Without sounding too cliché it’s the time of year for resolutions and in order to make a really good new year’s resolution, it helps to look back on the current year to figure out what that’s going to be. I often find myself contemplating life at this time of year. People who know me well will know that I have a tendency to daydream, and when the weather outside is bleak there’s something really lovely about cosying up inside, sipping on a hot coffee, while staring out of a blurry raindrop tinted window, watching the world go by. I’ve always been one to zone out into deep thought, and I’ve learned to utilise this as a skill now more than an annoying personality trait. My thought-drifting can sometimes come across as me being vacant and disinterested, especially if it happens mid conversation for example, which does happen from time to time. Anyway, I’m rambling now, there goes my mind, drifting away from the subject at hand.
So going back to last year then… What was good? What do I want more of in 2019? And what wasn’t so great and what have I learned from that? These are good questions to ask yourself in order to know how to make the coming year even better. In this post I’m going to share my answers to those questions with you in the hope that they may help trigger something in your own mind for your own resolutions.
As the title of this post suggests, one of the most significant changes I made in 2018 was changing my diet. About half way through January, I came back from a two week holiday in Japan and decided to adopt a plant based diet. During my time in Japan, food had been a big part of my visit to the country and to my surprise the majority of what I ate over there was seafood, meat and rice and not a huge amount of vegetables. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, one of my favourite things about visiting new places is being adventurous when it comes to trying the local cuisine. Food is a huge part of culture after all. However, I did struggle with the language barrier and often found I had no idea what I was eating and when I thought I had ordered something vegetarian, it came out covered in bacon! Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious, but not necessarily what I wanted on that particular day. Over recent years I have been significantly cutting down on the amount of meat I eat. If I do choose to buy meat I always try to buy the highest possible quality, where I am happy with how the animals were farmed in terms of animal welfare and the impact on the environment. After Japan I felt my diet was lacking in fresh fruit and vegetables and I wasn’t too comfortable with not knowing where my food came from, especially when it came to eating meat. So upon my return to the UK, I went completely Vegan for just over two months. That short period of time where I avoided all animal products was life changing for me. Now that might sound a bit dramatic but it’s all the things that have come as a result of my diet change that make this so significant for me.
The most obvious thing that I noticed was the improvements to my health. I found I had a lot more energy. I didn’t feel tired after eating a large meal. I also noticed improvements in my skin and I lost a bit of excess weight with minimal exercise. I expected to feel better since hearing about other people’s experiences with turning Vegan and found their claims to be true for me too, which was a great feeling. Cutting out meat, eggs and dairy definitely had a very noticeable and positive impact on my health.
Something I didn’t expect at all was the mental aspect that came along with changing my diet. To give a little bit of background into my mental health struggles, for a long time I have been dealing with social and general anxiety with occasional bouts of depression. It started very young when I started school and gradually got worse through secondary school and it massively impacted my performance at university. I was never happy with the work I produced and I often had to force myself to attend seminars and lectures. I lacked confidence in myself, which meant that I didn’t follow through with some of my ideas out of fear of having them rejected by my tutors and peers. I also didn’t have many close friends at university because I found socialising incredibly difficult and so I never built a strong bond with any of my classmates, meaning I didn’t feel as if I had anyone to talk to about my struggles. Even if I did have someone to talk to, I was embarrassed to admit what I was going through out of fear of judgement and I didn’t want to come across as negative or needy. I didn’t even feel comfortable asking my university for help, and instead just struggled through alone. This meant that I barely scraped through university projects with a pass, creating a vicious circle of disappointment and self-loathing. It’s now been 6 years since I graduated, and a lot has changed since then. I still have my ups and downs, but I find it easier to manage now. Since leaving university I have sought help and had counselling and that has really helped me to see things differently and also to forgive myself for how I dealt with things in the past. So why am I telling you all this? Well since changing my diet I have noticed a shift in the way I think about everything. When you adopt a strict diet it takes a lot of self-discipline to stick to it and when you discover that level of discipline and determination within yourself you can apply it to everything, everyday. Anyone who’s been there knows that Anxiety can be debilitating in the fact is sucks every ounce of motivation out of you, to the point when you feel hopeless, but the truth is, you are the only person who can fix that. You can go to counselling and you can take anti-depressants and you can drink alcohol for confidence, but all of those things, although they may be temporarily helpful (drinking alcohol really isn’t helpful because it’s a depressant) are not going to work without a true desire and drive for change. This year I discovered that level of desire for change within myself that I had been missing so far in my adult life. What was it that caused that clicky moment to happen for me? Well.. it all started with Netflix.
Netflix is an amazing resource for eye opening information in the form of documentaries – including about the food industry. It was watching these documentaries that sparked my new found passion and interest in nutrition and re-ignited how I feel about animal welfare issues. I watched a documentary called ‘forks over knives’ and that was it – I was hooked. I’ve now watched every food documentary on Netflix from ‘Cowspiracy’ to ‘Cooked’ as well as a handful of YouTube videos about anything from Veganism to Herbalism. I’ve read ‘The China Study’ by T. Colin Campbell and ‘Food Rules’ by Michael Pollan along with numerous articles online from various sources and I’m still not bored of it. 2018 has been a year of educating myself about food and how diet affects health and how that impacts everything from mental health to longevity and it’s been a truly fascinating journey. So how does this tie into mental health? When you learn about something new that you’re really interested in to the extent and detail I have this year, you notice things you didn’t before relating to that subject and you think about things in new ways. I feel that I’ve become more observant, from the food I put into my mouth, to the way my body feels on a particular day, to the way I feel mentally from week to week. I honestly think that upon discovering a huge interest in food and nutrition and engaging in it daily out of pure curiosity, whether through reading a new book or cooking a new meal, that this has changed the way my brain works. I’m rewiring my brain in a way that I never thought possible, almost completely by accident.
I have a theory that I feel explains what I’m trying to say here a bit more clearly and I think it can be applied to more than just my experience. That theory is as follows;
Change can only come from action and action can only come from motivation and motivation can only come from genuine interest. In other words, change can’t happen without genuine interest in something. You need to find your true passion in order to make a change.
So to answer those questions I mentioned above, the best thing about 2018 for me was unlocking a level of mental clarity through a new found self-discipline. When you start to care about your health, other things follow. I feel a deeper connection to my mind and body than ever before. I have a better understanding of what my body needs to feel good and that has given me a huge sense of feeling more in control over my health, which has led to a massive improvement in my mental well being. So in 2019 I am going to continue to explore this new found passion for health and well being and continue to grow this new wealth of knowledge I have attained and my blog is going to be a platform where I can share this journey with you, among other things, which I am very excited about! I finally feel motivated and confident enough to follow through with some of my creative ideas that I have kept locked away in a dark and dusty corner of my mind for years. I’ve even mapped out my year with an actual written plan for the first time ever so I can actually get things done bit by bit, week by week.
Thank you for reading, have a beautiful day.