🎈(#14) Plant vs Meat

Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Message from the author:

This week I decided to take a break from my personal IG. Felt it was time to do a bit more focused work in all areas.

For MAKER - I am thinking of adding a couple blog posts (which won’t go directly to Email Subscribers as I don’t want to flood your inbox). These posts may look like:

• Wednesday - Top trending Health & Wellbeing News from around the globe

• Friday - A featured place to visit (eg Wellness center, Recovery facility or Fitness Center / Gym or healthy food spot)

I will look to trial it for a bit and see what it is like for both myself and the audience…watch this space.

For this issue, It is the age-old debate and some people can get fairly passionate about this topic. I wanted to share a few discussion areas and my own experience with going plant-based for a period of time.

Hope you enjoy and gain something to take away with you.

*Please note - I am not a medical professional or nutritionist. This is shared knowledge from my own experience and other sources.

Where do we even begin.

Diets and labelled fads are everywhere.

Do you go vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, carnivore, omnivore?

What about keto? I heard keto works.

WTF!!

It can be difficult to know which path to go down at times.

There is a lot that plays into the food we consume.

Our lifestyle & environment…our personal values & beliefs…our culture & religion.

On top of that we are bombarded with the pressures to eat a certain way if you want to achieve “X”.

My thoughts… I believe you should eat what makes you feel good and then do more of that as often as you can.

Sounds simple right?

It helps to try new things out and see how your body responds or reacts to the changes.

There are definitely food types that we consume which have a lot more health benefits than others.

Your goal should be to find them and see what works for you.

Lifestyle Food Choices

There is a certain sustainable way to eat that has benefits for a healthy lifestyle compared to others.

I recently started watching “Living To 100: Secrets Of The Blue Zones” on Netflix.

Interesting watch so far.

It's a docuseries by explorer and best-selling author Dan Buettner who has studied blue zones for over 20 years.

What are blue-zones?

In a nutshell… blue zones are regions around the globe with the highest number of centurions or people that live to 100 plus years.

Highly recommend.

My goal here is not about convincing you to eat a certain way, but more to provide a broader picture and curiosity on what lifestyle choices are available so you can decide what best suits you.

If you watch the show - the key to longevity is not just food.

What or how we eat makes up a quarter of what a balanced healthy and happy life looks like.

But if we were to focus on just the eating section - plant-based, fish and wine seem to pop up consistently in the research amongst the longest living humans.

Makes you think…

That Time I Went Gorilla Mode

Gorilla Mode!!!

I told myself that to make me feel cool.

Gorillas eat a plant-based diet - so I must be a beast too. It worked for me at the time anyway.

You see…

A few years back I went from a full meat eater, to consuming no meat and sticking to a plant-based diet for 18 months.

I literally went from Saturday eating a ton of meat and then next thing you know I am at the Rocklea Markets, in Brisbane, on a Sunday morning ordering a vegetarian omelette.

I remember telling myself… “maybe I'll try vego for a bit”.

That lasted 18 months haha

It was difficult at first, not because of the no meat factor, but because I was uneducated.

I had made the change so quick that I needed to work out how to eat this way.

I knew I couldn’t live on noodles, bread and snacks for too long.

Once I found my groove, built up knowledge and tried different recipes, it was like unlocking whole new world.

The meals were colorful and delicious.

It got to a point where I actually didn't feel like I was missing out.

Did I have moments where a steak, cheeseburger or ribs looked tempting?

Of course.

But I wanted to commit and explore this new world for a bit.

When I think back to this time period, I remember feeling amazing. Just light and never sluggish.

People ask me what it was like and I tell them it was the ultimate reset for my body. I still can't think of anything else that I have tried, to date, that has helped me understand my body more than going plant based.

Those moments after having a meal and feeling a bit off… I used to blame meat as the only problem for feeling that way.

I found when I was vegetarian that there are three foods (mainly two that are common in a lot of meals) which my body does not agree with or process very well.

These are onions, garlic and lentils.

To this day I can almost guarantee that I will feel like crap after eating these.

Onions and Garlic make sense after doing some research, but lentils… that's a strange one.

I aim to avoid or limit these as much as possible.

The point of this story was to share my newfound awareness and understanding of my body that I may not have understood if it wasn’t for going plant based.

I'm not trying to convince you, just something to think about.

You don’t have to commit to becoming vegetarian, but taking your body out of its comfort zone will provide new information for you always.

What To Consider

If you are considering a change or unsure… remember that there is science and data to back up the pros and cons to either side.

Everything seems to give you cancer these days.

I was listening to a podcast, when researching for this issue, and found a medical professional who was once on a plant-based diet believer and has now converted to a full carnivore diet preaching that the chemicals on plants are killing us (this could be true).

If you look at other studies, you will find proven facts on the antibiotics they add to meat in order to speed up the growth process, which in turn is having negative effects on our health (also could be true).

One question or concern around plant based, particularly for fitness people and building muscle is the “lack of protein” - true-ish.

Maybe a bit more difficult to build muscle only eating plants, but not impossible.

Look up plant-based athletes and you will find a number of high performers and jacked individuals online.

The point I'm making is to just be mindful that some individuals out here are selling an agenda, and the food industry is a business after all (don’t want to get too deep into this rabbit hole).

The only way to know… is to try.

Where To From Here?

The golden question.

Maybe you don't want to change and keep your eating lifestyle how it is…that's fine and as long as you are happy.

Maybe you want to learn something new about yourself and try something new.

If longevity and sustainability is your thing - check out others that are doing this, similar to the blue zones. This is something I am interested in lately, particularly as I am nearing the big four zero.

Maybe it's more energy and building muscle you are looking for - the carnivore diet is making waves in this space lately. I’m still not sure if I would like to consume that much meat as my only source of nutrition.

Or you might want to try a plant-based lifestyle just out of curiosity.

You see, I don't believe there is right or wrong…only right for you and what you want out of your life.

In short - my eating lifestyle would be this right now… I'm going for sustainability:

• I limit sugar and processed foods as much as possible (still eat them at times)

• Intermittent fasting (IF) - to give my body a break from digesting food and keep food consumption low.

• Eat a balanced variety of foods - if you had to label it, I a guess I am an omnivore, standard for a lot of people.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

If you are enjoying MAKER - share with someone you know and help build the community.

To close out the debate from me, I like the thought of more plant-based foods in the diet. There seems to be a lot of evidence to back it up when looking at a healthy lifestyle in the later years.

I also have my own year and a half experience with this way of eating, and I genuinely felt great.

But…

If you were looking for guidance toward Plant or Meat…this may have made the decision even more difficult for you.

Or maybe not.

You may have been thinking about a change and this has sparked something within you to give it a go.

At the end of the day…what's the worst that could happen?

In life, be curious, seek answers and challenge your comfort zone.

When it comes to food choices, eat what's right for you and do more of what makes you feel good in a healthy way.

Until next week fam!

JC