More than the food on your plate (a personal tribute on World Vegan Day)

Today, November 1st, is World Vegan Day!

To mark the occasion I could share with you more vegan recipes or I could share with you ‘top tips for going vegan’, or even the logistics of making your first foray into a vegan lifestyle… but, to be honest there are already countless posts on these topics around the blogosphere…

So instead, I decided on something a bit different. Something a bit more personal.

I’ve been following a plant-based diet since mid 2012 (this blog started in Aug 2011 and I was already well on the way at that point) so I’m sharing a bit of a ‘behind the scenes’ of my ‘why’ behind making that switch and how my life has changed because of it. It’s a bit ranty and passionate in places, ha ha, but my hope is that it simply offers you a shift in perspective regardless of your own ‘vegan’ standpoint.

P.s you may also enjoy these posts on my gateway to veganism and the link between creativity and a plant-based diet

Over the last few years, I found myself naturally gravitating away from marketing myself as a health coach (which is what my training labeled me- although BTW I loved that course) and more towards my curiosity with life and mindset being the focus of my coaching.

This evolution came about in part, in both my work and personal life, from a sense of frustration in the conversation about food. I see and I hear in the language that people use the fact that we are still so blinkered when it comes to food and nutrition. We count calories, we study macros, we cut carbs, we focus on weight loss. We want more energy and vitality… but in looking for answers so often we're focusing purely on what's on our plates. We listen to our heads over our bodies, we prioritise numbers and statistics and dismiss curiosity and intuition.

This is not an issue specific to food of course. It a society-wide issue, driven by our ‘paint by numbers’ lives.

We live in a society where there is an immediacy of 'action equals reward'. We want a quick fix. We're constantly bombarded with things in the media that promise that quick fix, but we don't see this bigger picture.

We loose the holistic view of food being about so much more than what's on our plate.

I experienced this massive shift, this journey, that's influenced my entire life since 2011 when I first moved towards a plant-based diet. The change came from a nutritional point of view initially as I wanted to feel healthier and I was curious as to what my partner at the time was doing and the benefits he was seeing in his life following a vegan diet.

I made these changes simply led by curiosity, without really knowing what to expect and yet I gained so much more than I could ever have imagined.

It's interesting because when I talk to people about a plant-based vegan diet, they often fixate on what they'd be 'missing out on' all the things that they will no longer be able to consume. But to me, that's missing the point because there's so much more to gain beyond the food on your plate.

The changes you feel in your body, in your mind, in your spiritual connection to yourself, in the wider universe beyond yourself, if you're open to thinking that far, is just immeasurable. This idea of not being able to eat certain foods just becomes irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things.

I also want to draw attention to the idea of 'loss'. Often, when we initially cut something out, we crave it, we miss it, we are very aware of what we're no longer having. Yet within days and weeks those thoughts and feelings quickly subside. I don't wake up in the morning and think, “oh no, I can't have meat or cheese again today". It's just a non-issue now. I don't even consider it because my life is about so much more than that.

All the things that have been created through making these nutritional changes, are just immeasurable. I had always struggled to put this into words, these deep feelings inside I struggled to share, but now as I'm pulling together the content for my book, I'm finding I'm able to tap into this space much more deeply. And finally the words are coming through for me around the truth that food is just the tip of the iceberg.

What we choose to put in our mouth is literally the tip of the iceberg is it's one percent of the story if you like. I think it's the tangibility as well. Food is a very 'physical' thing on a basic level. We can 'see' what we're eating. We know that if we eat less calories we'll lose weight and it's so easy to fixate on this 'first base' if you like, this initial action and reward state.

But that misses the whole point in my mind. When we make these changes, we align ourselves with the opportunity to live our very best life because when we change what we eat, when we largely cut out refined foods, when we reduce animal products and focus on 'live' foods, and a wholefood plant-based diet, it shifts our entire relationship within ourselves.

We have more space in our minds. We have this clarity of thought, more energy in our bodies and our perception of life totally shifts. When you question the food on your plate, and by that I mean the way we've been taught to eat over the years and the generations passed down before us, the way that the media portray nutrition and all the messages that are thrown our way every second of every day, when we question those things and we step away from them, we allow ourselves to question the fundamentals of our lives, the things we'd unconsciously assumed were just 'the ways it is'.

When we question everything that we've been taught, that we've been conditioned to believe. Everything that society expects of us, we can make a different choice. We can question those things and ask ourselves:

"Okay, so what else is now possible"?
"What other options have I got that I couldn’t see before?"
"What do I really want from my life?"
"How do I want to show up?"
"What is MY truth?"

And through making these changes, initiated by the choice of foods we put into our mouths, we are stepping up and saying:

I choose to do things differently.

I choose to do things my way.

I choose to connect with my body and with the world and step away from the norms and expectations.

This is so incredibly empowering. This is massive statement of intent.

So many people I've spoken to who've made these kinds of shifts, talk about how empowering that was for their own sense of self-confidence. That sense of self-connection, their self-expression, that sense of permission to doing things differently. That way of being ripples out into every other aspect of your life. So this is what I mean when I say ''food is the gateway to your optimal self’, because it's the gateway to living life on your own terms and that is what I'm so deeply passionate about.

The physical, the mental, the spiritual, the emotional, all those changes that take place when you shift your diet (and in my research and experience it is dramatically enhanced when you shift towards a more fully plant-based vegan diet) are incredible. It goes way beyond anything you could likely imagine because until you start experiencing those changes for yourself, it's very difficult to conceptualise and put into words, which the struggle I've had over these last few years.

So often have I sat with, ‘How do I share this experience, one that I am so passionate about sharing and supporting people through, using mere words?’

For now, I simply want you to understand that it's about so much more than the food on your plate, and I also encourage your curiosity and intrigue, because when you question one thing, the flood gates open and you question everything else you thought you knew.

Then the game changes.

What becomes possible in your life when you make that shift?

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