It’s no secret that I’m a vegetarian. Well, I guess was a vegetarian until today. My road to vegetarianism was paved by animal rights and not wanting to drive the demand to kill for food. It was never because I didn’t like meat or I didn’t like the taste, it was a purely ethical choice for me. That was in 2008, so I’ve been a veghead for about 8 years now (wow, it seems so long now that I had to count it!). During the last 8 years I developed high cholesterol, cutaneous lupus and a severely hyperactive thyroid. Luckily I fought off the doctors on the cholesterol meds and the lupus never went systemic so I was never on meds for that either. My downfall was my thyroid, and I badly wanted off that medication and for my body to regulate itself. I’ve mentioned in previous posts about reiki, napropaths, polarity testing, Shamanic healing and the like – I’ve used them all as a means to try to heal my body and unfortunately it hasn’t worked, at least not in the way that I had hoped. I even gave up coffee in an effort to get my body to regulate itself. I read that coffee and caffeine in general is one of the worst things for your adrenals, and unfortunately I did find out through the napropath that the reason my thyroid is overactive is because my adrenals are fatiguing, therefore putting excess strain on the other organs in my endocrine system to compensate.Although, I suppose when you really break it down, putting caffeine into a body that is already going at hyper-speed isn’t a great idea. Ugh, but I love coffee… that’s been really hard for me. Anyways, last night I had an appointment with a homeopath at the suggestion of a neighbor; when I had gone over to my neighbor’s house to do her wellness consult after she started with her essential oils we were chatting about this homeopath she had just started seeing. I was really intrigued when she told me that this woman spent 2 1/2 hours with her. I’ve NEVER had any kind of practitioner spend that kind of time with me. Because I recently had to kick up my thyroid medication instead of getting off it, I was pretty open to seeing just about anyone who could help. So last night I went to see Dr. Simona Ciobanu of Natural Elite Wellness in Oakbrook (she also has an office in Chicago). I was no different than my neighbor – she spent 3 HOURS with me. 3 hours. I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t leave any stone unturned, we went back to childhood, we went back to when I first started struggling with my health, my emotions, my marriage, my family, my career – everything got pulled apart layer by layer like an onion. It was like a doctor’s visit and therapy session all rolled into one, which was great. To make a long story short, she’s very big on the blood type diet. With me being a type O, type O’s are carnivores. They thrive on meat. I knew where that was going. It wasn’t all about the diet – just like anything else, there are always lifestyle factors involved. I had to make time to exercise (something I suck at and I know it) and I had to reduce my stress. Yeah… I’ve long since had a small hunch that my vegetarian lifestyle wasn’t necessarily healthy for me – and what I mean by that is vegetarianism is hard. It requires a lot of preparation, a lot of time in the kitchen and a lot of smart choices – did I mention a lot of pre-planning? With life getting busier by the year, I’ve gotten worse and worse at these things and I’ve tried to make up in other ways – healthier snacks I can grab on the go, protein shakes, etc. but I’ve also filled my diet with a lot of carbs and grains and sometimes I let myself get so hungry that I’ll devour anything in my path, regardless what it is. Type O’s don’t thrive on carbs, grains and sugar. Realistically though, I’m sure I could be a type O without eating meat, but again it goes back to having the time to cook all my meals and make sure each one has something packed with protein like beans. My vegetarian protein sources haven’t been that great though – I recently cut out soy (because I read that it can interfere with your thyroid function) and I also cut out corn (because of the GMO’s). When your diet is already limited and then you go chopping more things out of it, things get really sketchy. Add in that as most of you may know my husband John and I have 2 very different diets – John is very much a meatatarian, so add that into the complexity of the meal situation. I’ve been toying with the idea of putting organic free range chicken back into my diet for a few months. On the one hand I knew my body in a lot of ways wasn’t being fed what it needed, but on the other hand I felt like I was betraying what I believed in. It was a really hard decision for me. After talking with Dr. Simona last night, she gently urged me to consider putting some kind of animal protein back into my diet – if anything else just to see how my body responds and if it starts to heal. So with that in mind, I decided to go forth with the chicken. The fact of the matter is I couldn’t deny that all my health concerns started right around the time I became a vegetarian. Some blood types thrive with a vegetarian lifestyle, O’s just don’t usually. Anyone want to exchange blood with me? =) I knew that if I didn’t start healing my body with my diet that this health cycle may be never-ending. It always begins and ends with what’s on the end of your fork, going through IIN I know this. I guess I just never thought it would come down to having to put meat back in my diet. One of my 2015 resolutions was to focus on self-care and apparently whether I knew it or not the universe put Dr. Simona in my neighbor’s path and ultimately in my path for a reason. So here I go on my journey of not being a strict vegetarian – I think my happy compromise with the Earth is putting chicken back in my diet that was not raised on a factory farm. If I have to do this, I want to at least know what I’m putting into my body wasn’t tortured, made to live in horrid conditions, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. So… to mark the day, here it is. My first non-vegetarian meal, a BBQ chicken sandwich. I hate that I liked it – the Italian in me is thriving, I know it.
