Balanced Plant-Based Eating

It doesn't have to be black and white to make a difference. Plant-based diet benefits are experienced even when you choose to not dive in all the way.

I would actually argue that when you don't have an all or nothing approach to food, you actually benefit more. Stress can cause negative effects on your overall health, so reducing stress with balance is a positive thing.

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Our Second Round of Diet Changes

After experiencing success with changing some things in my diet with the help of my holistic nutritionist when I was going through infertility, I knew that making a change can have amazing results.

Fast forward a few years, we just had our second baby and my husband started seeing a new cardiologist. He had been on high blood pressure medication for most of his adult life, but it wasn't helping anymore.

His doc suggested he handle his heart issues with a diet change. He said that plant-based diet benefits can really help issues like his.

And so it began, our second road to better health through food. Being his wife, I wanted to support him in the best way I could, so I set out to learn this new cuisine, plant-based eating.

Plant-Based Diet Benefits

Based on the book, The Quantum Wellness Cleanse by Kathy Freston, (thank you Oprah), we started with a short term goal of 21 days eliminating:

• Animal products
• Sugar
• Caffeine
• Gluten
• Alcohol

So how did it go? Well, for 21 days we were pretty strict. We followed along, because we knew it was 21 days. We could do that. There was an end point.

At the end, we both felt pretty darn great. I was postpartum, which was a very hard time for me, and I began to come out of my cloud. 

After 3 months my husband was taken off all of his meds. To this day, he has never had to go back on them. 

How I made this new change a business

After a year of learning how to eat our favorite meals in a different way, I decided to start a food blog with the not so subtle prodding from my friends and family.

So Veggies Don't Bite was born, and the rest is history! I am proud to call this my full time business and help people all over the world.

The Bullying of the Online Food World

Trigger warning, you may not like what I have to say. This is not directed at one particular person, this is the overall aura and feeling I personally experienced when I first entered the social media world of food.

We knew from the beginning of our plant-based food journey, that we couldn't place the stress of always eating a certain way on ourselves. We have anxiety and needed to keep things fluid for the sake of our mental health, which is just as important as our physical health.

So when I became this "vegan food blogger" I felt lost. The aura in the social media niche of vegan blogger is overwhelming. There is a lot of pressure. There is a lot of finger pointing. There is a lot of what I now see as bullying.

And I knew, I didn't quite fit there. I create plant-based recipes. Amazing delicious ones. And we eat them and love them and this is the bulk of our diet. However it isn't ALL of our diet. We choose not to stress about it all the time and it has served us very well.

We are uber healthy, our mental health is also doing great. The plant-based diet benefits we feel are serving us well. So we know this is where we need to be. This is our happy place. But how do I fit in?

Creating a space of balance

In August of 2013 I met my business coach, Jenny Melrose. She helped me realize that I didn't need to fit into a box. I could be my own box. This one piece of information changed my life completely. She gave me permission to be me.

So that's what I did. I opened up and shared that it's ok to choose to eat how you want. It's okay to eat mostly plants, but then not stress about it other times.

And the response was amazing. I was giving others permission to not fit in a box. My brand slowly developed into the real me and the people I was meant to attract came.

So just like Jenny gave me permission to be me, I am giving you permission to be you. Look inside yourself and find your why. Why do you want to eat a certain way? For us, it was health.

Health is the balance of your mind and your body, and both are important. Sometimes we need to eat for our body and sometimes we need to feed our mind. There is room for both plants and whatever else you want. We fully believe in a balanced diet which includes all things you enjoy.

You don't have to shy away from eating plants because you think it's an all or nothing thing. It isn't and never has to be. So let me help. You now have the permission to eat for you, not for the social media world.

You can check out the guide below on how to slowly add more plants into your diet without pressure and stress!

If you missed last week's episode, you can listen here!