half of the T-bone and as I consumed it, I realized that my eczema and dizziness were gone. My facial skin was 90% back to normal and oddly, my lungs started clearing out mucus that I didn't even realize I had. My eyes felt lighter and began moving around much more smoothly. This was just the beginning. That night, I made homemade beef bone broth and the next day, chicken bone broth, and my health only continued to improve as I continued my journey reintroducing animal products back into my diet.
So, it turns out the vegan diet wasn't right for me (and a lot of others) as a long-term diet and had immensely compromised my health. Yes, I believe it can be a great cleanse and catalyst for healthy dietary changes, but nothing more than that, and definitely not for more than 6 mos.
I ditched the vegan diet but, I have not changed my views and beliefs about the cruel and inhumane mass produced meat factories, the fish and other seafood farms, and the extremely cruel conventional dairy and egg industry. I believe that dairy should only be consumed raw and obtained from a very trusted local source. Eggs should come from your backyard or a known and trusted neighbor's. They should live as natural as possible, which means being pasture raised, fed organic corn and soy free feed, and consistently receiving love and compassion. Red meat should come either from the wild or from local organic regenerative farms that allow them to eat a 100% grass-fed diet and live a natural, joyful, and humane life. When a person hunts their own meat in the wild, they should give prayers and thanks, assist their soul with peacefully leaving their body, and use every single part of that animal that sacrificed their life for u...as the native Americans did/do. Just as humans have soul contracts, so do animals. God gifted us these animals because their souls agreed to it before incarnating on earth. No, I do not believe that God is content with the mass produced meat that is injected with antibiotics, hormones, etc., fed non-organic grains (grains in general are not ruminants natural diet, period), but God gave us free will and it all has a purpose that we may not understand, yet. Because God gave us and honors our free will, it is up to you to participate in doing the most ethical thing for the animals, your health, the environment, and the economy. Ask yourself what your money is supporting when you buy the mass produced factory farmed animal products.
I prefer eating healthy, intuitively, mindfully, and ethically.
If you are someone struggling on the vegan diet and thinking about moving on from it or were thinking about switching to the vegan diet, please check out my Holistic Health Coaching services.
