Ever have one of those moments where you realize how much you’ve changed in a certain area of life? I’m having one of those moments today.
When I first started my blog I was an avid vegetarian. People wanted to follow my blog because I was talking about how to do pregnancy, nursing, and family life as vegetarians. I posted a lot of dairy free alternatives. My kids were vegetarian. I had tackled two pregnancies and almost 4 years of nursing as a vegetarian. It worked. I felt great. I was thriving.
AND then all of a sudden I wasn’t.
I got pregnant with baby 3 and it was HARD (which is putting it mildly). I could hardly get off the couch and usually when I did it was to run to the bathroom because I was so, so sick. I was miserable. After spending way too much time on the bathroom floor I attempted all the tricks. NONE of them helped. I’ve never been so sick in all my life. I had previously been one of those women that loved being pregnant. Not any more.
I was sick for about 24 weeks of my pregnancy. Real sick. Like wear a painters mask if I attempted to make dinner because all the smells made me throw up. I couldn’t open the fridge.
Then one day my husband and I were out to dinner and I was doing all I could to hold it together. He ordered steak and when it arrived I decided I needed his dinner instead of mine. He resisted for a bit because he thought I was losing my mind. I hadn’t eaten meat in so long and he thought I would just end up throwing up right there in the middle of the party.
Long story short he gave me his dinner and I devoured it. I tried all the other tricks and nothing was working to help me feel better so I decided to see if eating meat helped.
Sure enough. I started eating meat and I started feeling a little better. It wasn’t an instant cure but I noticed a shift.
For an avid vegetarian this was hard. I had never liked meat so figuring out how to eat it was a challenge. Slowly I started to figure it out. AND I started to feel better. I couldn’t believe it. I was grateful and also a little hesitant to share to the world that all of a sudden this long standing, plant based diet girl was now becoming a carnivore.
As I’m sure you can imagine the teasing and comments that ensued.
I am so thankful that I was willing to listen to the internal promptings my body was giving and not stay stuck in a cycle of eating that had served me well for so long but then needed to change.
I could have stayed on my soap box and been stubborn about it {and trust me, I really did want to do that initially}. I could have kept a tight grip on an dietary theory and just keep trudging along.
BUT I didn’t stay there.
I benefited from not staying stuck and being open minded.
I chuckle a little at all this now. Here I am a few years later just having finished Whole 30, which is basically 30 days of meat, vegetables, fruit, and nuts. It’s a way to reset unhealthy habits and slay your sugar dragon which is apparently whole 30 lingo. It’s bringing awareness to habitual patterns and spending time focusing on eating only whole foods and not processed foods. I’m not sure I’ve felt as good as I do now since before I had all four of my kids.
The moral of the story is to be open to change. Change isn’t easy but the benefits might be surprising and worthy of the work.
If you need help figuring out how to navigate the journey of food and how to discover what works best for you, I would love to walk alongside you and ask questions and encourage you to feel your best. I do online health coaching and am happy to connect and be your your guide and cheerleader!
Jen Byrne
Jen is a Certified Holistic Health and Wellness Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Her main focus is guiding, inspiring, and teaching busy moms how to pause and take time for themselves and be well nourished. Jen is a busy mama herself with four little ones under the age of 7. She has personally found the value and importance of taking time to nourish herself in order to step into the beautiful and challenging role as a mother. Her background includes a B.S. in Exercise Science. She also holds a 500 hour advanced therapeutic yoga certification. Jen can often be found in the kitchen cooking alongside several little ones. She is also a lover of all outdoor activities and especially loves family bike outings. She can be found sharing tips on woman’s wellness and raising healthy kids at her facebook page Jen Byrne Wellness.
