Hello everyone :D so today I wanted to share my story of how going vegan cured my eating disorder and eventually made me lose 100 pounds.
(before picture taken sometime in july 2016, after picture: taken today (february 9. 2018)
But trust me, it was not as easy as I just made it seem like. It has been a long and bumpy road where I have made lots of mistakes along the way. One huge mistake which set me back for over a year was being brainwashed in to thinking that refined sugar was good for weight loss. This made me gain 60 kgs in just a bit over a year. This is something I could go much more in depth about at a later point, but for now I just want to share how going vegan has literally turned out to be the best decision I have made in my life.
Starting from the beginning when I was about 12 years old. It was at this age I started to become self conscious about my weight and appearance in general. Up until this point thoughts of needing to look a certain way in order to be happy and get social approval had literally never crossed my mind. I even remember being called fat when I was 10 years old by a boy in my class, in which I just responded with laughing hysterically while grabbing on to my belly fat and playing drums while (yes I was a weird kid LOL xD). Believe it or not this was not even a defensive mechanism, I literally thought it was funny at the time for whatever reason lol.
It was not until I was about 13 years old that I started to occasionally restrict my calories. I would suddenly just decide to not eat for an entire day on a few rare occasions but for the most part "just" restrict certain foods and calories in general. At this point my eating disorder was "only" a minor problem as it was quite rare that I would actually restrict, but looking back this is where it all started. This was where my whole mentality was formed, and even though nobody around me at the time took notice in this behavior, this would show to develop into something much more serious over the years.
Anyways long story short, it was not until I was about 15 years old that I decided that I wanted to get serious about losing weight. Before this I had always looked at myself as a shreks wife with no will power because I had always "failed" in the past. (notice the quotation marks, I shall get in to that later) It was at this point I started to obsessively weight out all of my food and log it in a journal. I would even count the calories of stuff like lettuce and cucumber.
But the full story of my eating disorder I plan to keep as a separate post where I go in want to go in much more detail. I would also like to make a huge point about how many people who watched my eating disorder story video which is up on YouTube, have said that this is just "common diet failures" and not the same as an eating disorder. I strongly disagree with this, as this is something that controlled my life for many years, even though it was not noticeable for the people around me.
Anyways moving on to the good part of this story. After many years of being caught in the binge and starve cycle where I would always gain the weight back again after having starved myself for a few weeks or months. I came across some vegan youtubers and was instantly fascinated, especially with this one you-tuber (Freelee). She talked about how restricting calories will always make you gain weight long term, due to a damaged metabolism and just how diets don't work in general. It was then recommended that in order to lose weight and actually stay there for life you needed to eat enough of the right calories. Right calories meaning high carbohydrate rich vegan foods in abundance.
For a couple of months I experienced great results from eating this way. My skin who had always been very red and filled with acne cleared up only within a week. Its hard to explain but I felt like my skin could finally breathe again, like my pores had been clogged up or something before. My digestion had never been better and most importantly I felt more awake and alive then I have ever had in my entire life! My brain just felt switched on, it was like all the fog was gone and I realized that I had been living my entire life like a walking zombie up until this point. It truly felt like being reborn in to a new person.
Unfortunately this was very short lived due to my own nativity and pure and simple lack of knowledge of how some people go trough life as a scam artist. It was also due to me still having this extreme eating disorder mindset of needing to be perfect in every single way, making me an easy target for scammers. I then started to consume copious amounts of refined sugar, white rice and soy sauce and gained about 60kg in on year.
- If you want to know the whole story about this scam artist and how he has a many people just like me fooled, I urge you to look up ''The Unmasking Of A Narcissist'' series created by Michael Hebo here on Steemit. Not only is this an amazing series for bringing justice upon all the people he has scammed, lied about, assaulted etc etc etc, but its an EXCELLENT tool for knowing the red flags of these kinds of people, so that you can avoid being fooled by them.
- There is a reason why people like Donald manchild Trump gets to be the president of U.S.A, and that is not because everyone who supports him are downright stupid, its because they are not educated about how these kinds of people are truly selfish and rotten to the core of their being and how they operate and think.
- Not knowing about the fact that there are some truly rotten people out there who will lie and manipulate until their last breath and doing it with no remorse or empathy (they are not capable of it) is EXACTLY what made me gain 60kgs in one year.
- So I really do urge every single one of you to educate yourselves on this matter since our ignorance is the only thing that gives them power. Whiteout us providing narcissistic supply to them, they wont be able to destroy any more lives. Remember that. ;)
- But final words if in doubt remember this when interacting with anyone you secretly suspect are full of shit (does not necessarily mean they are a full blown narc) this quote as been a very helpful reminder on how to spot the toxic so that I can avoid them:
Long story short I started to listen to the advice of someone who recommended a high refined sugar diet.
A normal day of eating would consist of starting my day with a smoothie containing about 100-200g of pure refined sugar, juice and maybe a bit of frozen fruit. Then for lunch I would usually have some more juice and maybe a bit of fruit. Then for dinner I would almost always have about 500g of white rice, soy sauce and a tiny bit of brussel sprouts and ketchup. This was literally what I ate and I know it sounds insane that I could have thought this was healthy at the time but I was 100% brainwashed.
- btw, here is my old cringy instagram account I started during my whole cult brainwashed sugar addict phase showing a typical sugar smoothie I would have on a daily basis. (btw my current instagram is
_on_wheels)
There is so much more I could say about what was going on in my head at the time and how I actually fell in to a cult whiteout even realizing, but I am planning to keep that in a separate post/video as that is a whole other story. And I need to start to actually get to the point of this entire post already haha! :p
June 2016 I was at the heaviest I had ever been weighing at 130kg (im about 173cm tall) I decided I needed to do something drastic, so I went Chiang Mai, Thailand with the intention of staying there over summer so that I could train off all the weight I had gained that year.
Of course this did not happen and the first month I was there I only got worse. At this point in time I was still under the belief that refined sugar was somehow this magic weight loss drug and I went from just having a bunch of juice to quite literally and I am not kidding you guys, drinking 2 LITERS OF SPRITE FOR BREAKFAST. And no I dont blame you if you are face-palming or just shaking your head reading this, because trust me I am to xD.
This as you can imagine only made me gain more weight even though I was actually riding my bicycle up a steep mountain for the first time in my life.
Then finally in late july of 2016 getting almost ready to go home as I had planned in the beginning of my trip and having only gained more weight and made no friends at the festival like I wanted to, I was lucky enough to meet someone to coach me. Long story short I paid for someone who has had an amazing weight loss transformation to show me the way. He coached me on how to actually eat a healthy vegan diet and train in a sustainable but yet effective way.
I started to eat a mostly whole foods diet, meaning eating plenty off potatoes, whole grain rice, vegetables, beans, lentils etc. I also started to ride my bicycle more and more as time went by as I had a lot more energy now since I was actually giving my body what it so desperately need, actual nutrients! :p
I was finally back to feeling how good I felt in the beginning of my vegan journey, doing things right for the long term this time around.
I still eat as much as I care for but since I am finally now eating the right calories, there is no need to count calories. Just like a cow who is meant to eat grass and a lion meant to hunt their pray and eat the flesh of other animals, humans are no different in the way that WE DONT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT CALORIES IF WE ARE EATING THE RIGHT ONES! You dont see a monkey planning out how many bananas it can eat, or a cow tying to restrict its grass intake to look good for bikini season. There is simply no need for it as you will naturally stop eating when full when you are eating the foods that give you sufficient nutrition, fiber etc to satisfy you.
But its no wonder us humans are so confused on how to eat and how much since most people actually believe that its normal, natural and necessary to eat meat, dairy and eggs. This could not be further from the truth. And I really do urge you to do your research about this. We as a society have all been brainwashed of the same lies most of us our whole lives. Anyone saying anything but meat, dairy and eggs being normal, natural and necessary just makes no sense unless you make the effort to look in to the information that has been so carefully hidden away from you.
If you are the kind of person who are not afraid to learn about the truth then I really do urge you for your own sake to check out these links to start researching what this is all about.
(The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear - By Gary Yourofsky )
( 101 reasons to go vegan )
- Documentary on netflix: Cowspiracy (enviroment)
- Check out the documentary ''Earthlings'' (Ethics)
Going vegan has been the best decision I have ever made in my life, despite being brainwashed in the beginning. And as expensive of an lesson that has been, I have chosen to not let it define me or bring me down but simply learn from it and become a wiser and stronger person because of it. Thats all any of us can do at the end of the day, learn from our mistakes. :)
For over 1 year and 6 months now I literally eat as much as I care for of all them delicious whole plant foods. I never ever count calories or worry about eating too much. This is something I always dreamed of being able to do when starving myself back in the day. Of course back then I would have wished to be able to eat chocolate everyday whiteout gaining weight. And of course some days I do have a bit of chocolate cake and ice cream (all vegan ofc) for 95% I eat healthy whole plant foods. So whole plant foods is now what I crave about 95% of the time.
Lastly I just want to make a huge point of saying that the whole reason that I have been able to lose weight has very little do with willpower and all to do with the sustainable energy I have from eating enough of the right foods. Of course it makes me very happy to hear of people who say they find me losing weight inspiring and some wishing they had my will power, but at the end of the day I have ALWAYS had the desire to want to lose weight but I always failed eventually because I would get hungry and go for the bad foods and my taste buds were adjusted to them at the time.
There is just no way in hell I would be able to get out of bed in the morning whiteout having consumed enough calories. If I feel hungry in the middle of the night, I go eat as much as I care for. I dont like to make this a regular habbit though since it disrupts my sleep and sleep is very important for healthy hormones and healthy hormones important for weight loss. But at the end of the day at whatever time, whatever the place, whatever the situation if I am hungry I.SHALL.EAT. It is literally that simple.
Of course training sustainable is also a huge part of weight loss, but I would have never been able to do the training I do if I did not eat enough. Not going to lie, there are some days I dont feel like training, especially currently living in very cold Norway, but what always gives me motivation is having a good playlist.
Thank you for reading through this very long article/post thing. I hope you got something positive out of it! If you are on a weight loss journey like myself I wish you the best of luck! I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT ! seriously, I am no special or unique in any sort of way and if I can do it anyone can. Just keep consistent and you WILL GET THERE! I believe in you gurl, or booy! :p :D
Please do feel free to leave any comments or questions and hope you keep having a lovely morning, noon or evening wherever you are in the world.
steem on fellow steemians! ;)