I went to a wonderful one-day yoga retreat about seven months ago. It almost looked like there wouldn’t be enough people registered for the retreat to take place, and then, at the last moment, there were.
We were hosted by an interesting, lovely woman in her amazing house, with beautiful gardens. The weather was perfect. The yoga teacher, my original teacher who created that spark in me with which began my love affair with yoga, was wonderful. (thank you, Rachel!)
As an additional treat, a vegan chef prepared our meals, taught us about the vegan lifestyle and how to prepare several of the gorgeous foods she prepared.
She became vegan for all the health benefits about which she spoke and also because of her deep commitment to respecting the lives of all living things.
Hmmm. Sounded good to me. I’m not all that against eating animals, truth be told. I don’t get teary-eyed when contemplating a steak on my plate or a little Cornish hen that even looks like she could get up and waddle away. But I’m not against refraining from eating them either. And lowering my cholesterol while, perhaps, losing a big of weight, might finally get my levels to a more comfortable place in the middle of that pesky graph.
And, not only that, but I could be COOL.
All the coolest people are vegan these days, right?
I could be IN.
Yay!
Gershon put up lots of shelves in our pantry for all the containers with nuts, grains, dried soy chunks, coconut oil, beans and lentils. I bought a little extra refrigerator for that pantry to put all the leafy green things and the overflow of vegetables in.
He was supportive and I was…
INTO IT!
I was careful not to preach to anyone else. (how obnoxious is it when people do that, right?) I cooked all the usual victims for Gershon and he didn’t roll his eyes even once at the odd side dishes on his plate (my main course).
My cholesterol went down 20 points.
All was going just spiffy there for a minute until…wait!
WHAT THE HECK IS THIS???
D I A R R H E A!!
I don’t mean the kind where you have to go an extra time or two a day. Or the kind where there’s a slight change in texture or color. Okay, this is getting a bit graphic for the weak of heart but you get the picture.
I’m talking BIG TIME and 4 months.
So, I googled the heck out of the subject from every which way. I went to my family physician. We did tests. Blood tests and stool specimens. All normal. I took soy products out of my diet and started peeling vegetables and fruits. No change.
Finally, I picked up the phone and sent out a few emails to people I know who were vegans for years and either became simple vegetarians or, as one friend put it, now eat a paleolithic diet (yeah, I had to look it up, too)
And guess what? Every single last one of them said that they changed their diet because THEY WERE SICK…
FOR MONTHS!
Ha Ha Ha! Joke’s on me. Eating healthy was making me sick. And not only that but all that healthy eating makes lots of those COOL people sick.
So you guys all know I’m a yoga and meditation instructor, right? At least 6 times a week I tell my students that they should incorporate body and mind awareness into everything they do; not just yoga. If they find themselves doing something that doesn’t feel good they should ask themselves why the Sam Hill they’re doing it. And if the answer is, among other things, to be COOL, well, they need to cut it to heck out.
If you’re gossiping to entertain your friends; you might want to find new material (or different friends).
If you’re wearing high heels to attract men; you might want to find a good podiatrist (or a different kind of man).
And if you’re eating in a way that gives you diarrhea for four months; you might want to find a different way of eating!
And, so, I decided on Monday that I would start eating eggs and chicken and even add a few milk products into my life and kick all those beans and whole grains out. I unceremoniously (or maybe a bit ceremoniously actually, if that’s a word) and literally threw out everything that had a whiff of soy in it.
Lo! and behold. Immediate relief. And I mean immediate.
By Tuesday my digestive system switched back from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll. And, a bonus, I had more energy. I thought I was feeling a bit lethargic because of it being winter but, it turns out, it was all that healthy eating. In case you think this might be my imagination, one of those ex-vegan friends said that giving up grains upped her energy level like 5 cups of coffee for breakfast.
And here comes the gratitude part for those of you who get annoyed when the title has no distinguishable connection with the book or, in this case, blog.
Grateful to be energetically out of the bathroom, yes. But also grateful for my friends and relations who didn’t feel the need to warn me about the connection between veganism and feeling crappy (only a little sorry for the pun). Why, you might ask, would I be grateful for that?
There’s nothing like learning for oneself through experience (as long as it’s not lethal). That’s first off.
Would I have listened to them? Maybe, but then I might’ve always wondered.
And then there are all the lessons that I’ve internalized.
- the one about not giving advice where none has been solicited
- the one about being forthcoming and honest when it has
- the one about examining goals with clarity (and throwing out the ones that are unskillfully motivated)
- the one about APPRECIATING the glorious natural functioning of my body (recovering from 4 months of diarrhea is a super teacher for this one)
So, thank you, friends and relatives. Thank you, body. Thank you, Gershon. (a friend AND a relative but his support is distinctly different from anyone else’s) Thank you, eggs. Thank you, chicken.
And now I have to go eat some chorizo. See ya’
gettingoutalive 