A Naturopath.

This morning I wrote half of my post... all about my journey as a vegetarian and the 30 days of veganism, which I'll share tomorrow because a lot changed this afternoon after my Naturopath appointment that has me questioning whether I will continue on for the next 28 days.

I had an awesome run this morning, I was slow but steady for 4.5 miles. The sun was out and I didn't need gloves! It was glorious. But it does seem that anything over the 3.5 mark and my calves start to freak out....

This afternoon I had my appointment with the Naturopath. It was so interesting and such a different experience from a traditional doctor. We talked in his office instead of an exam room. He asked me questions about every aspect of my life. Before the appointment I had filled out a patient history sheet that we discussed. The first thing he wanted to discuss was me being vegan. At first he thought that I had been a meat eater last week and was just now deciding to cut everything out. It turns out that he is not a very big fan of the meatless diet. I explained that the not eating meat thing has been going on for the past 13 years and wasn't going to change. After looking at my last set of lab results from my old doctor he recommended that I keep eggs, butter and fish in my diet (apparently I have dangerously low cholesterol). Also, because I am putting the additional strain of training onto my body, I need way more protein and other vitamins and nutrients that you can't get from a plant source.

One of my biggest concerns that we discussed was my energy level, I am exhausted all of the time. He also found on my lab report that I have a low blood sugar level. Which at first I was thinking awesome! Does that mean I should eat more sugar?! It actually means the opposite, he recommended that I cut my fruit intake down to just 2 pieces of fruit a day and no sweet! oh man oh man.... The fruit is gonna be hard.

He then took a blood sample (my blood type is A) and will be testing for all sorts of things including a food allergy test! I am really interested to hear if I have any food sensitivities. So that was a very brief play-by-play of what we discussed, there was more and if anything doesn't make sense its because I'm ready for bed!

For now I am going to bring fish and eggs back into my life, continue not eating dairy, cut back my fruit, cut out sweets, and try to eat more protein. I'll know more in 4 weeks when the test results come back in.

So to answer your questions Lisa... is chocolate vegan? The answer.... Sometimes! Milk chocolate is obviously not, but most semisweet and dark varieties are. Things that may seem like they would contain dairy like cocoa butter, are actually vegan. Chocolate itself is actually a plant product. I'm still feeling sinful about eating it after the 40 days of lent...