Cravings and Vitamins

Being vegan is definitely a change that requires a deep inner motivation and those who decide to go about this new lifestyle you also need a good support system. Cravings for non dairy foods were diminished with the more I educated myself about the reasons to be vegan. Not to say I don’t still think about things like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but it is different. I have let that part of my life go, re-wired my brain and when I crave those things at the same time I remember my reasons for becoming vegan and do not indulge myself. 

Being sure you are receiving the proper nutrition is a valid concern. I have found through research that unless you are an elite athlete, body builder or take part in intense physical activities protein deficiency usually isn’t a problem. For the average person who works out to live healthily and fit a normal vegan diet without protein supplement is adequate. If you feel you fall into the other category as you work out heavily or exert a lot of energy throughout your day you can calculate your protein need. To calculate your protein need divide your weight in pounds by 2.2. This will give you your weight in kg. Then multiply your weight in kg by 0.8-1.8 gm/kg. This will give you the range of the amount of protein you require per gram. If you consider yourself sedentary use the lower number (0.8-1.2), if you are an intense athlete or body builder consider eating on the higher end (1.2-1.8). It is also important for a vegan or vegetarian to be sure they are getting enough vitamin B12. B12 can be found supplemented in energy bars, and are sometimes fortified in vegan and vegetarian staples like tofu and soy milk. To be understand what the best food distribution is for a vegan is be sure to check out a vegan food pyramid, here is a link to one I found on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_nutrition. If you still feel concerned you aren’t getting proper nutrition I strongly encourage you to consult your doctor. There is a simple blood test you can take and the results usually come back within a week to tell you if you are getting the right doses of important vitamins. Be sure to learn to listen to your body it will always tell you what it needs.

About Me

“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.” – Buddha 

Health and wellness, and all things included in these categories, have always been deep-seeded interests of mine. My interests range from nutrition and fitness to allopathy and complimentary medicine. Nutrition is an important aspect in my life; I believe it is a key element for leading a healthy lifestyle. I enjoy learning about various diets such as raw food, vegan and vegetarian lifestyles and their affects on wellbeing. Fitness is and will remain an integral part of my life I believe the amount of exercise a person participates in directly and substantially influences their state of health. Throughout my undergraduate degree at Ithaca College I studied an array of medical therapies. It became clear that neither is superior, but using therapies, such as allopathic remedies and complimentary medicine, together in the treatment of a patient’s disease or illness is most beneficial. Having so many interests made it difficult to decide on what line of work I would pursue in my master studies. When it came time to decide where to go to school and what program to choose I became overwhelmed with all of the choices. I knew I had a strong need to be able to help others, but wasn’t sure as to how. I debated with myself for months and worried about choosing the wrong career and about being unhappy in my choice, during this time I talked myself into and out of every career in the health field, confusing myself more, losing myself until finally it came to me and I ended up settling on an old career interest of mine. I don’t understand why I lost hold of my love for this career as it seems like the logical path I should have seen and taken. I was blind, but now I can see. I don’t think I am alone; I think that this dilemma is one that affects many graduated students fresh from completing their undergraduate degree. If you didn’t yet figure out your reason for going to school in the first place, don’t have a clear, set path to your career interest or just lost sight of your goals like me, you know how lost I felt. After digging deep and clearing the fog in my mind, which was created too much worrying and way too many “what ifs”, I could see that the answer to what I should pursue was one that I had always known.

A passion for this career was sparked at a very young age due to the result of injuries my father sustained from a trucking accident that nearly claimed his life and changed my life forever. The injuries he sustained from his accident were substantial. Learning how to cope with his injuries took years and even today he struggles with pain management. For a large portion of his recovery he relied heavily on physical therapy. I enjoyed attending many of his appointments with him; I loved the quality time with my dad and I also enjoyed being able to witness the effect physical therapy had on his recovery, this experience had impacted me greatly, it opened my eyes to a passion to pursue a career in physical therapy. At the young age of thirteen my desire to help people as my father had been helped was as strong as ever. I had huge dreams and even now I envision myself in the future opening a one of a kind facility with a mission that incorporates my passions, values and interests to provide quality care to everyone, revolutionizing people’s current understanding of what qualifies as extraordinary patient care. An obsession with health has been a constant theme in my life, one that replays itself over and over. In my spare time I enjoy learning about new ways to improve my health, practicing what I have learned by including it in my life and then sharing my experiences with others. Nutrition is a hobby of mine and eating delicious healthy food is a mission! I can always be found reading a new cookbook or searching for new recipes online in hopes that it will inspire me to conjure up something spectacular of my own. When I have the time I go to Barnes and Noble and to the library in hopes to find new resources focused on the impact of diet on health.

In the months prior to the beginning of the year I had done a lot of research on raw food and vegan diets. Some of my favorite reads include “Skinny Bitch”, “Skinny Bitch in the Kitch”, “Raw Food, Real World”, “Vegan with a Vengeance”, and “The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods”. I tried a raw food life style and only lasted five days. I found my addiction to cooked food and my weakness for coffee was too strong. After five days of extreme moodiness due to feeling almost ravenous I felt that ‘making it’ five days was a tremendous accomplishment. I was and always will be one to rip the band aid off fast- a ‘cold turkey’ type of a person, but I realized that going from being a meat eater to the limitation of just raw foods was a difficult leap to make especially lacking proper motivation and preparation. Deciding to experiment and challenge myself with a vegan diet for New Years was the next step for me and one of the best decisions I had made in my life thus far. I am so happy I made this choice because I have found my new lifestyle to be so easy, the benefits to my health are enormous and also it feels great to see my lifestyle choice as something that positively influences the lives of others around me.  I found though my research and personal experiences that eating a vegan diet with a strong focus on the addition of raw foods is the ultimate combination for feeling energized and healthy. When combining this lifestyle with regular exercise the impacts on your health are immense. I attribute my success in becoming and staying vegan to my interests, to my passion to live a long, healthy and happy life, but mostly to my strong support system, my family.

Theories of health and wellness are ever changing and will continue to grow and evolve. My passion is so strong that I can say I am dedicated to a lifelong commitment of continued learning and I am dedicated to finding a way to integrate these interests and many other aspects of health and wellness into my future line of work. My fear about my future is gone and I am now reacquainted with an excitement that is so refreshing and centering. There are so many things that I wish I could go back and change. Sometimes I find myself dwelling on my past mistakes that impacted my present and future. I shake myself out of it and realize that there is no use being sad about the past. There is something great in using that energy to be proactive about my future. Now is the time.

 

Why Vegan?

• All animals are intelligent, feel emotions and can suffer. They can feel pain and fear.
• Animals are often raised in unhealthy conditions and they are usually products of a violent and inhumane industry.
• Tasting of meat isn’t worth supporting factory farming and the killing and the abuse of animals.
• I feel that I am in the best state of health being vegan. I don’t feel sick or have my usual allergies.
• I love adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet. They taste so good.
• I do not desire to eat animal products.
• Domestic animals for food are often treated like lifeless things and abused without restriction. They are procedurally abused, acts that would otherwise be considered animal cruelty: animals are castrated, chickens are de-beaked, animals get their tails get cut off, pigs get their teeth ripped out and cows are branded.
• Meat factories are usually unsanitary. Meat is often packaged with all sorts of toxins on it including arsenic, excrement, blood, pus and vomit. Diseased, sick and paralyzed animals are slaughtered and packaged.
• I love animals, petting them and cuddling with them. I am against cruelty and am proud to live a cruelty-free lifestyle.
• It is better for the environment. The meat industry contributes more to global warming than cars, more than half of all the water consumed in the U.S. is used for animals raised for food and factory farms create a lot of pollution.
• I feel good knowing that I can influence change in others with my choices.
• It makes me sad to see innocent animals in pain.
• Condoning such abuse and killing creates heartless people.
• Animals are genetically manipulated, dosed with antibiotics and hormones to make them grow abnormally large so quickly that they become crippled under their own weight.
• Industry standards are not up to par as such abuse and poor living conditions exist; laws are not well enforced.
• Substitutes taste good.
• Above are a lot of reasons why I am vegan. My last reason: Why not?

Cheers! Here’s to a New Year of Health

Those of you who know me know that I am passionate about health and wellness, especially nutrition and fitness. I find myself reading all sorts of books and magazines yearning for more and more information on things such as the nutrition content in all foods and new diet/lifestyle choices. In the beginning of the year 2008 instead of a New Years resolution I put into action a New Years ‘challenge’ to live a vegan lifestyle for a month. It was so easy! I attribute the ease at which adopting this new lifestyle was to living with my sister and her husband. My sister is a practicing vegan and she is very committed to her choice. My brother–in-law is a compliant vegan by association, and a vegetarian by definition. Well, it is now the end of the second month of veganism and I have no desire to go back to eating animal products anytime soon.  My New Year challenge so far hasn’t been very challenging. The last couple years I had begun consciously avoiding eating meat when possible, I would not opt to buy meat at the grocery store and I’d also try to choose an alternative when eating at restaurants. I neglected officially becoming vegan as I never liked to define myself by my diet, though with such strong interests in nutrition I am surprised I hadn’t done it sooner.  I feel healthy, I haven’t been sick during the time I have been vegan and I also haven’t experienced my usual year-round allergies that have always burdened me in the past. It is not just my health though, I feel so good about my decision to become vegan because, and I really feel like I am one more person standing up against animal cruelty. I refuse to contribute to the support of companies that exploit these innocent creatures. I am putting my foot down.  I am grateful for the support from my family and thoroughly love my home life as it has helped me to transition easily into my new lifestyle. But sometimes being vegan can prove to be a little uneasy outside of the home, like in social situations. For example, catered parties and eating out with friends can be far less than accommodating to vegans. It is normal to eat animals and their products and it is embedded in culture and accepted worldwide. The few who choose not to participate in the standard American diet often need to be accommodated, specially requesting their meals to be served cruelty free. As in the case of the catered party, a vegan must sometimes be content with just eating a plain piece of bread and a salad with vinegar dressing. Sometimes all it takes is you just being aware and a little creative with your food choices in some situations. Adopting this lifestyle can be challenging at times and but also a very rewarding one. As all matters in life, things are really only as difficult as you perceive them to be.  My blog was started to provide you with support in your health choices and to provide you with knowledge and insight into what being vegan is all about. I will answer some questions that I spark my interest along the way, like, is in necessary to worry about protein intake as a vegan, and what kind of effects does B12 deficiency have on the body? I also started this blog because I love cooking and I wanted to include some of my favorite recipes for those of you who need some change from the same ol’ and would like to entice their taste buds by adding some variety.