I have been eight days vegan. And honestly, you would think I just stepped out of (or into) a mental hospital! I am lethargic, mood swingy worse than I was when they thought I had BP, and just so tense and edgy all the time I thought I was going crazy! I have found the answer to my question, and that is that I was having BAD dairy withdrawal.
I have an allergy to dairy which causes me to double over in pain and have gut issues if I ingest milk, cheese, or other dairy products. It never stopped me though, I ate tons. of. cheese. I am embarrassed a little bit to say how much cheese I ate. My sister is a picky eater (she is the more severely autistic of the two of us), and one of the things she eats en masse is cheese. And my mom does not grocery shop often so cheese was a way of life for me. When I was really chunky I used to eat 12-14 slices of cheese a day plus whatever was making its way into my food. I literally could not get enough of it! And my gut began flaring up so bad I was afraid I was going to destroy my GI tract if I continued. So, I gave it up completely cold turkey. :-)
For those of you who don't know about casein and casomorphins, here is a short explanation that is not overly scientific. Cows milk contains casein, a protein which breaks down in baby cow's tummy as casomorphins, which help create a bond between the mother and baby, as well as to calm baby cow down when she's looking for food. It breaks down to have a similar structure as an opioid, so it causes happiness, euphoria, and all that jazz in humans. So, naturally, when you withhold your supply, so to speak, it causes withdrawal symptoms in the same way that doing a detox would. I have gone vegan many times and had everything from severe headaches to gut issues to mind-numbing mood swings. But since I have mild hormonal issues as it stands, the mood swings usually are the stars of the show. :-/
I have read a few different blogs and they do seem to say the same thing about dairy withdrawal. And when you ate as much cheese as I did, it will be extreme to the max. One blog predicts that it will take 1-3 months before the symptoms completely subside. I have never been a vegan continuously for more than 2-3 weeks at a time, but the symptoms did tend to lighten up towards the end of it. :-) Maybe it doesn't do much for the glamorous side of veganism, but you'll be glad when you don't have all that junk in your body anymore!
One thing I've also noticed when my mom cooks bacon or chicken noodle soup... it smells super strong, like the air is saturated with it. I guess it's because I don't eat meat or dairy that everything just smells super intense, but it does! It smells like it should be bad for you, and most of the time it is! I can't imagine eating it, I bet it would be sensory overload. Plus, bacon by itself is nasty. It tastes like eating a greasy shoelace. :-D
Anyhoo, I just thought I would share with ya'll. I don't know which blog will ultimately be my home, but I kind of like this one. :-) We will see. Be blessed all, and enjoy the journey.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Day 12ish: Struggles and Revelations
I have been awol for a time. I have been trying to stay vegan, but right now it's been a real struggle. I don't entirely get why, because I have always felt better being a vegan. But I still struggle sometimes, and it has been made obvious by my increasing weight. I saw a 2-- number for a brief flash, and that really freaked me out. I have been below 200 for several weeks now, and even though the number went back down after performing necessary functions, it really bothered me.
I have been reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, partially because I love philosophy, psychology, and most of the things he is discussing, but it is a heavy book. It has at least 600 pages of continuous cruelty to animals, whether through experimentation or factory farming. He is honest in his observations because I have seen some of the experiments via Earthlings and a lot of Psychology classes. Some of the things just make you cringe, even though protection of animals has significantly improved since the 1970s and 80s, it's still not 100 percent. The majority of animal experimentation is on rats/mice, rodents, and rabbits as far as what I experienced directly, but the animals still are experimented on with no guarantee of outcome. They still perform shocks on animals as far as I know. So anyway, it is some heavy reading and I haven't gotten to the factory farming yet. I'll let you know how it goes.
Anyhoo, all that to shock-start my veganism again. Because I have a number of food and medication allergies, it's almost 100 percent necessary for me to be vegan. Because I'm allergic to a whole class of antibiotics, as well as dairy and soy, it's almost impossible for me to eat meat, eggs, and dairy without having some kind of reaction. This should be motivation enough to stay away from it. But sometimes it isn't! I am so used to eating meat, dairy, and eggs, and having people give me shit about being vegan (I get my protein from beans, nuts, lentils, greens, and a number of things, thanks for asking), sometimes I still fail at it. This totally sucks!
I know a lot of this has been due to laziness on my part, and also due to nasty approval addiction. This is a long complicated story, but ya'll already know most of it so I won't expand on it to the point of being annoying. Suffice it to say, I want to make everyone happy but can't, and it sucks! I know I need to do what makes me happy, but I don't really know what that is anymore. But I will make the effort to find out. :-)
Have a great evening all, be blessed and enjoy the journey.
I have been reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, partially because I love philosophy, psychology, and most of the things he is discussing, but it is a heavy book. It has at least 600 pages of continuous cruelty to animals, whether through experimentation or factory farming. He is honest in his observations because I have seen some of the experiments via Earthlings and a lot of Psychology classes. Some of the things just make you cringe, even though protection of animals has significantly improved since the 1970s and 80s, it's still not 100 percent. The majority of animal experimentation is on rats/mice, rodents, and rabbits as far as what I experienced directly, but the animals still are experimented on with no guarantee of outcome. They still perform shocks on animals as far as I know. So anyway, it is some heavy reading and I haven't gotten to the factory farming yet. I'll let you know how it goes.
Anyhoo, all that to shock-start my veganism again. Because I have a number of food and medication allergies, it's almost 100 percent necessary for me to be vegan. Because I'm allergic to a whole class of antibiotics, as well as dairy and soy, it's almost impossible for me to eat meat, eggs, and dairy without having some kind of reaction. This should be motivation enough to stay away from it. But sometimes it isn't! I am so used to eating meat, dairy, and eggs, and having people give me shit about being vegan (I get my protein from beans, nuts, lentils, greens, and a number of things, thanks for asking), sometimes I still fail at it. This totally sucks!
I know a lot of this has been due to laziness on my part, and also due to nasty approval addiction. This is a long complicated story, but ya'll already know most of it so I won't expand on it to the point of being annoying. Suffice it to say, I want to make everyone happy but can't, and it sucks! I know I need to do what makes me happy, but I don't really know what that is anymore. But I will make the effort to find out. :-)
Have a great evening all, be blessed and enjoy the journey.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Day 11: Still Doing Well, Mostly.
Needless to say, I've been exhaustively paying the price for my food bender, but I am feeling much better today. For some reason I have been crazy hungry (possibly dehydrated) and eating everything in sight! I am hoping that once I get 100 percent back on board, some of the weird cravings will stop. I have PMDD and right around mid-month, my moods and hunger go crazy! Then I'm fine again. I am actually considering going to see a doc about it and then maybe it will level out some. :-) (And I apologize to those on my Girl on Fire page who put up with my PMDD, lol!)
I have been meeting some new friends by way of Facebook groups. For those of you unfamiliar with groups vs pages, a page is mostly one person posting and others commenting on those posts, and the groups are multiple people posting with one or two moderators making sure no one steps out of bounds or posts against the grain, so to speak. Having the outlet of groups is great, it is so much fun to learn new things from people. I am a non-denominational Christian (or more specifically, a member of a church with a long name that states its autonomy. Fancy fixings there!) and one of my favorites is Christian Vegans. I have met some amazing people there and have learned so much about the Bible from a lot of different perspective! And as a runner, I am a participant in a Vegan athletes group, of which I am too new to know the full name, but it is a lot of fun!
On an unrelated note, here is a fancy new smoothie pictured somewhere other than my bookshelf:
I have been meeting some new friends by way of Facebook groups. For those of you unfamiliar with groups vs pages, a page is mostly one person posting and others commenting on those posts, and the groups are multiple people posting with one or two moderators making sure no one steps out of bounds or posts against the grain, so to speak. Having the outlet of groups is great, it is so much fun to learn new things from people. I am a non-denominational Christian (or more specifically, a member of a church with a long name that states its autonomy. Fancy fixings there!) and one of my favorites is Christian Vegans. I have met some amazing people there and have learned so much about the Bible from a lot of different perspective! And as a runner, I am a participant in a Vegan athletes group, of which I am too new to know the full name, but it is a lot of fun!
On an unrelated note, here is a fancy new smoothie pictured somewhere other than my bookshelf:
The smoothie recipe was a slight bust as I realized if you throw blackberries and raspberries into a beverage you'll be picking seeds out of your teeth for the next five hours, lol! Still, I basically put strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, kale, and coconut milk together and blended in my trusty Vitamix, and it was sort of alright. I didn't make nearly enough of it though, normally my smoothies yield enough to feed a small village, but today I barely had enough for one glass! Next time will be better, lol.
I am also going to do some running at some point. I have been lazy lately, just overwhelmed by the changes I'm making and didn't really want to do a full overhaul, but add things in piece by piece. :-) I intend fully to go back to my training regimen and try out some fancy vegan sports products (I have never been able to comfortably digest anything made by traditional sports beverage/gel/chew makers except maybe Nuun, but it tastes funky to me.) So we'll see if Vega fits the bill. I have been using 1st Phorm and if the Vega products don't work I fully intend to stay with 1st Phorm. :-) But it never hurts to try some different things too!
Well, I am going to do some Chemistry homework, learning about liquids and solids, woohoo! ;-) Have a great day all, be blessed and enjoy the journey!
Monday, November 4, 2013
Day 10: Crazy Good Recipe and Thank Goodness for Veganism
I am so glad to be back to my normal self.
I had a 4-day depression-laden food bender. I normally have a time where I get into a really bad funk about midway to TOM, but for some reason it was really bad this time. I was eating every calorie-laden item I could get my hands on, dairy, meat, anything. I honestly didn't care what I was doing to myself or anyone else.
However, I noticed after four days of not eating anything even remotely resembling a vegetable, fruit, or grain that I started to feel different. It was like a cloud of yuck was over me. I couldn't concentrate, I had low energy and motivation, and my insides were ravaged from all the dairy products and soda (I am lactose intolerant, that just shows you how addictive dairy can be!) and I just felt horrible. I decided after almost having to skip out on something I wanted to do because my insides were so torn up, that I wanted to get a handle on the thing. I dumped my soda (I have a cup that says V (stands for vegan) that I reuse for my drinks because it is cheaper) and refilled the V-cup with water. The moment I drank it, it cleared my head part of the way. I was able to at least get through Chemistry class without going crazy. But my body was screaming at me to feed it some veggies. I got this crazy idea for a recipe, like I normally do, when I was driving home. I thought it would be fun to mix the stuff together and see what would happen. The recipe is as follows:
1 patty cooked veggie burger
1 whole-wheat tortilla
1 handful of kale
1 tbs-ish of hummus
Coat tortilla in hummus. Add kale, and cut up veggie patty to add to tortilla. Roll burrito style, and serve.
I will definitely try it with black bean patties next time. All I had was patties with soy and although it is better than meat or dairy it does cause me some mild stomach cramps so I will stick to the black bean patties. :-)
Even with a mild case of stomach cramps, I feel sooo awesome and am so excited to be back to my vegetable-loving ways. I will make sure to go to the grocery store later this week and stock up on some of my staples. My "roomies" (AKA my parents who I'm sharing the house with for a few months before I move in with my fiancé) are less than thrilled with my diet I'm sure, but whatev's I suppose, they good-naturedly poke at me and most of the time I don't mind. Just don't call them out on it or all hell will break loose, I learned that the hard way, lol. :-D
I hope everyone has a good day! It is dark at 6:34, I'm not sure that I like that very much. :-D I miss my late-evening runs but can't really run in the park after dark because the dark generally closes an hour after sunset unless you buy the evening pass. But I would be scared to death, lol! So, in lieu of a dark run, I will delve into Chemistry homework yet again. Be blessed and enjoy the journey.
I had a 4-day depression-laden food bender. I normally have a time where I get into a really bad funk about midway to TOM, but for some reason it was really bad this time. I was eating every calorie-laden item I could get my hands on, dairy, meat, anything. I honestly didn't care what I was doing to myself or anyone else.
However, I noticed after four days of not eating anything even remotely resembling a vegetable, fruit, or grain that I started to feel different. It was like a cloud of yuck was over me. I couldn't concentrate, I had low energy and motivation, and my insides were ravaged from all the dairy products and soda (I am lactose intolerant, that just shows you how addictive dairy can be!) and I just felt horrible. I decided after almost having to skip out on something I wanted to do because my insides were so torn up, that I wanted to get a handle on the thing. I dumped my soda (I have a cup that says V (stands for vegan) that I reuse for my drinks because it is cheaper) and refilled the V-cup with water. The moment I drank it, it cleared my head part of the way. I was able to at least get through Chemistry class without going crazy. But my body was screaming at me to feed it some veggies. I got this crazy idea for a recipe, like I normally do, when I was driving home. I thought it would be fun to mix the stuff together and see what would happen. The recipe is as follows:
1 patty cooked veggie burger
1 whole-wheat tortilla
1 handful of kale
1 tbs-ish of hummus
Coat tortilla in hummus. Add kale, and cut up veggie patty to add to tortilla. Roll burrito style, and serve.
I will definitely try it with black bean patties next time. All I had was patties with soy and although it is better than meat or dairy it does cause me some mild stomach cramps so I will stick to the black bean patties. :-)
Even with a mild case of stomach cramps, I feel sooo awesome and am so excited to be back to my vegetable-loving ways. I will make sure to go to the grocery store later this week and stock up on some of my staples. My "roomies" (AKA my parents who I'm sharing the house with for a few months before I move in with my fiancé) are less than thrilled with my diet I'm sure, but whatev's I suppose, they good-naturedly poke at me and most of the time I don't mind. Just don't call them out on it or all hell will break loose, I learned that the hard way, lol. :-D
I hope everyone has a good day! It is dark at 6:34, I'm not sure that I like that very much. :-D I miss my late-evening runs but can't really run in the park after dark because the dark generally closes an hour after sunset unless you buy the evening pass. But I would be scared to death, lol! So, in lieu of a dark run, I will delve into Chemistry homework yet again. Be blessed and enjoy the journey.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Day 9ish: After the Bender
I realized I haven't written in four days! My apologies.
I am recovering from my three-to-four day food bender. I literally just couldn't get enough food, soda, etc. I have just been constantly stressed, dealing with my parents being rude to me almost constantly and my fiancé's graduating from culinary school, and getting a job where we don't see each other often. It has all happened at once, and I have become overwhelmed with everything. I feel like I'm letting people down if I don't be a vegan for the rest of my life. But I was afraid I was having a reaction to dairy and soy which may be true but it could also have been an acute stress reaction to all this crap that has been going on in my life (excuse my language). I don't know if I'll be the perfect vegan my whole life. It has been a journey that I have been on since I was 11 years old and decided I wanted to "be nice to animals." But I didn't realize that I deserved to be treated kindly as well. I have always had very black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking.
Ever since I started my journey 18 years ago, I had always believed that I had to be perfect at being a vegan, even though I knew I couldn't. At 11 I wasn't equipped to know all the facts about CAFOs and disease prevention, I just knew that I loved animals and wanted to do something to help. But I have a weird relationship with failure. I always tended to aggressively seek approval from people I knew wouldn't give it to me, and I got so used to that feeling of rejection that I started unconsciously creating it in my own life. (See, my three-fourths of a Psychology degree does come in handy from time to time!) I almost got addicted to failure.
It's so hard to kick that mentality. It colors everything I do, and causes me to stop just short of a goal. I get there, get the approval, and then take a step back. That's scary to me, and will get me stuck in a rut my whole life if I don't do something about it now. I love being vegan, I love being able to say I did something to help change things for the better. But I think that the issue is so much deeper than being vegan or not being vegan. It's about not getting hung up on pleasing the people who will never accept my best, and realize that if I have God's approval and my approval, then that's okay. :-)
I appreciate you letting me share all of this with you. It has been a super hard October and I feel blessed to be able to start over again. Be blessed and enjoy the journey.
I am recovering from my three-to-four day food bender. I literally just couldn't get enough food, soda, etc. I have just been constantly stressed, dealing with my parents being rude to me almost constantly and my fiancé's graduating from culinary school, and getting a job where we don't see each other often. It has all happened at once, and I have become overwhelmed with everything. I feel like I'm letting people down if I don't be a vegan for the rest of my life. But I was afraid I was having a reaction to dairy and soy which may be true but it could also have been an acute stress reaction to all this crap that has been going on in my life (excuse my language). I don't know if I'll be the perfect vegan my whole life. It has been a journey that I have been on since I was 11 years old and decided I wanted to "be nice to animals." But I didn't realize that I deserved to be treated kindly as well. I have always had very black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking.
Ever since I started my journey 18 years ago, I had always believed that I had to be perfect at being a vegan, even though I knew I couldn't. At 11 I wasn't equipped to know all the facts about CAFOs and disease prevention, I just knew that I loved animals and wanted to do something to help. But I have a weird relationship with failure. I always tended to aggressively seek approval from people I knew wouldn't give it to me, and I got so used to that feeling of rejection that I started unconsciously creating it in my own life. (See, my three-fourths of a Psychology degree does come in handy from time to time!) I almost got addicted to failure.
It's so hard to kick that mentality. It colors everything I do, and causes me to stop just short of a goal. I get there, get the approval, and then take a step back. That's scary to me, and will get me stuck in a rut my whole life if I don't do something about it now. I love being vegan, I love being able to say I did something to help change things for the better. But I think that the issue is so much deeper than being vegan or not being vegan. It's about not getting hung up on pleasing the people who will never accept my best, and realize that if I have God's approval and my approval, then that's okay. :-)
I appreciate you letting me share all of this with you. It has been a super hard October and I feel blessed to be able to start over again. Be blessed and enjoy the journey.
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