People in my circle always knew I was a sort of health nut but even I made mistakes going from vegetarian to vegan to carnivore. As far as I can remember, I was looking for the best strategies that would lead to overall health and longevity.
Granted, I made mistakes on my journey, going Vegetarian and then Vegan was one of the major mistakes I made. If you are reading this, I hope you avoid this mistake.
VEGETARIAN DIET SOUNDED HEALTHY
I grew up around herbal remedies. It was what we used instead of regular medicine, mostly because we had no access to allopathic one. Somehow my thinking evolved that more herbal, plant matter in my body the better. That’s why vegetarian diet sounded healthy.
WELFARE OF ANIMALS WASN’T MY THING
Welfare of animals was never a valid argument for me. I grew up on the farm/ranch. I saw nature interacting with itself daily. For one life to go on, some other had to be sacrificed. One minute a bird would be singing in the branches of the tree where my cat was also resting in bliss, five minutes later the same cat would hunt the bird. It’s how nature is: beautiful, but cruel.
I always understood that if I don’t eat animals, but I eat plants, all of them are life forms that I am taking to sustain myself.
I DIDN’T LIKE OTHER VEGETARIANS/VEGANS
I couldn’t be part of vegetarian or vegan community in the same way I am of the carnivore community. They just seemed nutty to me. Especially when they were talking about ethical aspects of the diet and saving of the planet. You only need to grow up in the country to instinctively know that this argument of saving animal life and planet sounds good but has nothing to do with reality.
I don’t have any firm proof but dealing with other fellow vegan travelers I couldn’t help myself but think of them as having eating disorders or dealing with other mental issues.
Check out my YouTube video about this:
I STARTED AS PESCETARIAN
I ate fish and dairy for a few years which I think technically didn’t make me full blown vegetarian. I was very young, so I had no way of telling whether it was good or bad for my health.
VEGETARIAN
Later I decided to give up fish and dairy. I was never a junk food type vegetarian. I always bought food and cooked for myself so as I vegetarian I was doing fine…. For a while.
VEGANISM
At the end of vegetarian phase, I started having autoimmune issues and was dealing with a dental disaster. I made a detailed video about my dental issues, check it out here:
I guess you would have to call this doubling and tripling down because I went vegan in hopes to address my Rheumatoid Arthritis. Vegan phase didn’t last long, as my health deteriorated at a breakneck speed. Within three months I was chronically tired, unable to sleep, fatigued and depressed. I tried make it work for another three months, but things were getting worse, namely my joint pain and insomnia.
I was trying all kind of remedies to do something about my sleep, eventually helping it with tryptophan and 5 HTP, which are amino acids. And then I had an epiphany: What am I doing?!!! I am fixing insomnia with animal proteins. I had to take an honest look in the mirror and admit that veganism was a failure, and vegetarian phase wasn’t much better either.
LOW CARB
When I started low carb diet, I felt better immediately. It felt like a brand-new life was given to me. My teeth stopped rotting; my allergies improved, but most importantly I was able to sleep again. RA got worse and continued to get worse until I discovered…the Paleo-Ketogenic Diet.
PALEO-KETOGENIC DIET (PKD)
My symptoms improved dramatically just after 10 days of Paleo-Ketogenic Diet (PKD) which is a version of Carnivore Diet. And then within few months my fatigue went away, allergies resolved, constipation went away, and somewhat not planning for that my fertility improved which allowed to get pregnant at 41 with no effort.
PLANT BASED TRAP
I went in plant-based diet from the herbal perspective. I then for years tried finding science to back up my hypothesis. I failed to do it, and, in the process, I ruined my health. I now know that ignoring your biology will result with ill health, no matter how good the concept of the vegan diet sounds.
The main trap with the plant-based paradigm is that in the initial phase when you first start, you do feel a lot better. Plants do have detoxing effect, and…that’s where it ends. But then many vegetarians and vegans try to recreate that initial detox bliss by doubling and tripling down. If you talk to vegans, they will always tell you that “you didn’t do it right”. There is never a possibility that the diet itself is flawed and inappropriate for humans.
SCIENCE
I never came across any good science while being vegetarian and then vegan. It was only when I started looking for information on low carb, that I started learning useful things about human metabolism and nutrition. More importantly, when I put it all into action, I could see measurable results in the way I felt, my blood work looked, and my energy levels have been.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Vegan Diet ruined my health, astonishingly fast, and I think it’s because I was already depleted as vegetarian. It was OK to get by on eggs and dairy, but there were no nutritional reserves so when I went vegan, I fell apart so fast. Don’t go vegan beyond a couple of weeks as means of detox.
Big City Mom