Here’s to good health!

Con and Paco

Originally uploaded by Constance Wiebrands.

I was just reflecting on the fact that it’s been a mere five months since I changed my diet, and how good I’ve been feeling since the change. I hope I’ll still be maintaining such healthy eating this time next year. The chances are pretty good, I think, given that I have already been able to maintain it for this long.

In the past when I’ve tried to change my diet, these efforts never lasted more than a few days. This time I continue to enjoy and even look forward to my fruit breakfasts, raw vegetable lunches and vegetarian dinners. I no longer consume dairy products (although I must admit I do cheat and have the odd ice cream every now and again), I only eat a fraction of the sweets I used to, and have completely weaned myself off fast food. I think I have been lucky in that my cultural heritage does not place a heavy emphasis on dairy, and I don’t have a sweet tooth so I don’t find it hard to avoid dessert. Initially I missed, even craved fast food, but over time I found that when I did give in a couple of times and have some, I found I didn’t enjoy it at all. I’m not sure how to describe the unsatisfactory nature of the experience for me, but it was all grease and salt and well, unsubtle. Now I seem to have lost the desire for it.

What’s been different this time?

1. Support from my family. M has been very very supportive. I didn’t expect him to change his diet as well, but he did, too, and is eating a lot more fruit and veg than he used to.
2. Support from the blogosphere. Learning from other people’s experiences has been very valuable and very inspiring. At the moment I am enjoying reading about Steve Pavlina’s 30-day raw food experiment (see his Day 15 post, for example). Kate’s In The Raw blog has been very interesting as well. And then there’s all the vegan and vegetarian recipes people share on their blogs…
3. Awareness of my own mortality. This was the main impetus for changing. Various members of my family have had health issues – Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol – and over the last couple of years I realised that I wasn’t getting any younger and that unless I started looking after myself the chances of my developing the same health issues were quite high. Also, to put it bluntly, I didn’t like the fact that I seemed to be getting fatter and fatter…
4. Awareness of environmental issues. I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the environmental impact of meat production and consumption. In the name of producing “cheap” meat, we are damaging our environment…