Being a Vegan helped me deal with high levels of uric acid in my blood.  I felt great.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat with anyone and there where only a handful of restaurants I could eat out at. Even then after going to a restaurant that was vegan, I ate something that had sugar in it.  What a lesson, instantaneous head-ache.  Once I ate what I thought was vegetable soup, but it had chicken broth in it.  Again, my body reacted immediately.

That’s when I realized that although I was trying to eat a pristine diet, I lived in a world that was not.  My body reacted every time I put something in it that I thought was toxic.  My social life was also limited because, I couldn’t eat out with friends, and my family no longer knew how or what to feed me.  I was setting myself up to a pretty solitary life.  I knew that this was no way to live.

I also became an avid runner. I trained for and ran in the New York City Marathon.  The more active I became the more protein I required.  Once again, I listened to my body and began introducing different types of protein, until I started eating fish.  That’s where my diet stayed for a very long time.  I ate mainly a vegetarian diet with some fish.

I was able to eat with other people and go out to many restaurants with little to no conflict.  I prefer to eat organic, but I learned that not being at war with my food is healthier than eating a few things that are off my diet. Many years went by and my body was doing well eating mainly a vegetarian diet. Then I started noticing a shift.  Time the greatest force of change started knocking at my door.  My body started changing its hormonal levels.  My body started asking for even more protein.  At first I resisted because I was disgusted by the thought of adding meat to my diet.  I asked myself, “What are my priorities?  Am I tied to an ideology or am I committed to my health and well being?”  The response for me is always the same, I choose health and well being.  I gave my body chicken and non-fatty meat.  My body responded with vibrant health once again.

Even now as my body’s hormones stabilize, my diet is changing.  I am no longer finding the need to add as much protein to my diet.  Throughout the changes one thing has remains the same.   My body craves, clean food to maintain health, no pesticides, preservatives, no additional hormones and no GMO’s.

Experience has taught me that my body needs change.  My needs are different than someone else’s needs.  A woman has different requirements than a man.  An adult has different needs than a child. Our genetics have a great influence on our food requirements, so does as the climate we live in, the time of year and the time of day.   Life asks us to change, our bodies change and we must shift our food attitudes to shift along with life and its challenges for better health.