How Eating Vegan Saved My Health + Well-Being

Eating a certain way can completely change your life – blood work, predispositions to diseases, EVERYTHING. If you read my post on how this related to my chiropractic journey, then you have a solid background on my health. Honestly, I would recommend reading it first! Why? Because I believe that eating vegan, while it is healthy and comes with many benefits, is not made for everyone’s body and lifestyle. Most vegans that I know swear to this nutrition pattern – they encourage this lifestyle as the best way to live. I disagree. This is what worked for my body, but may not work for all. I would strongly encourage anything that causes a person to eat healthier – vegan, vegetarian, paleo, etc.

I will tell you that my pre-diabetic blood work was reversed. I had a crazy high monocyte count, low levels of good cholesterol, and a dangerously low vitamin D threshold. At the time, I was playing high school volleyball and maintaining a 4.0; I was working my butt off 24/7 and eating paleo.

Quick blurb on paleo: This lifestyle is great! (I ate this way for 4 years). For those who do not know what it is, it focuses on eating as if we existing eons ago. Everything is plant-based, harvested, or killed. The meat must have been grass-fed only and be without nitrites. Dairy is a no-go due to the fermentation. There is no alcohol, no processed grains, nothing that was not life-giving and all-natural. 

Back to veganism. On a whim, for my 2018 “New Year’s Resolution,” I decided to make a ginourmous jump to a vegan diet. This was in my crazy, I-want-to-change-everything-in-my-life phase. Needless to say, this lasted a month. One. Single. Month. And my campus ministry friends can attest to the fact that I cheated multiple times.

Being lactose intolerant, and not nourishing my body the way I should have during the school year, I realized that I needed to commit to something and stick to it. Late April 2018, I hopped on the vegan train again.

Two months later, at my chiropractor’s office, my blood work showed that all my unhealthy predispositions and levels were regulated. WHAT IN THE WORLD!! I don’t think I could ever go back honestly. This lifestyle and way of eating was not just an “on a whim” test run anymore. It had somehow healed my body and given me strength. I am still in search of the exact reasonings – perhaps it was the fact that eating vegan cancelled out all fast food. Paleo did not fully change my body – eating vegan did.

Now all I need to do is lower my metabolic age (I’m an oldie…thanks, genes).

Now I am NOT saying that you should eat vegan – all bodies are different! But be intentional in figuring out what regulates your body and keeps you at your healthiest!! 

I hope that my short retelling of my story that stemmed from chiropractic care to vegan eating has inspired you to eat healthier and work harder on fixing your life from the inside out. Get multiple opinions. You know your body – you are not required to believe what someone says about you if you can see that it doesn’t work on the outside or on the blood work.