earth day

Eating Compassionately

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Compassion Begins On Your Plate!

➡️What losing over a hundred pounds looks like on Instagram vs. ➡️what losing over a hundred pounds looks like in reality.

This is a major vulnerability post for me, friends. In honor of Earth day, I am posting to remind you that going vegan is not only the best thing you can do to save the planet, but also yourself. I rarely took pictures of me at my heaviest. It was one of the hardest times of my life. The picture of me sitting is when I already started losing a little weight a year into me working at Whole Foods Market when I was on a trip to Chicago opening a store. At my absolute heaviest, I was in an abusive marriage and so lost. It took me going vegan to get my groove back after it all. Seriously. I started feeling happier and more positive. I felt like I wanted to move my body more and my back pain was feeling relief. There were days at my heaviest I didn’t even want to move because my feet killed me and my back made me feel immobile. The lethargy went away going vegan. I started going to the gym, and eating a lot of chia for energy, and never felt better in my life.

After I lost weight, I wanted to show it off and look my best. What I didn’t post was the stretch marks, and the stomach pouch I still had, and the ups and downs along the way. You always see me post myself wearing high waisted leggings or jeans holding in my stomach, or a tank top that is loose in the tummy and flatters me just right. Reality is that I often take a million photos and try multiple poses before I post one. Never get caught up in appearances. The main thing to take away from me going vegan is that it literally improved my quality of life from a drastic standpoint.

My point is, veganism saved my life and my health. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It’s a better quality of life for everyone, from a personal level, to how animals are treated, to how many Earthly resources are saved for everyone by eating plant based. Compassion truly begins on your plate: for the animals, for the planet, and for your health. 💚🌱✨💗

Earth Day: Compassion Begins On Your Plate

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Compassion begins on your plate!! 💚🌱✨ I’ve always been a bit of a bleeding heart. I was 14 years old when I decided weight loss wasn’t worth eating animals. My entire family was on the Atkins diet, and saw short term successes (but long term health problems, cancers and death). I was repulsed by seeing family members eat flesh for every meal. I went vegetarian without really knowing how to be a healthy one. As a Midwest girl with limited nutrition knowledge, I just decided to eat anything that didn’t have eyes. This included tons of bread, pasta, and cheese. 18 years old wasn’t even my heaviest. I was heaviest in my mid twenties working in the insurance industry. I finally had a moment where I felt like I woke up. I found myself staring down a road I didn’t want to be on, and drastically changed my life.

Working at Whole Foods and learning about The Whole Foods Diet, and finding veganism was the answer I needed all along. It was not only the most compassionate choice for the animals, and the planet, but it was the most compassionate choice for myself and my health. I finally found the answer to all the questions I had about our nutrition, while still limiting our harm, and impacting the planet positively. The energy this diet gave me impacted my physical activities as well.

We are all so hard on ourselves sometimes, myself included. We are all imperfectly perfect. As I learned more, my mind evolved, my behaviors and diet evolved, and then my body followed. It wasn’t a perfect process. It took time. Transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen. It’s as simple as making a decision on what you are making for dinner tonight, or to take that walk you are thinking about. May your life and actions be a celebration of the Earth, every day.