I truly believe that our spiritual journey can’t be approached “half assed’. It affects so much of our lives that it is only natural that it be more of a lifestyle choice than an off the wall decision. Just like people who go to conventional church have meals together, events together, and other activities that make up much of their time when they give in to it 100% so does this journey. I feel like you get what you put into it. Now in saying that, I am not saying in order to do that you must follow the steps I am taking. I believe that everyone’s journey is actually completely different. However, this blog follows my journey and where it has led my family and me in our everyday lives. In part 1 of this series I talked about some of the changes and realizations we had regarding our health and our diet. I hinted to some of the dietary changes but didn’t really talk about them specifically. When I began my journey we were eating out a couple times a week. I wouldn’t say I had a terrible diet but an average American diet of processed, fried, canned, etc. foods that were high in meat and dairy products. Over the past 6 weeks I have transitioned from that into what I am today and that is 100% vegan. For a couple weeks I started to just eat healthier and cut back on breads and sugars. Then slowly cut back on meats to more fish less and less reds. After completely cutting meats I began to cut back on dairy. Almond milk was an easy transition but cheeses were hard. Every meal we had incorporated cheese in some way. Although I am 100% vegan, my family is all at different stages. I knew that they had different desires from the beginning and my goal wasn’t to push them into something they completely resisted. At this point, I would call all three kids vegetarians. The girls have no desire for meats at all. They all three love the almond milk over cow’s milk in cereal and anything else we use it in. Cheese has been a little harder but they have done great. My oldest wants to still eat eggs but only from our own chickens. Since they aren’t producing right now she hasn’t had any but the other 2 don’t like eggs to begin with. The biggest thing keeping them from the vegan path is the hidden milk and eggs in everyday products that they aren’t willing to give up. Things like having a cupcake or cookie at a school party, etc. They aren’t purposely eating those products but worrying about them hidden in products while they are out being a kid is too much hassles for them at this point. My husband will always eat meats. He has cut it back and is choosing healthier meats but I can’t ever see him giving them up. His diet is healthier mostly because he eats the things that I fix all of us but I will occasionally add chicken breast and such to his. So he is still getting more veggies, less dairy, less fat, let cholesterol, healthier grains, etc. We are striving for improvement not perfection. I just want to make my family healthier. I don’t want us to be another disease statistic and showing them how to eat well at a younger age will help them much more than fixing the eating habits as adult. Over the past 6 weeks I have lost 18lbs and I am steadily losing. I am not counting calories nor do I feel hungry. I am just eating better. I never really over ate. I just ate the wrong foods. I am not putting a big emphasis on losing weight just on getting healthy. Spiritually, I feel more connected than I ever have. I feel like I am making good choices to protect the Earth and its creatures in areas of my life that I completely overlooked before. Stay tuned later this spring when I finish up this series with our Part 3, which will include an update on how everyone is doing and some recipes of our favorite meals.
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Keri Nichol
Founder, Artist, Herbalist, and Writer Archives
August 2018
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