My Plant Based Story

A Blessing in Disguise

I am forever grateful that at the beginning of 2018, I developed a gut dysbiosis called SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth). And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. Every single time I ate I would get so bloated that it looked like I was pregnant. Not to mention I would also have a lot of gas too - not exactly sexy. And on top of that it was so uncomfortable! It was because of this that I really started to research more about nutrition and figure out if there was something else I could be doing to improve my gut health.

Veganism

This brought me to veganism. I happened to come across a post on my Instagram discovery page one day about a podcast episode with Nimai Delgado and Dr. Will Bulsiewicz. I listened to the podcast and remember thinking how mind blowing it was that the food you eat can directly affect your gut’s microbiome. Specifically, the diversity of your microbiome is directly related to the diversity of plants that you eat. Animal products on the other hand promote the growth of unfriendly bacteria and do not contribute to the diversity of your friendly gut flora.

I continued to do more research and watched the documentary, Dominion. I’ll be completely honest with you, I cried within the first 10 minutes, but forced myself to watch the entire thing. You see, two years prior I had put my dog down so when I watched the film I imagined what it would be like if he were there. It was absolutely heart wrenching and made it very easy to completely stop eating animal products overnight.

As I started following more vegan and plant based influencers online I also learned more about the environmental impacts of animal agriculture and how destructive it is for our environment. It became extremely evident that there was no longer a good reason not to be vegan.

Will I be vegan forever?

Absolutely! While there are some former vegans who say that they feel better now after adding in some high quality meat, I refuse to be one of them. I could never feel ethically comfortable eating animal products again unless it was a life or death situation and I literally had no other choice.

I’m one of those people who believes that everything happens for a reason. So as embarrassing as SIBO was at the time, it was one of the best things that has happened to me because I’ve learned so much and connected with so many people because of it.

Not only did I learn about gut health but I also really started to dig into environmental toxins and how much of a role they can play in your health. I’m almost positive that the apartment I was living in at that time had mold, which is what led to the SIBO in the first place. I never got the place tested so unfortunately I will never know for certain but it truly did open my eyes and my awareness.