VEGA Community

I recently join this great community called VEGA community. VEGA is for people who advocate of using whole, plant-based foods to nourish your body for optimal health, you’ve come to the right place! It’s all about sharing, learning and thriving. I love it and recommend you join.

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Let me veg I’m stressed out!

In recent years, I have been experiencing stress and anxiety episodes as are a lot of people. I go through periods where all is good and other where I’m totally stressed out. Sometimes I see dark but I would say that 90-95% of the time I feel positive and/or manage to find positive in my day to day life.

What to do when you can no longer control stress and anxiety? Tips anyone?

In the last few weeks I’ve been experiencing episodes of anxiety and panic attacks. Somehow all the methods I know or use seem to fail. I go to the gym to sweat it out but I can’t get my mind of the tightness I feel in my chest; I try meditating but only manage to focus on distracting noise around me; I tried to get back into doing Yoga but instead of concentrating on my breath I think about the things I have to do later on. I listen to relaxing music when I go to bed, sometimes while driving in the car to chill out but my thoughts are louder than the music; and the list goes on and on…

The good things: eating habit wise I know for sure that I’m ok. I love to eat well.

Lifestyle wise: My partner lives in another city about 1 hr away but it’s something I don’t mind too much at the present time. Although we’d love to see each other more often, we manage to see each other 2-3 times a week and/or including weekends. There are 3 wonderful kids part of our life and our connection and love for each other is strong and true. We have the most amazing connection. There’s a move on the way which will leave us with only 30 minutes from each other which will be amazing.

Passion wise: Music occupies my time quite a bit. My band rehearse about twice and week plus performs once a week or so and we’re establishing a network which will allow us to have more gigs. Trying to promote the band, writing new songs and planning our future is also keeping me very busy. In addition to that, my passion for photography has awakened from a close to one year siesta. That keeps my creative eye in a constant alert.

Work wise: well I work a full time job which pays my bills.

Apart from that I try to stay in contact and get together with friends and family on a regular basis.

I know you’ll say “just slow down”. Trust me I try. I book days off here and there; just got back from a 3 day trip to New York, try to evade to the country side for a drive every so often; going to my partner’s house is amazing because it’s so peaceful. I try to watch movies and funny shows for distraction… and more. One of my fav thing to do is petting; brushing, playing and napping with my cats which I don’t get to do enough.

Nothing to complain about: I have a great family and great friends to whom it’s difficult to say “no” to; I have great passions that keep me alive; a wonderful partner who keeps my heart pounding with love; 2 adorable cats, an ok job that pays my bills. What’s wrong with me?

Anyway, I just needed to write this down to put things in perspective. It’s still not very helpful. If you have any tips, let me know.

Where Food & Passions meet Relaxation

Is there a publisher out there who’d let me write a comfy food vegetarian/non-vegetarian cooking book for people with/without IBS (wink wink)?

For over a decade (since my adolescence), I have been experiencing digestive issues (IBS). I will admit that it took me years to accept what I’m about to write but I can now honestly acknowledge that, in addition to some food intolerance, there is a stress component to my problem. I have tried many things to heal/cope with this condition such as; medication, digestive enzymes, food allergy tests, naturopath, food elimination process, various lifestyles (vegetarian, vegan, and omnivore), yoga and meditation (which are somewhat helpful), and I’m sure a few more that I just can’t think of on the spot.

**Disclaimer: please note that this blog allows me to share my thoughts, life experiences and culinary tastes. I am not a specialist by all mean and cannot provide you with recommendations. Should you have serious health concerns; talk to your Dr, a Naturopath, Dietician or whoever can assist you.

What’s worked for me I’m currently on a low dosage mood stabilizer, I take glutamine (1/3 of a tea spoon every day or so), I do yoga, lots of breathing exercises (I have learned to let my tummy relax) and I exercise regularly. I avoid products containing wheat and/or dairy. I also try to avoid rice including gluten free products which are mostly rice based (somehow, for me, it’s made a huge difference). I take a good multivitamin, calcium and B12 et voilà.
Q: I can already hear your question: What do you eat then? (which I get all the time)
A: Easy; Protein wise, I eat tofu, legumes, beans, eggs and soy milk (some people have issues with soy milk; I recommend that you look for a brand that contains no oil). Also, you may want to check these out: http://dietitians.ca/news/downloads/vege_guide(EN).PDF ; http://veg.ca/content/view/127/110/ . Apart from that, I eat vegetables and fruits (in moderation at least for me), the potato family (mmmm…), salad (again in moderation), and somehow I can consume some spelt products (as long as they do not contain any or the other products that I can’t have). I have also discovered recently that eaten in small quantities, oatmeal would appear to be well tolerated by my digestive system.

As you can see, I have covered pretty much all the food groups.
I will not get into my life story here but I thought I’d share ideas and ways that I found to cope with this irritable syndrome.