August 3, 2016

Vegetarian, Vegan, or Pescatarian??

Yesterday I posted about becoming a Pescatarian (once again) on Instagram , a few people congratulated me and others asked why. So I figured, why not blog about it?

Growing up, I ate meat such as beef, turkey, lamb, and chicken, excluding pork from my diet. My mom always said that the sodium in pork was so high that it gave her headaches, so she didn't feed it to us. The only exception she made was pepperoni. In 2012 I decided to completely stop eating red meat and that lasted for a year. I honestly don't remember my reason behind that decision. Also, I am lactose-intolerant so I really didn't need to be consuming dairy. Although some dairy products don't affect me as bad as others, I just feel better overall when I don't eat or drink them.



This past December, I reached my highest weight EVER at 173lbs.  Luckily, I am 5'8 1/2" and pretty curvy/proportionate. Despite the fact that I carried the weight quite decently, I knew I was pushing my luck. Of course in January it was "The New Year, New Me" time, so I decided to start working out and eating more "clean" while still consuming meat. A few months later, I was watching a Youtube Beauty Guru by the name of Carli Bybel and she shared that she was transitioning into becoming vegan in hopes that it would cure her eczema. She also added that she watched an hour long documentary about animal cruelty and how that just gave her the push to really stop eating meat and consuming dairy products. I watched the video and immediately was disgusted as well.

My parents love to tell me that God created the animals for us to eat and that its unhealthy to not eat meat because you need that protein and iron. This made sense to because thats what I've always thought but I just knew the way these poor animals were being treated and kept couldn't be right. Ultimately, I decided to just go for it and become vegan.

The first two weeks were the hardest. I literally had a migraine the whole time. Maybe because it was the initial switch up or because I hadn't figured out how much healthy food (carbs) I needed to consume in order to still have energy and stamina to get me through the day. For breakfast I would make a fruit smoothie made with 100% juices and adding Vegan Protein, which filled me up. For lunch I would eat an AMY'S vegan and gluten/dairy free  microwaveable meals and fruit. The same thing for dinner and add spinach salad. For some reason, those headaches persisted. Therefore, I decided to try incorporating seafood back into my diet. This helped, I no longer felt sick with those horrible headaches.

Starting April 19 to the end of June, I lost 19lbs. I hadn't weighed my self until my friends came back from school and told me how skinny I looked (which totally made me happy). Unfortunately, I fell off a bit with all of these summer BBQ's and convenience of not having to pay for food. Recently, I've crept back up to 159lbs in a month and a half. (YIKES!) I've also noticed how sluggish and bloated I always feel, so I've decided to start my Pescatarian journey once again.

If you have any recommendations on foods, meals, or products that I should try, please leave them below!

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