For me, weight loss has never been about following anyone else’s plan.  I’ve never successfully followed ANY weight loss plan my entire life.   I’ve signed up for lots of things, don’t get me wrong, but that’s as far as I generally go.  I sign up, I peruse the content and don’t go all in.

This entire journey I believed (and still believe) I have to find a solution that works just for me.  I have to work through exactly what in my mind is holding me back.  This is the crux of why I think sustainable weight loss is so hard.  We look to others and ask how did you do it, what did you eat?  We want that magical Ozempic pill, the miracle cure, but it doesn’t exist.  Not for me anyway.  We all have different budgets, taste buds, time allotted to prepare meals, different cooking skills, kitchen tools and appliances available to us and most importantly, mind hurdles which can make following someone else’s plan difficult to do for life.  Sure, I take inspiration from EVERYWHERE, but I have to make it my own.

I thought about being vegan for almost an entire year and learnt nonstop about veganism along with a whole food plant based way of eating which includes so many science backed resources and multiple different doctors saying the same thing for decades.  We aren’t listening.  The health system has failed us.  Industry and governments care more about profits and getting voted in than what is best for the people, the animals and the environment.

I don’t even want people to listen to me, sure if you are inspired by me that would make me happy, but I’m not selling anything.  I’m sharing my story and I do hope to provide inspiration so people can consider making changes for the benefit of their own health, the animals and the environment, but go out there for yourself and discover what works for you, the data is all freely available, I’ve provided many resources throughout my blog.

The health system has failed us.  Animals are the largest pharmaceutical consumers due to factory farming and we are collectively sicker than we’ve ever been.  Lifestyle related diseases are at an all time high and many can be tied back to how we eat.

During my initial journey, I just had to get started at some point and take action, get out of the ‘learning phase.’  I tried new recipes, veganized existing recipes, made weekly meal plans that had new vegan recipes along with some of our old animal-based recipes until one day, the old just faded out, I didn’t want it anymore.  We had enough new recipes that we just preferred vegan over eating animals and so we went all in.  The moment we went all in, felt easy as we already had many tried and true new recipes to make.  They were already built into our life.   It was a gradual change and I could not have done it any other way.

When I finally KNEW the vegan lifestyle was for me (note it’s not a diet, it’s a social justice movement), then I ‘came out’ to the world, but wouldn’t have confidently arrived in my new lifestyle if I didn’t have the patience and resilience to ‘find’ my own way and knock down and address my own mind obstacles, my own objections.

Trust me, there were objections over giving up cheese – I did so much work at that initial phase. I actually had to break down giving up cheese:  I started with no pizza which meant no cheese from pizza which was my main cheese source.  Then I was eating melted cheese on toast and pasta so I had to really work hard on myself to decide to give up melted cheese, but I wasn’t ready to say all cheese right away.  Once I gave up melted cheese, the rest was easy to give up.  For my mind, I had to do it in stages.  Giving up all dairy as a start was too much of a mind hurdle to overcome, I had to break it down.  I had to learn about what happens to the animals to become so disgusted with the dairy industry. I had to learn how high fat and salt cheese is and how dairy is disease promoting.  It took my brain a ton of convincing.  I watched podcasts, looked at research, listened to books, took courses, joined whole food plant based support groups and veganized my social media feed.

Every phase has included mental work and as I work to lose this last 40 lbs from my old lifestyle, I still have mental work to do and I wish I could say I don’t.  I have grace and compassion for myself that I grew up in a world of ultra processed foods that heavily promotes animal foods and stuffs dairy in every single product possible.  Like why is dairy in chips? Learn about the fact that whey is a byproduct of dairy, sold to you for cheap so industry doesn’t have to pay to dispose of it. Foods that are designed by industry to keep us addicted and coming back to eat more.  Grocery stores that have chocolate bars and other unsavory items at the checkout, tempting you at every turn. Nutritional fallacies are rampant and everywhere.  It’s not my fault.  I wish I grew up vegan, what a gift that would have been, but that’s not my reality so I have decades of cultural conditioning to overcome.

I’ve done so much mental work these past 8 weeks.  I’ve neither gained nor lost weight and I’m ok with that.  However, no one wants to hear a weight loss journey like that, we want flashy instant results – 20 lbs down in 8 weeks, see page 6 to find out how she did it!  I firmly believe if I keep working through the mental work and don’t give up hope and find what works for me, I will get there. 

If you want instant results, that’s what you will get, but if you want sustainable change, I think you have to consider taking a deep dive into your own brain and what is holding you back and how you can work through those barriers and come up with a plan that works for you.  While this may seem like more work than your average ‘plan,’ as my chiropractor says, most people who ‘diet’ gain the weight back and I’ve kept it off for over 2 years now. I’m officially in the minority and I firmly believe it’s because every step I have taken, I have had to consider if what I’m changing is SUSTAINABLE for the long term.  Not just for right now, but can this be my new habit and if so, how can I break it down into tiny steps to achieve it?  I’m certainly not perfect, but I think because I have changed my life in a sustainable way, changed my mindset in many ways and changed so much of my eating habits, I’ve been able to easily keep off that initial 60 lbs while still making a plethora of unsavory choices.  No matter if I end up releasing my last 40 lbs, I feel good in my body as I am right now and I feel proud of myself for getting this far and for not giving up.

Peace, love & plants,

Michelle 😊

p.s. I used to say I’d rather die than go vegan. If that was my starting point and I’m here now writing on my own vegan blog, I believe whatever you want for yourself, whatever changes your higher self is nudging you to make, you can do it.