vegetarian

[Alexandra]

hello!

just a short note. Ive become vegetarian one year ago. I am suffering from some acne and all my imflammation has decreaded A LOT! and not only with my acne, so with my eyes too! its incredible. I used to have upper and lower plugs and a month ago, one upper plug fell out, havent had it replaced and it seems i dont need it anymore....!

[tearless2]

I am trying to cut out inflammatory foods like milk, sugar, and gluten in order to decrease my likely systemic inflammation and hopefully improve my eyes as well. I've been doing pretty well with that the last few weeks. Now, I'm also trying to cut out red meat. Unfortunately, my husband made steak tonight. The smell was so overwhelming I took a little bite and then couldn't stop myself from eating more. If it's bad for me why do I seem to crave it?

How can I stop myself from eating meat?

[Rebecca Petris]

Alexandra, that's fantastic! Good for you. So glad to hear it.

[PotatoCakes]

I eat a mostly vegetarian diet (I eat fish & have recently added chicken) because I've never really liked meat products.

Tearless - When you cut out anything, particularly something you enjoy, your body will tend to crave it. People that eat high levels of sugar and fat often go through terrible cravings and other symptoms when they remove them from their diet even though we know sugar and too much fat are very bad for our bodies. Your body becomes accustomed to certain levels of things (much like a drug addict can consume increasingly higher amounts of their drug without consciously feeling the affect).

While I don't generally eat meat products, I don't subscribe to the idea that they are necessarily unhealthy depending on the quality, where they come from and how they are prepared (free range is better than caged, antibiotics are bad, etc). I do think Americans generally eat too much protein and not enough veggies, which most certainly contributes to our high incidence of heart disease. Still, your body does need a certain amount of protein & iron and if you aren't giving your body enough, you will find yourself even more susceptible to cravings based on conditioning and taste. I've found that the few times a year I'm tempted to eat a hamburger, it's because I haven't been paying attention to my iron levels. Are you getting enough iron and protein in your diet? If not, that's the first thing that I would address when trying to cut out meat.

Also, don't beat yourself up for falling down on occasion. It can take quite a while to stop craving something, particularly when it's right in front of you. My parents rarely ate meat and virtually never bacon (due to it being so unhealthy) and my dad recently told me it took him 3-5 YEARS to stop craving bacon when he would smell it. I think I've only seen him eat it maybe once in my entire life and yet there he was craving it. Crazy, huh?

[Rebecca Petris]

While I don't generally eat meat products, I don't subscribe to the idea that they are necessarily unhealthy depending on the quality, where they come from and how they are prepared (free range is better than caged, antibiotics are bad, etc). I do think Americans generally eat too much protein and not enough veggies

On this note... I think that really nourishing our bodies well is more about the 'do's' than the 'don'ts'. I know that when I'm focusing on eating plenty of the best kinds of veggies, I will eat less of all the things that aren't so good for me.

[Guest]

I know that when I'm focusing on eating plenty of the best kinds of veggies, I will eat less of all the things that aren't so good for me.

That's true for me as well... maybe because we're not hungry after filling up on vegies and "good stuff" so we don't crave the "bad stuff?"