How Tuning Into My Intuition Improved My Health and Helped Me to Shed Over 30 Pounds
When I first put these pictures side by side I couldn't believe my eyes!!
The picture from 2015 was at the end of my vegan/vegetarian days. This is when I realized that the diet I was eating was slowly killing me. My diet was causing tremendous inflammation in my body, weakening my digestive fire, and causing my weight to climb at an alarming rate. At this point I was up over 30 pounds from where I was in the spring and I was left feeling frustrated once again.
Before and after - a great example of what your body can look like when you tune into and listen to your intuition.
I was frustrated because I was consuming a super clean diet. This is what an average day looked like.
A fresh green juice for breakfast, a green smoothie for lunch, and a soup or salad at dinner. On weekends I would treat myself to a gluten free pizza and some popcorn and that's it. It just didn't add up!! How could my healthy diet be causing me to gain so much weight and so fast??
When I figured out that my diet was to damp and caused my digestive fire to go out, I turned to Ayurveda principles and did one of the most hardest things I had to do at the time.
I had to reintroduce meat back into my diet to stimulate my digestive fire. It also meant that I had to give up the damp foods, no more juices, smoothies or my beloved salads.
(Read more about meat therapy here and here)
It was hard for me to accept that I needed to include animal protein in my diet. For the last five years I had been listening to people who claimed that the vegan and vegetarian diets worked for everyone. The science they presented looked leggit, and for the first little while we did feel pretty good.
When I was vegan, I firmly believed that everyone in this world could that way, and those who tried and failed, were doing it wrong. I didn't even believe Joshua Rosenthal, the founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, who taught us that we are all bio-individuals and that we all require unique diets. That's how set I was in my ways and Anthony was right there along side of me with his beliefs.
It wasn't until the scale tipped 150 pounds and I knew that I had to make some changes. I had to accept that my diet wasn’t working for my body anymore.
I realized that I had not been paying attention. I was missing the signals that my body was giving me.
Leading up to this time, there were small warning signs, that I ignored because I didn't want to go back to eating animal protein. I thought if I ate enough sprouts, quinoa, beans and hemp seeds, I would get the protein my body required and that I would thrive.
I ignored the main principle that I was taught in nutrition school being that we are all bio-individuals (there's that word again) and that we all require unique diets. I choose to ignore so much because I really wanted to be vegetarian.
I fricken love animals and I am not a fan of the taste or texture of meat, so it made sense for me not to eat meat. But my body didn't agree.
The picture on the right is from last week (March 2018). I am 43 and in the best shape of my life. While my body still isn't perfect (and I don't expect it to be), I can say that I am able to maintain my weight with ease - no dieting required, no counting calories, only whole foods that my body can thrive on, yoga and walking.
I include animal protein in my diet, but we buy straight from local farmers who ethically raise their animals without the use of antibiotics or confined spaces, which is super important to Anthony and I. And I don't eat it at every meal or every day.
It's has taken time to repair the damage I have done to my gut. Removing beans, legumes, gluten, grains, corn, dairy (except I can tolerate small amounts of feta), has played at pivotal role in regaining my health.
If you are struggling with your weight and/or health and need help tapping into your unique food blueprint, book a complimentary health strategy session with me here. You deserve to feel good in your own skin. You deserve to be healthy and happy and we are here to support (and stretch) you on this journey.
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