Eating as Living

I love food. I love to eat. I love the feeling you get when savoring something delicious, whether its from your own kitchen, a local food joint, or right out of the farmer's hands. I also love the way good, healthy food makes you feel.

Thinking back on my general health growing up, I can always remember feeling sluggish, struggling with depression and anxiety issues, insomnia, digestion issues, easy bruising, slow metabolism, and many other not so fun feelings. For most of my life, I really had never though about being able to change or control all of that, just with what I ate. I went vegan 6 years ago for ethical and polical reasons...my health was not the priority. With the required vegan research though, the facts about diet change and well being present themselves to you effortlessly.

I began to search out more organic foods, more whole foods, less processed and "filled" foods. Things began to feel better, slightly. It took a hell of a long time to slim down at all (which I didn't help with not exercising), but I was still dealing with the ongoing roller coaster ride of depression, anxiety, stay-in-bed-all-day-itis. I chalked it up to something chemically wrong with my brain and learned to deal with it.

Recently, however, I've been turned on to something else..and I must confess I'm pretty excited to see full results.

I've been doing more and more reading about the effects that wheat gluten can have on a person, if that person has any sort of intolerance to it. GUESS WHAT? Almost every single most common symptom of an allergy or intolerance was something I was experiencing.

This information came as a little ray of hope for me. I'm really tired of being tired. I want to be able to get the most out of the food I'm eating. I want to have the motivation and energy to get up and get moving in the morning. So, I thought, maybe eliminating this specific protein (which some think can actually go as far as acting like a neurotoxin) from my diet would allow my body to function a little more normally? Hell, I can cook everything I need cheaply (I barely need to alter my current fruit/veg heavy diet), and if I start feeling terrible, I'll know its not the gluten. So I gave it a try!

I'm currently on day 6...and let me tell you...I FEEL PHENOMENAL!

Some of the pros:
-More natural energy.
-I fall asleep normally, and at a decent hour
-I wake up easily, feeling rested
-More mental focus
-A HUGE rush of motivation to do 100000 things a day
-No abdominal discomfort

I'm waiting to see how this change will affect things like easy bruising, metabolism..those are longer term goals.

The only con I can see so far is that I need to eat more often. Which is easy enough (and really better for you) if done in smaller meals at regular intervals throughout the day.

So, needless to say, I'm stoked. I'll be keeping a close eye on how this will affect me in the longer term...and maybe someday when insurance and medical care is available to everyone I can actally get some definitive medical answers. For now, I'll feed myself to the best of my ability to live, keep doing research, and try to keep in compassionate balance with the world around me.

Hippies and Hellraisers...health to all!