The last three or so months have been a whirl of extremes.
All it takes is one day of being seriously sick of something or someone to make you crave a change and our impulses start nagging us to break-up, leave, stop, begin, cut out, or introduce.
So maybe there are simple solutions to complicated issues. But the solution itself is just in theory; the practice itself is what’s challenging.
It’s because we become so used to our conventions that the small repetitive patterns in life are hardest BY FAR to break.
In practice we rarely challenge our daily routine. ’Old habits die hard,’ to put it mildly.
Some time in July I went to my doctor who told me I would have to stay on a pill for an indefinite period of time because my hormones were “off”. I had been on it previously and HATED it so I never continued taking it. Randomly one day I purchased a book on natural healing and became kind of inspired by it. It’s main message was: your diet is slowly ruining your health and vitality. I never thought to worry about my diet, since weight was never a big issue for me and I never had to deal with a serious disease, but I figured what do I have to lose.
Let me tell you what my lifetime eating habits were. I’ve been a vegetarian for almost twenty years now, but 85% of my diet consisted of refined starches (pastas and breads) and dairy (CHEESE!!), add to that the cooked oils, milk chocolate, and yummy pies – I was definitely giving vegetarians a bad name.
When you hear about the positive impacts that healthy food has on mood, thinking, energy and behavior, the first thing that comes to mind is “obviously” – an instinct quickly forgotten or ignored. In reality the effects are not enough to sway the average diet – we are surrounded by an abundance of food, plus the millions of brands, diet fads, and clashing professional opinions etc. – how do we know who to trust these days when we are constantly being bombarded by false claims and paid off research studies. The supermarkets are filled with foods that aren’t ‘real’ – stuff that is made to taste and feel like food but is really just goo of artificial flavors and textures – toxins, put simply. Fresh vegetables are either eaten as a side dish or cooked to death before they can be considered an entree. Learning of the linkage between mild and serious ailments and what we put into our bodies is definitely an ‘AHA!’ moment.
So I went vegan. I went unprocessed. I went completely plant-based. I went Green Juice. I went 75% raw food. Call it what you want, I prefer ‘rad healthy’. Truth is, I still feel like I’m climbing a huge mountain. Here and there I succumb to certain cravings, but for the most part I no longer want most of the foods I used to love.
Clearly it takes more than a few months to undue damage that has been done over a twenty year period, but put aside the physical changes (all for the better in my opinion), my energy is better, my mood is much more stable, and my mind seems much clearer. The best part - knowing that I may not have to take any medications in the near future or hopefully EVER.
My pre-med cousin says it could be a placebo effect, and I’m sure there’s something to that (I’m all for mind-over-matter), but if there is one sure way of knowing anything, it’s when you experiment on yourself. My body doesn’t lie to me and until it tells me differently, I will keep feeding it only the best.
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