Hi everyone, hope you are all well! Today, I wanted to talk to you about this thing that happened to me recently: I went veggie for 3 months!

It took me completely by surprise as I went on a trip with a vegetarian friend and ate what she ate and realized 3 months after that I didn’t actually eat meat again ever since. But it isn’t only why it happened and I’m going to tell you what were the steps for me!

 

I stopped red meat

It had already been 3 years or so before that, that I haven’t eat any red meat. I’ve always been disgusted by it and could never see it not cooked without feeling nauseous. Even seeing my own blood is like…yikes…I can’t see that. I would always faint seeing my blood and feel nauseous when seeing other people’s blood (I know I’m weird xD). Few years after, I also realized that I had too much iron in my blood and red meat is known to have a lot of so maybe…my body told me to stop unconsciously? I don’t know but I did stop it very naturally!

 

I ate chicken, eggs and fish

My body wasn’t in harmony with what I ate but I kept eating all of these. My heart always told me: stop eating animals! And I always knew I would stop someday. I just didn’t know when. And it was just so easy to do like everybody. Why would I change something that most people on the planet are doing? Why would I complicate my life? This was how I fell. I naturally didn’t buy a lot of animal products (especially eggs as they always disgusted me) and actually last year, while travelling, a lot of people seeing my grocery bag asked me if I was a vegetarian and I’d say no. I actually only ate some only in restaurants because it was everywhere.

 

I documented

After following @naturally_nina_ since few months on Instagram, I decided to check on her website and found out about her e-books. What she posts on social media is always so yummy that I absolutely wanted to know her recipes (although it’s a classic I never made them yet. Tell me I’m not the only one to buy recipes book and never make any of it xD). But now writing that makes me think: nope, I won’t fall into this pattern again, I’ll try some this week! Anyway….at the beginning of her e-book, she talks about her veganism path from how she arrived to veganism to how she maintains a beautiful health in her everyday life. I trust of course the reliability of the info she’s giving as she is a certified nutritionist from a school I planned to do last year in Australia, Endeavour College and I’m also double-checking the info with other different sources.

But it is sure than for me she did a great impression on the healthy aspects of eating plant-based food as I already noticed some by myself. For example, lots of industrial foods are very acidic these days and meat too (and I noticed great improvement in my reflux symptoms since I stopped it). I also realized since a looong time that dairy products where not for me as I just don’t digest it well. And actually it’s pretty normal when you think about it that cow’s milk is meant for their babies and not for us.

I’m going to stop here because they are far too many examples about that kind of observations. As much as you could I encourage doing you own research to check that out. Because our health shouldn’t be let in the hands of people who wants to make money out of it. If you work in a company, you know that the cheaper the quality, the more the quantity.

They are many documentaries about these topics on Youtube or Netflix and I know that it can be overwhelming/depressing to watch this kind of videos on your free time when all you want to do is chill, but your health doesn’t await for you to be retired so you got the time to watch them.

Here are some great ones on Netflix that I’ve heard of:

Rotten

What the health?

Cowspiracy

 

I deepened my knowledge

Nothing new about that as I’m a huge book lover (check out my goodread page) about a guy called Hugo Clement. He is French like me so if you are not able to speak French, it’s not gonna work xD But I can refer to the non-Frenchy ones here with this reference that he cites a lot in his book: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Reading the summary made me realize how much they were similar so you won’t be disappointed.

It talks a lot about how the animal industry and trust me, it’s ugly. These last years, I didn’t think about it much, because: A) I tried not to think about it much because I still thought and think it is yummy (taste speaking. But after all it’s maybe because I am just used to it since so many years B) I tried not to think about it as long as I wasn’t killing it C) I tried not to think about it because I knew it will make my hear break D) I tried not to think about it because it was easy not thinking about it. That’s it. Laziness of acting on it and fear of knowing more about it were my two main problems;

But as I decided to open to awareness more and more in different areas of my life, I couldn’t close my eyes on it anymore and as I was saying at the beginning, the funny thing is it happened without me really noticing it. I think it was such a long held goal that I had that opening my eyes more and more just made my unconscious finally clicked. And I am really happy that I finally had the courage to do that or at least try it to see the benefits. I am not vegan as I still eat eggs (especially for cakes), butter (although it gives me reflux too but I’ve been fed with that for so long that I find it hard to stop everything immediately), milk (only for crepes!) and honey (when I have a sore throat). I don’t say I will never eat meat again but I just say that as long as I have the choice to do it and that I live in harmony with it, that’s fine for me.

Side notes

 

Vegetarianism and yoga

Besides yoga is great for toning the muscles, keeping the body in movement and the mind still, yoga helps cleaning the digestive system, improving the metabolism and strengthening the immune system. It does great good to our body but if we can help nourishing it well too, it definitely helps! As we know, the food that we consume has the potential to either help in this process or can have the opposite effect. Sometimes we know it but we still continue to eat it because…it’s too good! And sometimes we just don’t know it or really notice it until we develop diseases and start to question the way we have been living our lives.

In the yogi philosophy, the best diet to adopt is a Sattivc diet that in Sanskrit corresponds to the term Sattva, meaning clarity and lightness. A Sattvic diet is a diet made of foods that help you gain a quiet life and a calm mind. It is vegetarian and contains essentially fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and nuts.

When a yogi student comes into a class chanting Aum, it is addressing to the universal vibration that connects us all. In the yogi philosophy, we are all living creatures from the same divine spark (both humans and animals).

But hey, you don’t need at all to be vegetarian to be a great yogi (they are no right or wrong yogis anyway!). Only, some yogis who want to apply the teachings of ahimsa (or non-violence) extended the concept to not hurting and killing animals. But remember, anyone does what it wants to do!

Vegetarianism and Ayurveda

In Ayurveda, the best foods to consume are the one made with love. Even if you eat an apple, an apple that developed in loving hands is better than an apple developed in a lab by people who want to make money out of it. Of course, we all know about organic food but sometimes (especially when we live in the big cities and don’t have space to grow our own food) we don’t really know where and with what it has been harvested too. That’s why asking ourselves questions and doing our research is sooooo important.

We are what we eat as it is commonly said so whether we are non-vegetarian, vegetarian and vegan or else, the important is just to take care of ourselves in the best way possible.

 

And you, have you already tried a veggie challenge? Or are you vegetarian or vegan altogether? Share me your tips to help me get started! I’m documenting myself a lot but it’s still really valuable to get some real feedback. Thanks for reading this!