Souls Wrapped in Skin- Reintroducing New Foods, Dealing with IBS, & Listening to My Body!
Hello, beautiful friends!
Thank you for all of the love on the new site layout — I am so overjoyed about it. I cannot even handle how much I feel it represents my heart and soul now, and the direction that my brand is moving. If ya couldn’t tell from the branding, I feel the brand (and myself!) moving in a very spiritual, ethereal, calming / zen vibes, soul-level-depth kind of direction. Quite a far cry from the vegan food blog I started in 2013! (But always love that too.)
Speaking of vegan food blogs… my journey with food has been such a, well, JOURNEY over the years. Being plant-based again has drastically helped to improve my health issues over the last few years as I have been dealing with Lyme, co-infections, mold, parasites, hormone issues, and more. In fact, I even came up with the term intuitively plant-based (I am sure I did not invent it lol- but have been calling myself that for a while now) and have been following that for the last couple of years.
Although I shied away from fully using the term vegan most of the time — I have been vegan for the last few years. Especially after staying at True North water fasting center, and learning all about the benefits of the SOS-free vegan lifestyle. And trust me, I am still largely SOS-free and my body majorly thanks me for it because of my ongoing health and inflammation issues.
But when you really boil it down to the core of what I believe in… I am all about being intuitive! Even being plant-based, I have been intuitive about it the whole time. My ultimate belief is that we are souls wrapped in skin – point blank. We came here to live our lives, to feel our best, to have a lot of fun and to live out our soul’s ever-evolving eternal journeys and karmic unfoldings. For that reason & many others… I don’t believe that the way we eat defines who we are in the very least.
Being plant-based again for the last few years, I have gotten a lot of “shade” from people, if you will. “But what about the label-free life?!” people would ask me, again and again.
And how many times do I have to say it? NO JUDGMENT TOWARD THE WAY ANYONE EATS, EVER.
Whether that be plant-based and vegan, raw vegan, paleo, carnivore, Keto, intermittent fasting, whatever whatever. I don’t believe in judging people who label their diets/lifestyles and I don’t believe in judging people who don’t. Just quite simply DO YOU, however that looks for you at any given season of life.
So my reason for writing this post is that I shared on Instagram yesterday that I recently started eating eggs again after being fully plant-based for the last two-ish years. My reasons for eating eggs again were very simply – my body was craving them wildly after really not caring about them or missing them previously, and I give my body what it wants.
Also, I have been dealing with an insane IBS flare up in my stomach, causing extreme bloating, pain, indigestion, insomnia due to the pain, and so much more. Because of that, I have had to cut out things I love and was previously eating in abundance like cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts), kale, lentils / legumes, hummus, and some starches/some rice products to name a few. (Although I am still on the fence with grains – I just can’t eat them every day.)
So with a huge staple of my diet being thrown out the window, it made a lot of sense for me personally to reintroduce eggs. I want to make this abundantly clear- this post is not in defense of me eating eggs again, or in defense of anything I will or will not eat moving forward. There is nothing to defend from! I just like to be honest about what’s working for me always since I know many of you suffer from similar tummy issues and health concerns.
My best friend Jillian even had a dream a few months ago that I needed to get more protein into my diet, and that I was super protein deficient! And I do believe she was right.
Also, a lot of the time I eat egg whites because they are easier for me to digest. And eggs are super easier for me to digest in baked goods — like these delish muffins I made and posted on Instagram yesterday!
The amazing thing is… after sharing that on IG yesterday I got an overwhelming amount of support!!! Not even one negative comment or message as far as I have seen (I hope I haven’t spoken too soon LOL)- which is SO MUCH THE OPPOSITE of the response I received after my initial transitioning from veganism post that broke the internet in 2014. Please dear God never take me back to that time when the vegan community was threatening to murder me (LITERALLY) and I received hundreds of thousands of hate comments and death threats alike on IG/Facebook/YouTube/all over the place.
Now, I feel like society has come a long way with ACCEPTANCE and knowing that all of our bodies are different. Plus, it’s just really truly not a big deal how another person eats- all we should be concerned about is how we personally feel, right? Also I feel it speaks to the loving environment of the TBB community & how it’s grown, and that makes me really happy. <3
Listening to My Body //
So! After sharing that on the good ol’ IG yesterday I have been getting a lot of questions asking how exactly I listen to my body. Sometimes we try to listen to our bodies but it can be hard because if we are not used to it, our internal cues can be all off and our bods just tell us they want chocolate cake all day or something else delish like that- lol but true.
The main thing I do is I speak to my intuition, which is also my soul, or my highest self. I am so excited to share about this because the course I created that is launching on July 8 is all about speaking to our souls + waking back up to our soul’s greatest desires and needs! Communing with our souls is available to all of us. The main element required is TRUST.
When you begin to talk to your soul or any other non-physical energy, it will feel different at first. It’s not like talking to another human IRL that’s for sure. You can begin by automatic writing (writing in your journal, talking to your soul and getting out of your own way in order to let your higher self answer your questions) or speaking out loud to your soul. I find that I am most tapped in after I meditate, or after a hot sweaty workout class, or right before I fall asleep / right when I wake up.
If you’re not into journaling or speaking out loud, you can also let this all happen in your mind. I believe we are all capable of being in tune with ourselves, and part of being fully in tune with ourselves is being able to ask ourselves questions and trust the response.
When I did this, my body responded LOUD & CLEAR that YES it wanted to eat eggs. Also, my guides and my highest self told me many times, “It’s not about the food. It’s not about what you eat… at all.” So trust me when I say that our highest selves know what we need, and my highest self repeatedly tells me to stop being so focused on what I eat / what I don’t eat.
Secondly, beyond talking to my soul/my body, I have a great Nutrition Response Practitioner — shoutout to Vanessa Fitzgerald! Vanessa muscle tests my body for the foods that work for my system, and the supplements and medications as well — and she does me for the supps & meds! I am having her on my podcast soon, she is incredible. Through working with Vanessa I was able to fully pinpoint that the foods I believed were no longer working for me… were indeed no longer working for me (cruciferous veggies, etc.).
So I would highly recommend finding a trusted practitioner to help you through this process as you get started!
Loving life & plants at the farmer’s market this weekend!
Healing from the major IBS Flare //
The truth is, when stomach issues crop up there could certainly be a lot going on. I have had candida & SIBO in the past, but something in my gut tells me that is not the case right now.
What I do know is that I definitely have parasites at the moment, and I will get re-tested for those soon with a stool test through my LLMD (you can also find a good functional medicine doctor to do a stool test with and have them read the results). My parasites are causing major gut issues up in here and I am ready to keep getting them KILLED.
Also, stress doesn’t help anything. I have had so much fun planning and recording and creating and getting ready to launch this course, but I have also run myself into the ground creating it while maintaining the podcast, blog, social media, social life, planning my wedding, healing from Lyme, and more. Our bodies can only handle so much — and my lesson time and again is to MOVE SLOW, & LIVE SLOW.
A few things that have really helped my IBS flare are-
+ eliminating the foods that were not working for me
+ reintroducing new foods
+ taking lots of probiotics & digestive enzymes (I take Silver Fern — use the code BLONDE for a discount!)
+ taking the Boiron products Lycopodium clavatum & Carbo Vegetabilis for making sure the insane amount of gas in my system is getting passed and is not just stuck in my body (shoutout to my soul sis Jenna Zoe for this tip!)
+ warm water with lemon every morning
+ celery juice every morning
+ avoiding nightshades and foods like onion, garlic, and tomatoes
+ eating 3 meals a day separate from each other and avoiding snacking when possible
+ lowering my stress & sleeping/resting more
+ good exercise and yoga (yoga really helps the digestive system with all the twists and digestive release poses)
+ self-massage on my stomach with peppermint oil & CBD salve (I use Cured Nutrition CBD salve- use code BLONDE for 10% off!)
+ lots & lots of water
+ Lil Sipper‘s digestive support protein made by Nuzest USA (plus all of Bethany’s tips and recipes on her blog honestly — she is the real deal)
+ Traditional Medicinal’s Belly Comfort tea on repeat! It’s peppermint & so soothing. I was drinking it like 4x a day during the worst of my flare.
+ Eating simple foods & really paying attention to food combining.
+ I will be doing the Viome gut microbiome test soon to see which foods are best for my personal microbiome & I am so excited! More on that soon.
+ Lots of supplementation to make sure my bod is getting what it needs. Check out yesterday’s post for my favorite vitamin- RITUAL (code TBB for 10% off).
+ Coffee enemas & colonics. You can head here to read my post all about coffee enemas!
+ Castor oil packs on my tummy.
+ Being easy on myself, lots of meditation and BREATHING into my belly!
I really hope this all helps!!! I almost didn’t want to write a post about eating eggs again (and being open to incorporating more newness into my diet if it is going to help me) because I really don’t feel that what we eat defines us in any way. But because I have shared so openly along the way, I figured I would continue to do so now!
I feel that I will be predominantly plant-based for life, incorporating what I need here and there and dipping back into the fully plant-based lifestyle afterward. That is what works for ME. I want you to find what works for you! Never compare yourself and never let anyone make you feel down or less-than because of what you eat or do not eat.
If you are suffering from IBS or feeling tied to any particular diet, you are not alone. You can always speak to your soul, commune with your intuition, find a great practitioner to help you, and focus on all of the self-healing I mentioned above!
So much love to you all! What tips did I miss? Would love to hear. XO