“Being vegan doesn’t make you a stronger, better athlete. But it allows you to make yourself a stronger, better athlete.”
My story with this issue is a little bit complicated. We (Me, and my husband) are vegans for 13 years, this means not just in diet, but in almost everything that veganism represents. I always had balanced nutrition and lifestyle and I never was a classic meat-eater, more, in my childhood, I hated meat. I saw it as an animal, a being, I couldn’t eat them. I am coming from a communist country, when meat was a “problem” in daily life and we had only a few times in 1 year, and nobody died. In my childhood and gymnasium and as a student I was prone to lots of sports, like athletism, I was in the local Jr. basketball team, my father thought me skiing, from 5, then I attended several ski competitions and ski camps. My father also gave me tennis lessons, as he was a big fan and played from a young age. So, I had a very active life, and also, in a matter of food, we had everything from my great grandparents and grandparents’ garden. I remember, that sometimes my parents gave me, some lecithin, vitamin D, calcium, and vitamin K. I am not sure why, they said that we do have not enough things in our food. At that time our food was higher in nutrients with about 80 % as the scientist says.
After I graduated from school and university, I started to have a different approach to a healthy lifestyle, so even I had some Hatha Yoga basics from the gymnasium, I started to learn lots of things about how we function as humans. I started to learn and read and experience how the body and mind connection can make us healthier, happier, so I started to study at the Hungarian Academy of Alternative Medicine, then, added lots of other courses, including studying deeply nutrition, about vitamins, nutrients, meditation, and yoga, and I ate less and less meat, used more herbs and alternative medicine, like phytotherapy, macro diet, kinesiology, different types of massages, including traditional cupping, and everything you can imagine is holistic/alternative/complementary medicine. So, I understood that we are WHOLE, and not just a part of this Universe, but as an organism, we are WHOLE beings and we can even heal ourselves if we know what our bodies and minds need. During “5 Tibetan rites” which I did daily for 15 years, I understood what my body needs in the matter of nutrients, so I started to give it. Of course, like everybody else I had some health issues when I was overworked, didn’t rest enough, or had too much stress in my life. At this time I started to see more clearly, that in this new lifestyle what we humans have for some years, we need proper nutrition, and we cannot eat so many foods to give it the right amounts. This is how I attended David Wolfie’s integrative nutrition school, to learn about superfoods, and how to adapt a new diet into my life. I started using lots of superfoods, made every day a new recipe, or more, – imagine how happy was my husband, as he was the “test item”, for my research. I mean, my husband loved what I did, and how he feels giving his body more fuel in the right way. After that, because we were already vegans, we attended together a vegan cooking school in Budapest, when we have learned lots of good things, tasty recipes, but I couldn’t apply those in my lifestyle, I found them too heavy for my body, and this is how I started to cook and to veganize foods that we love and see how I can cross the line with them in term of nutrition and taste, as well. I had some issues before, with gluten, and started to make gluten-free and even yeast-free and sugar-free recipes. I understood later when I started to be more active again, that even if I cook like that, mostly having just a whole food diet it is just not enough. Today, we need large amounts of vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, lots of ammino-acids, which are in our foods of course, but the amount is not enough. Humanity is at the next step of industrialization, we worked a lot to get here as humans, we have a different lifestyle, like sitting too much and not walking enough, our food is not as nutritious as was in the past, and more, if we doing exercise, which is the best thing we can do nowadays, it is a 100% need of supplementation of variety of nutrients.
Years ago, I’ve started an organic online shop in my country, then lots of new projects( for ex. Betty’s Vegan Alchemy Merkabahealth & The Future Medicine and Therapies– I list only two of them, here) to educate people that a plant-based diet is needed and it is not that hard as some says. We started to consume Ganoderma Lucidum(red reishi) for 10 years, which was another step to have balanced nutrition and using super-herbs. Today, as My Husband and I are dedicated to having a very active life, not just leading more businesses, but also we do exercise (running, pilates, skiing, skating, roller skating, basketball, bicycle, yoga, tennis, etc), we see that we need extra nutrients. The question is how can we adapt nutrition to our lifestyles? With lots of research, learning, and knowing our bodies. We also need stable mental health and our mind needs nutrition, as even science shows. What works really for us, are the sunwarrior natural products, some Sunrider products, and some Ganoderma, besides the plant-based diet. My favorites are the Sanwarrior products because they give me in a very short time energy and tastes really nice.
We use mostly those products, but not all on daily-bases.
These products are whole food, super-food plant-based full of nutrients, from nature. These products are raw organic pea protein powder that is keto-friendly, low-carb, high-protein, non-GMO, certified organic, and vegan.
They are free of soy, dairy, sugar, and gluten. I have no issues with soy, but some people have. I am not a health addict or trend addict vegan, yes I want to be healthy as I enumerated some of my reasons, but mostly for animals. We also have 5 furry children who need the same proper nutrition in their lifestyles. No, their food is not enough, in my experience, they also need superfoods and a personalized diet. Mostly I make a warmer shake on a cold Winter morning, adding 2-3 types of those products adding some bananas, or just my favorite plant “milk”.
In my opinion, we do need superfoods, vitamins, minerals, micro-nutrients, phytonutrients, essential amino acids, omegas(DHA/EPA), and so on.
Adopting a healthy lifestyle is not easy, but if you start, you will see it as a routine and will help you to enjoy life more, to be stronger, healthier, and happier.
Stay tuned to find out more about the vegan lifestyle and more in my next articles and stories.
