While churning for what seemed like ages on starting a blog, I found myself doing research on just getting started. I saw so many articles and other blogs about finding your "Why". Why do you want to start a blog, what is the reason, the drive, the passion? I have always had a passion for helping people. So when I found myself with a digestive system that I felt like was failing me I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands and focus on my diet and get my tummy back to normal. During this journey so many of my friends and family were so intrigued about how I was making my food and were shocked that it was actually easy. Many were even able to sample the foods I made and were stunned that it was either gluten free, plant based, or all of the above, and that it was GOOD!
The transitions for me figuring out my new way of eating would not have been easy if it weren't for my awesome husband Paul.
Paul is actually what I like to call a vegetarian with vegan tendencies. Paul has been a vegetarian since he was 6 years old! He was literally the picky kid that could taste the difference between 2 different brands of vinegar. So meat was a flavor and texture his palette didn't want anything to do with. Now as Paul gets older we have been finding that his tolerance to dairy products are getting worse and worse, hence "vegan tendencies". But that's a subject for a different post.
Figuring out I was gluten intolerant at age 25 wasn't too big of a deal, you learn, you adjust, you heal, no problem. Fast forward to 2016, the year after I had my daughter Shea.
I breastfed for a year and I was DONE! Time to get back to a new new normal. Wrong! My stomach was doing some funky stuff and I couldn't figure out what the heck was wrong. I went to the GI doctor and they diagnosed me with IBS. Which is such a huge umbrella of a diagnosis. Anything can trigger a jumbo size list of symptoms because everyone is SO different. So changes needed to happen and they needed to happen fast because the constant chronic stomach aches were getting real old.
Since I already ate a very clean diet (little to no processed foods). I decided to ditch dairy. I wasn't a milk drinker so that was easy. No yogurt or cheese, it sucked but I had to do it to see if that was the problem. Alas! My stomach felt better! Praise God! Now we can move on with our liv..... oh wait nope, that's enough feeling good for you, that was just your system getting rid of the last tidbits of dairy. Here's another stomach ache.... And back to the drawing board, more research.
I still continued to eliminate dairy from my diet going forward because I was feeling better, but not to the fullest extent. So I knew I had to try... give up meat. Growing up with 'off the boat' German grandparents YOU ATE MEAT. So this was going to be hard. So I gave myself a month to "figure it out". And during my "figure it out" time I was praying the meat wasn't it. How can I possibly live a gluten free, meat free, dairy free life. THERES NO WAY. Welp....... guess what? No meat and no dairy = I felt amazing. I was so happy I felt great, but so irritated that yet again I had to retrain myself how to eat. Of course my husband was internally cheering that I wouldn't be buying meat again, even though he wasn't bothered by it.
So here we are folks. My Why. I am not a doctor, I'm not a nutritionist (although you never know what the future may hold). But I do know there are so many people out there that suffer. There are also people out there that are curious. Wonder what a "plant based" meal is all about. Maybe someone wants to decrease their meat consumption and is just stumped on what to do. Or the recipe looks good and they just want to try it. That why Im here, to help.
My dad always jokes about how its all Pauls fault. "He brought you to the dark side". No dad it's my challenged digestive system. Paul standing in silence fist pumping in triumph.
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