Why so lupey…and vegan?
This blog contains affiliate links to Misfit Market.
The idea of becoming vegan is by choice…lupey, not so much. I come into this vegan goal with a lot of practice in that direction; I’ve been a vegetarian for 31 years. I’ve only been a vegetarian with a Lupus diagnosis for about 3, so that has been a much newer battle on many fronts, including what to eat, or more so I’m finding what not to eat. The streaming diagnosis’ of Lupus, POTS, EDS, etc… falls into that part of life that has a different recommendation around every corner. Diet or don’t diet, protein-heavy or plant-based, gluten-free or lactose free…both? It’s impossible to simply “find” a diet that gives any real comfort in numbers for what works best with autoimmune disorders, especially when you get into that “Zebra” territory; the cliché phrase used for us who have rare or hard to diagnosis disorders, like EDS, and especially when you overachieve and take up a few different ones. However, tried and true experience has led me to this place of knowing through trial and error what makes me feel better and what makes me feel worse. That’s not to say that it is the case for everyone, certainly it won’t be, but it is working for me.
This time last year, I was in a wheelchair. I was what they call, and I guess I still am, an ambulatory wheelchair user. I use it when I need it. Last year, I needed it a lot. After a ridiculous season of trying to coach my daughter’s volleyball team from the chair, which was humiliating, difficult, and really put life into perspective, I decided something had to happen. The sheer number of times I had rolled over my own foot made me want to make any kind of change. I did a hard reset and just went cold turkey, pun intended, on clean eating. For me, that was almost entirely vegan. In two weeks, I was out of my chair and eventually doing much better, albeit not “normal” by any means. I think for me “normal” has changed and can’t really be compared to life before all of these health challenges, but based on how I had been to where I ended up, I was definitely doing much better.
As with most things, the honeymoon phase shifts and eventually a box of mac and cheese just seems easier than rolling homemade dough, or better, eating a salad. I never really lost this nagging desire to feel good about what I was putting into my body. I think that is sort of engrained in who I am at my core. I didn’t choose that crunchy life, it chose me? I don’t know. I was raised like that but the idea of chemicals and dyes and all of the giant words that I cannot pronounce was never appealing and is certainly not appetizing. When the whole thing started, I didn’t even know how to begin that life. I’m in a rural area. We don’t have Whole Foods or vegan soap stores. We have Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Amazon Prime. One of my patients shared with me the app Yuka that they had been using to determine what was good for you and what was not. I downloaded it and began scanning everything you could imagine. I was shook at what I had been using and what it was made of; even the “good” stuff was so bad. I threw away food, deodorant, lotion…literally everything. That started the two weeks and saved my life. When it wore off, so did the wellness.
Recently, I remembered, hey, you felt good once…maybe try that again. Genius. You’d think a person would sort of pick up on those things a bit sooner but you don’t ever really know when you’ve forgot your diet until your pants don’t fit, or in my case, you need to pull that wheelchair back out. This time, I really wanted to connect some dots. It wasn’t entirely out of good measure. I face planted in the floor of my preacher’s home about two weeks earlier. I spent the day making homemade pasta for Italian night with our friends, another Italian family. It’s like a dream to meet people who want to hang out with your whole family, kids and all, and would like to also eat gnocchi while doing it. I made my first batch of homemade cannoli, rolled dough and made two kinds of pasta and my favorite, a big bowl of gnocchi. We ate and were about to play a game. I got hot, sweaty, dizzy, my heart started pounding and racing and I puked about a dozen times in a row before stumbling out of the bathroom and falling over in the floor. I’m sure this won’t be the first time I mention the luck of having married a firefighter/paramedic and not a banker, but here’s a good example. I was fine. We were able to play the game and I came home mortified but okay. Fast forward a few weeks and we went to eat at Olive Garden. It just opened in our area. I was stoked. I ordered fettucine alfredo, the first time I’d eaten it since the hallway fiasco of 2023, and I barely made it home without a repeat incident.
Apparently, literally all of the ingredients are things that people with Lupus should not be eating…butter, cream, cheese…dairy in general. Remember, vegetarian, I don’t eat meat. I did eat some dairy when it was in things. I sort of justified it that way. Cheese is just so good. I’m Italian and I live in America. Cheese is a big deal. That was the night I had that, oh yeah, epiphany about the time I ditched a wheelchair by eating veggies and I just decided I had to go big.
The ability to get the clean and healthy options, again, is not easy or cheap in my area. I discovered Misfit Market and I’ve been using that option to get things to my door that make sense. I’m absolutely not creating a whole blog to tell you to use Misfit Market. I’m linking it here, but I am not going to tell you Misfit Market is the only option. There are many options out there if you want to get clean and healthy options delivered. For me, I found that not shopping in store reduced the junk that I bought, forced me to meal plan, and opened up my options to things that I would have passed up otherwise. Have you ever seen a Romanesco? They are like an alien broccoli that I never knew I needed in my life. I’ve never been one for subscription services but I do like that I can skip an order anytime that I want, so I’m not charged when I don’t to be charged. I also love that there is an entire section of plant-based options. That is just not easy to find in my area, so I really appreciate the amount of options and the easy of getting to them.
I want to use this platform to share recipes, fails and successes, and most of all the journey to feeling better. I don’t think that what I eat will miraculously heal my Lupus, EDS, POTS, or anything else that might pop up. I do think it will give my body what it needs to fight it as best can be done. The rest I leave to prayer. If this helps someone choose an apple over a cupcake, reduce their inflammation, and feel like they have some control over their body, then that’s a win. Sophia Loren said she’d rather have pasta and wine than to be skinny. I absolutely agree. However, I’d rather have zucchini than a wheelchair, so, here we go.
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