8 Weeks a Vegetarian

If a Vegetarian goes into a restaurant these days, they would generally be given a good choice to choose from. Someone on a gluten free diet goes into the same restaurant and again will have plenty of options.

I've been a gluten free vegetarian for the last 8 weeks and my only options have been steamed veg, roasted veg and Stir fried veg.

Today I want to tell you about my own 8 week experiment being a 99.9% strict vegetarian as I continued taking fish oils and my vitamin D in a gelatine capsules.

First the why. Why would I bother with this sort of test? Well over the last year I've gotten very interested in disease and natural remedies. And wondered should I have to, could I do a more natural from the earth diet.

I hate the generalisation bullshit. Same sickness so they're given the same pill. But they're different people with different backgrounds, lifestyles and DNA. Anyone interested in cancer, you have to watch the two Burzynski movies (Movie 1, 2). Dr Burzynski could have what looked like two similar individuals, same age, sex, etc and both could have the exact same cancer but both could get treated completely different with what he calls "Personalized Gene-Targeted Cancer Therapy". This is the way it should be.

Have you ever heard of the Gerson institute? Again there are three very interesting documentaries available freely online (Movie 1, 2, 3).

Gerson promoted that once the body is at homeostasis it could heal itself of anything. This involved eliminating all stressors from the body like Gluten, Dairy, Meat and I suppose modern stressors would include sugar, sweeteners, alcohol and any other man made chemical you’re consuming. You'd drink water and pressed organic vegetable juice, eat organic veg and also do coffee enemas (not as bad as you may think and is a good habit to get in to).

I knew I wouldn't have the discipline for a Gerson style diet but said I'd do my best with an elimination diet (gluten, dairy, sugar and alcohol) but religiously stick to the vegetarian.

I spent three weeks studying about vegetarianism and also weaned myself off the poultry, meat, fish and even eggs. I think the studying is largely overlooked by people before going vegetarian and this generally leads to probably two of the most common reasons why people stop it.

1) You'll have no energy!
My response: Crap! Vegetarians eat tonnes of veg, grains and fruits which are packed with 'energy'. You just haven't learned about portion control, blood glucose and high to low GI foods. Which lead on to the next point.

2) You'll either put on weight or lose weight. I'm the same weight today as I was 8 weeks ago and 8 weeks is a sufficient amount of time to see any change. Let's go back to your high to low GI foods. You go into a vegetarian lifestyle thinking you can eat what you want once its meat free.

Well to this I'll respond with a question. How do we make salmon fat? Feed it grains. How to we make cattle fat? Feed it grains. What do you think is going to happen to you if you over consume grains? Not only that but your energy levels would be through the floor.

So on the opposite end would be those that start a vegetarian lifestyle thinking you've to eat salads for the rest of your days. But what you don't realise is that you have a daily energy expenditure and as a figure we use calories. So let's say between your body composition, metabolic type, type of job and exercise you require 2200 calories to maintain everything as it is. Three large salads or plain veg and snacking on rice cakes and vegetable sticks you'd be lucky to hit 1000 calories so you’re going to drop WEIGHT (not necessarily fat) fast and guess where your energy levels are going to be???

So before any lifestyle or diet change make sure you educate yourself on the topic so you know exactly what you've to do and what you’re getting yourself in for. Talk with others who either live by that lifestyle or have failed at their attempt and see why.

As I said I spent 3 weeks reading and talking to others while slowly weaning myself off the animal flesh and onto the produce from the land. This wasn't included in the eight weeks, it was the prep work.
I wanted to see how I'd feel, sleep, what my concentration would be like, etc.

I’m going to divide my experience into pro and cons.

Pros
Portion sizes are massive, especially with homemade soups and salads, etc.

Cons
You’re not allowed eat meat.
My body has lost a lot of ‘Leanness’.
 
That’s it???

Yep, that’s pretty much it, dead serious. I got to eat lots of food, I missed meat and my back, chest and arms don’t look as lean.

Kinda shit ye?

Not at all, this was a fantastic experiment. I’ve realised that no matter what my nutrition is, once I have a proper balanced diet loaded with all my essential fats, vitamins and aminos from natural sources, I just carry on the same way. My mood was the same, my sleep was the same, and my energy was the same.  If I really wanted to I probably could’ve loaded up with protein shakes to keep my body composition but that kind of goes against the health factor.

You see when you lose that relationship with food and start viewing it as nutrients for your body rather than a treat, then you realised that there is only one actual nutrition plan for all of us and the only thing that changes is the sources. Sure some people require specifics for specific purposes, goals or tasks and we know some respond better to either high carb or high fat but if you just want to be your standard fit and healthy Homo Sapien then you need to know what you’re putting into your  body and why. Go back and have a read of my previous blog post ‘Sure all you need is a balanced diet’.

There is so much information online telling you what you need but in a way they’re all wrong even the ones I respect because no one can tell you exactly what you need. A lot of it is work you have to do for yourself. Of course people like me can guide and educate you, point you in the right direction but I can’t be there forever to hold your hand. You have to learn it for yourself.

Last New Year’s I stated that my slogan for 2014 was to ‘Cut The Crap’. Well here it is. No B.S just facts. You have to educate yourself. With the amount of information freely available to you, if you’re fat then it’s probably your own fault (Another Blog post). Take accountability for yourself, your health and your child’s health. Nobody wants your excuses. You don’t need to post 21 photos a week on social media of your meals. Just get your shit together, make an effort and do it for nobody else but you.

I’m sure there is some Chinese proverb that explains what I do with social media and why my ‘Rants’ can be negative. It’s because I don’t want to hold onto that negativity but I won’t tell you most of my good stuff because I’m not yet ready to let it go. I keep the good stuff inside and get on the bad stuff out.

When you’re sharing all your new positive ventures and ideas for the world to see, you’re taking away so much energy from what’s making you feel good in the first place. Have you ever notice that the most drastic change that you see in people are the people who you didn’t know were up to anything. The git that lost six stone or the bloke that put on 5 kilos of muscle. They weren’t on Facebook everyday telling you about it because they held on to that energy and used it to get them to where they wanted to be.

You have chosen to be where you are today. You may not like it but every choice you’ve made has brought you here. So are you going to sit around for the next 30, 40, 50 years feeling sorry for yourself, getting fatter, sicker and just existing in life? Or is it time you took accountability, removed your head from your own arse, realise that most of what you watch, read or listen to doesn’t directly affect you so maybe use that time to get your shit together.

Every breath is another moment to make a change,

Screw the vegetarian thing. It’s not for me, I like meat. I realise I don’t necessarily require meat to be a fit and healthy individual but I like it none the less.

Last point. Learn your essentials, make sure you’re getting them into you and then do whatever makes you feel good after that. The more specific your goal then the more specific your nutrition and lifestyle choices need to be. But without a solid foundation everything will continue to go to shit, just like it has done for the last how many years.

Cut the crap, learn your stuff, I’m always here to help.

Until next week,

Love and Happiness,

John T.