So you’ve decided it’s time to make a change. To upgrade your diet. To upgrade your lifestyle. Here are some of the things that often come up for people when they transition to a healthier diet and lifestyle. What you will experience will depend on where you’re starting from, and how radical of a change you’re making.
Confusion and doubt about what you’re doing.
There’s so much misinformation and confusion about what it actually takes to be healthy and how to do it. So you may wonder, “How do I get the right nutrients? How do I make my food taste good? How do I manage being out there with my friends and family?
And what about all this conflicting information I’m seeing out there? Do I really need to take this supplement? Do I really need to do this or that?”
You’re likely to face confusion.
This is the time when you really need to be focusing on learning the tools and the tricks of this new lifestyle. This is a key time to be focusing on strategies and skills that your new healthy diet and lifestyle requires.
Abundant energy.
No more of that afternoon after meal sluggishness. No more having to lay down after dinner. You will have much more energy after meals. And all day long. You’ll wake up feeling more refreshed. You might even sleep better at the at the end of the day because you haven’t been so dragging all day long. You’re going to have more energy and you’ll be able to do the things that you really want to do.
Much more clear headed and focused.
You don’t have that brain fog anymore. You wake up feeling ready for your day. You are attentive, you can sit through meetings. You can focus on the projects that you’re doing much more efficiently for a longer period of time. So no more brain fog, instead you experience clear headedness and being able to really focus on doing those things that you want to do.
You might face frequent hunger as you’re changing what you’re eating.
You have less heavy food in your system, and so your body will not take as long to process things. There won’t be that heavy stuff in your belly, which may cause you to feel more hunger. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t last for very long. As your body adjusts you to your new diet and as you begin to find other things that fill you up, you will get used to less heaviness in your body and what that really means for you. Many people are disconnected from the messages our body is telling us. Check out this post for how to manage your hunger.
Changes in your digestion.
Something that I’ve heard many people talk about and that I experienced myself is changes in your bowels. Particularly if you’ve been constipated or irregular in going to the bathroom in the past. Once you start eating more fruits and veggies and are gettin more fiber in your diet, you will find that you will go to the bathroom more often. It may seem annoying at first, but really this is a very good thing!
Otherwise, all that stuff is just staying in your system, in your gut and putrefying and rotting. So you will find that you need to go to the bathroom more regularly. Once a day, maybe even more than that. And it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong. You just have more fiber, and this is how your digestion is supposed to work. So rejoice, welcome it 😃!
Rapid weight loss
You may find that you lose weight pretty quickly and without a whole lot of effort. Even though you may still be eating a good quantity of food, IF the foods that you are eating are low in fat and low in calories, high in fiber and nutrients (i.e. whole food, plant based). Your body will move towards its ideal weight. You may find that your face actually looks a lot thinner within a few days as the puffiness that comes from eating the animal products and unhealthy food goes away.
Some people get worried that they’re going to get too thin. And you may indeed lose more weight than you think you should. I encourage you to keep going. Maybe what you think is too thin actually isn’t. Maybe after your body rids itself of the junk, your weight will normalize at its ideal weight. Often what people think is a normal weight, especially in the U.S., is actually overweight. When everyone around you is overweight or obese, normal can look too skinny.
You’ll have less colds, less flu, less allergies.
As you have less of the toxins and irritants in your system and as your immune system gets stronger and stronger you’re able to fight off illnesses. So you will have less flu, less cold, less allergy. One day you’ll likely notice that getting sick isn’t an issue for you anymore. While others around you are suffering with the seasonal gunk, you’ll be feeling great!
On the other hand, you might find that you go through a healing crisis. And this is when, as your body is expelling the toxins, getting rid of all that stuff that’s been stored in your system due to your previous diet and lifestyle.
You might have cold symptoms, flu symptoms, or have breakouts in your skin during this time. Maybe you have digestive things happening and even anger or, depression. As your body purges this stuff that’s been in your system, it can bring along the symptoms along with it. This does NOT mean that you should stop, but it can cause people to think they need to stop.
This is what you would call a healing crisis, because after so many years of eating unhealthy things and doing unhealthy things, the toxins that are in the foods that you’ve been eating are stored in the fat in your body, in the muscles in your body. And now that you’re not pumping those toxins in your body can say, “phew, I’m going to get rid of this stuff!” And as it’s getting rid of it, you may feel some symptoms, a healing crisis.
You’ll likely face resistance, both from yourself as well as from your friends and family.
As you start to make the change, your old habits, your old addictions, cravings, unhealthy tendencies will come up. When they do you will face internal resistance, cravings, temptations, and the desire to go back to eating the things that you use to eat or do. You may question your decision to make this change.
“I don’t feel like getting up and going to to class today. I don’t feel like getting up and putting on my shoes and go for a walk today.” You are likely to face resistance.
This is a time for really focusing on your subconscious beliefs, unconscious beliefs and what it is that’s causing you to self-sabotage yourself and want to go off this path, even when you know it is the right path for you.
If you have made the commitment to go totally plant based, you were likely also to find a really rapid reversal of your disease.
If you have diabetes or high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, any of those types of things, you are likely to find a very rapid reversal of those things, which is a really good thing. But it also means that you need to be careful.
It means that you need to monitor yourself, monitor your numbers, monitor your need for medication. Because if you continue taking that medication after your blood sugars are come down to normal, for example, then you’re causing yourself some trouble. By making these kind of changes, you will be removing what the causes of your diseases are in the first place.
And once those causes are gone, then your body can heal itself. So you will see a rapid removal reversal and even elimination of your chronic disease. Be sure to monitor yourself and talk to someone who is willing and able to help you along this process and not tell you that you’re crazy. That you shouldn’t be doing this.
Becoming a Vegangelist
And now that you feel so wonderful, you’re likely to want to spread the news far and wide. “Everybody, you should know this secret. This is the answer. You should be changing your diet. This is what you need to do.” You’re likely to become a vegangelist. I recommend that you avoid that! Nobody likes others telling them what to do.
Just live by example. Avoid the temptation to tell everybody far and wide about the power of the plant based diet. Just be a shining example. If they are ready to consider it they can come to you. They will see that there is a better way to create health!
This is a key time for looking at how to survive in the non vegan world that you live in. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an all new world and so we are going to have to keep to our convictions, to eating right, despite the fact that our friends and our families are not doing so.
So this is the time for learning and developing those strategies that will work for you. What are the things that tend to throw you off track and what can you do to prevent those things from happening or to keep yourself on track when they do happen?
Your tastebuds will change as you get used to eating more fresh fruits and vegetables.
Maybe things that you didn’t used to like you now discover you do like. Maybe you never liked avocados before, but after some time you find that you do. Maybe you always used to put a lot of sugar in your in your coffee, but over time, you realize you don’t need all of that much. You can begin to actually appreciate the real flavors of foods without all the extra salt, the sugar, the fat, you know, the meat flavors.
You’ll discover that your taste buds are changing and welcome that. It’s a good thing.
The power of Mindset
I hope that you will discover the power of mindset. If you approach this change with the mindset of lack. I’m giving up. I have to… I can’t do this anymore. Poor me. I used to love this. I want to eat this. This doesn’t taste the same.
If you approach this time of transition from that kind of a perspective, a lack perspective, then you are going to struggle a lot more.
If you approach it from a more positive welcoming. I get to do this. Not I have to. I get to do this! I get to enjoy all these. I get to learn about all these new fruits and veggies.
I get to learn new flavor combinations. I get to learn some new things. I get to discover a whole new world of eating. A whole new world of exercise. Of community, of doing new things that I haven’t experienced before.
Approach this time in your life, this time for change, for rebooting, for revamping, for restarting, from transitioning, from starting brand new, whatever it is that you’re doing, approach it with an open, positive, childlike mind, a discovery. You’re on an adventure. And what an adventure this is going to be!
What do you think? Have you experienced any of these things or did I miss something? What things have you experienced as you’re making your transition and what questions do you have? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll see if I can answer your questions in another video.
Please keep in touch. I’d love to hear how your journey is going.
And remember I’m always here to support you!!
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