Last week was challenging for me in almost every aspect. I chose to believe a little cheat on my diet wouldn’t do too much harm. Add dealing with my mom’s (Heavenly) birthday, dealing with meeting a new PCP (primary care physician) just to get a referral (which is BS in general), exhaustion, choosing to try takeout instead of making food and had a couple alcoholic drinks, I was a mess.
Needless to say, I felt even worse for my stray to my old ways. My mind, working overtime, took my better judgement and drop-kicked out of the window. I managed to gluten myself, eat food I knew better to consume or just plain didn’t eat.
Being gluten-free and (mostly) vegan, it’s not easy to just grab a snack. I need to carefully plan my meals and snacks. I tried to pretend I didn’t need to. I know better than to think like that.
Yesterday, we got out of town, for the day, and went to Roseville. It’s a city past Sacramento and where we eventually want to move to. We chose to let Yelp choose where we would eat lunch.
I found this little gastropub, called The Brickyard. It offered a bit of everything. However, I was super excited to see they offered Beyond the Meat (vegan) and had gluten-free buns. I could have sworn a light from above was shining on me and I heard the angels singing. I have yet to find a restaurant where I don’t have to modify the food or just stick to a salad.
After a bit of confusion on malt vs balsamic vinegar for my salad (had to explain why I couldn’t have the malt vinegar) one of the staff and I were talking. She was a complete stranger who completely validated my health concerns, eating a vegan diet and homeopathic care as she personally had experience in this are.
She is controlling her own illness through diet. It was what I needed; understanding when most people aren’t. I wasn’t a “problem customer” to her. She was someone who hasn’t seen me struggle or was taking pity on me.
My husband, at one point said, “you’ve cheated before, just eat the dressing”. I had to remind him how sick I was last week and I can’t continue that behavior. He goes along with my eating habits for the most part. Although, I will eat eggs now because he was worried about my protein levels. It wasn’t worth the nutritional argument. It was his way of showing concern. A couple eggs won’t hurt my diet.
We went shopping last night. I bought food to prepare and more veggies. Prepped all my meals today. I even broke out the juicer and made some (mostly) carrot and pineapple juice. I drank several cups. It was if my body was saying, “ahhhh….that’s the stuff!”
Needless to say, I’ve regrouped and now am refocused. We all fall. We all have challenges. We can let them break us or we can get fortify our mind, bodies and souls. We can use that fortitude to help others when they stumble.
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