Tuning Into Our Bodies Wisdom: My Personal Evolution Beyond Veganism

Have you ever felt like your body was speaking to you, but you weren't quite sure how to listen? I am here to share the raw and revealing journey of my battle with an eating disorder and the path to healing through honoring my body's intuitive wisdom. This episode takes us through the highs and lows, examining the self-imposed 'laws' around food and health, and how these can often lead us away from truly nourishing ourselves. My personal transition to veganism, motivated by ethical concerns and culinary creativity, becomes a poignant part of the narrative, especially as I describe how this choice eventually led to unexpected health challenges.

Confronted with signs that my body was struggling—hair loss, fatigue, and more—I found myself at a crossroads, considering a departure from a decade-long vegan diet. The insights from an acupuncturist and the necessary reintroduction of animal protein into my meals forced me to grapple with my identity and convictions. In this heart-to-heart, I share how this crucial shift underscored the need for flexibility in listening to our bodies' evolving needs, and how we can adapt our practices to support our health. As we wrap up, I extend a heartfelt thanks for joining me on this deeply personal journey, and I encourage you to keep the conversation going. Find me on Instagram and let's continue to explore the incredible wisdom our bodies hold together. Much love, until next time.

Instagram: @jacendamarie

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi, loves, welcome to the Journey to the Soul podcast. I am your host, jacinda Villa, a spiritual life coach and holistic health coach. Every week, we will be diving deep into all things purpose, wellness, spirituality and creating the life that you dream of. This space is meant to be safe and transformative for you to dive into the deepest parts of yourself. I will share what I have learned from my journey along this path years of research and mentors along the way. Having spent many years living life out of alignment and afraid to go after my dreams, I know firsthand what it means to take the first step down, living a life authentic to you. We are on this road of self-discovery together. It is time for you to live the life you imagined. Hello, my loves, welcome to another episode.

Speaker 1: 1:02

I am sitting here in my office looking at all the beautiful sunlight that's streaming in through my windows. It is 70 degrees today and it's absolutely beautiful outside. It feels like spring is coming. It's my favorite time of the year spring is, so I am very much anticipating that. I hope that you all had a beautiful weekend and your week is off to a wonderful start, wherever listening from.

Speaker 1: 1:43

On today's episode, I wanted to touch on the incredible wisdom that lives within our bodies, and for some of us, we might have grown up in a family or an environment that supported us in really being able to tune into our intuitive body, our body's needs and what it needs to be nourished. But for some of us, that may not have been the case and we could lose touch with our body's wisdom and the messages that it shares with us. And I wanted to share with you what that journey has really looked like for me, because I know that I've shared about my eating disorder and how that developed. And really becoming intuitive with my body for the first time was the first step in me being able to give it what it needs, and this was a very long process for me. Even to this day, to be honest, I am still experiencing some side effects, some things physically, from having treated my body in such a way for so many years, and that's why I'm so passionate about this. I want to share this information with you, even if you have never struggled with an eating disorder. It's really not about that. It's about us being able to give our bodies what they need, and our bodies are constantly sending us messages and letting us know what it is that they need to thrive. So this is my hope with this story that I'm going to share with you. Essentially, if we allow them to tell us what they need, they will always tell us exactly what they need.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Tuning into my body without any biases had to be part of my process, and having biases about how to eat, how to treat your body, what quality of food you eat these kinds of things are all typically part of some kind of disordered eating or eating disorder, and I know that I've shared that. When I was 15, I became bulimic and a few years later it morphed into anorexia. This is a podcast episode that I actually just uploaded about my eating disorder and how it came to be into my life and how, over those 10 years, I struggled with extreme body dysmorphia and disordered eating. But today we're really going to touch on the intuitive wisdom that lives inside of us that we often ignore because of the laws we choose to live by, and we have the capacity to change those laws, to choose things that nurture us rather than cost us our health and vitality. A lot of the times, we will do things to an extremity, you know, trying to get healthy or eat a certain way, but if everything is done at an extreme, it can also be unhealthy. When I chose to find peace with my eating disorder for the first time, the first thing that I did was establish new laws, laws that allowed me the freedom to be, laws that nourished my body. From the age of 15 to 25, I always had some laws that I was living by that meant I lost connection with myself, with my body. I was constantly telling myself that I couldn't eat certain foods because they weren't healthy or they didn't fit my diet, or I could only eat during certain times. This was when I had more disordered eating. When I had more disordered eating, but for many years, when I was in the thick of my eating disorder, it was just laws about who I needed to be, and that's how I got to these extremes of resorting to bulimia and anorexia. And as we move through this episode, I really want you to think about. What principles do you live by when it comes to your health and your vitality? Do they nurture you? Are they really helping you? But, more importantly, are they coming from a place of love?

Speaker 1: 7:07

I became vegan at the age of 15. It was shortly before my eating disorder started, I read a book on the food industry in the United States and I immediately cut out all animal products. The next day I just went cold turkey. I do want to preface that I didn't eat a lot of meat anyways. I had chicken and other things like that, but meat wasn't super heavy in my diet. I did dairy very sparingly, since I had experienced lactose intolerance since I was a baby. From a very, very young age I could not tolerate milk. So my diet before I went vegan had already been changed to accommodate certain intolerances that I had and just certain preferences.

Speaker 1: 8:09

Over the years I began to learn more and more about veganism and it became easier and easier to live by. I found creative ways to cook good food, food that maybe I had to cut out from my diet. It allowed me to get really creative with what I was cooking. It really forced me to cook more, to be honest with you, because at the time I had also moved moved to Tennessee and the vegan food here was not very accessible in any way, shape or form, and if you've ever been to the South, you know how much Southern food there is here. So now that has since changed. But coming from California where vegan food was so accessible everywhere. That was a change as well.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Looking back now, I know that I held on to this diet, this way of eating, for so much longer than I should have. I should have and I wouldn't have admitted it back then. But now I am so honest with myself, because that's what it takes sometimes for you to make positive changes being brutally honest with yourself. But I know that this was another way for me to simply control what I was eating, to eliminate more food from my diet. It started with good intentions, but then the intentions changed, and this can happen to so many of us when we start implementing certain wellness or lifestyle things into our life. And again, this is where balance and having the best of intentions is important. That is part of well-being, and for many years, being on a vegan diet did work for me and my body, but that eventually began to change.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Our bodies are ever-changing. It is so incredible how smart and healthy we work constantly, every moment of every day, to make sure that we are always in a state of symbiosis. Our needs today are going to be so different than our needs in five or ten years, and this can be so easily seen with women, for example, with women who have a menstrual cycle and are menstruating, and then women who go into menopause. One of the biggest things that changes when that shift happens with women is the diet. What women need to eat in order to support their body changes, and there are so many other things that are a factor in this and why our needs change, but this is just an example. But our hormones are constantly changing throughout the month. We can notice these changes as well, even when the seasons change. During the summer, we tend to crave cooler and lighter foods. In the winter, we tend to crave more warm and grounding foods Soup potatoes, sweet potatoes, anything warm and there's a reason for these changes. The things that you crave are always signals that your body is giving you. This is communication that you are being given from your body about what it needs.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Learning to tune in to our bodies allows us to really give it what it needs, regardless of the constructs we hold in our mind, and this is something that so many of us can struggle with. It can be extremely difficult Because of this. We let go of our intuition and our innate connection with our body in the hope of reaching some ideal we have in our mind of how we should look physically or eat or nurture ourselves. But so much of these perceptions that we have come from what we read, conversations we have with other people and what they're doing. But some things may not work for you, and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 13:22

10 years into being vegan, my body began to change. It slowly started to send me signals that it was not getting what it needed. I started losing my hair, feeling tired all the time, bruising constantly, out of breath, lightheaded, cold all the time. I felt awful, you guys. I felt so bad and I disregarded these things at first, but they progressively just got worse. I decided to take a closer look at what was going on, so I decided to have some blood work done to see if there was anything out of the ordinary. When my blood tests came back, it was really hard for me to wrap my head around what it was showing me, what these tests were showing me so plainly that I had been neglecting within myself. I had so many nutrient deficiencies that had developed. I changed how I was eating.

Speaker 1: 14:43

While remaining plant-based, I tried eating more food, more protein, more fat, more carbs, and I waited to see how my body would change. But I was committed to trying to figure this out while still on a plant-based diet, so I did what I could within that scope. I'm like okay, I'm going to try everything, I'm going to try incorporating these foods, incorporating a snack, incorporating this and it was still getting worse. And at this point I was seeing an acupuncturist that I had been seeing for the past year to help me get back on track, and she kept suggesting adding animal protein into my diet. This was something that she kept bringing back into our conversations time and time again and again.

Speaker 1: 15:45

I really struggled wrapping my head around not being vegan, about not eating this way that I had eaten and what I told myself. I was how I identified for so many years. I really believed that there had to be a way for me to still do this while being vegan, and I was closed off to any other idea that incorporated some kind of animal product. For a year essentially so for a year all I did was try different things within keeping a plant-based diet, but those things were not working and it really shook me. I was taking so many supplements to try to get back on track as well taking so many supplements to try to get back on track as well, but to me, supplements are simply a support for the moment.

Speaker 1: 16:46

I believe that we are able to get our nutrients from the foods we eat. To me, supplements were just putting a band-aid on the bigger issue, which was that I wasn't getting the right nutrients I needed from my food. Food is medicine. Hippocrates said that, and it is so true. Let food be thy medicine. Everything that we need to survive can be found in our food Every macro, micronutrient, everything. Food is so incredibly powerful and I knew this, and that's why I wanted to try to keep working with what I knew about plant-based diets and trying to make changes that would better support what my body needed.

Speaker 1: 17:44

I eventually lost my period, and that was my wake-up call in all of this. Having a healthy cycle is so vital for women. It is one of our vital signs. It tells us so much about our hormone health, just like when you go to the doctor and you get your blood pressure taken and your heart rate measured. Your period is one of those vital signs for women. It truly is.

Speaker 1: 18:20

When I lost my period, my health continued to diminish even more. I felt like, up to that point, everything that I had been dealing with was bearable, like all the side effects that I was having from the hormonal issues that I was experiencing the hormonal issues that I was experiencing but as it progressively got worse, it really started impacting my life. I felt like I wasn't even in my own body. My skin was gray and sunken. I couldn't get through my day without being able to lay down or nap, which was a huge thing for me to adjust to, because I had never in my life struggled with energy like that. For as long as I can remember, I've always had loads of energy, even to do things partially, if I didn't feel 100%, but I truly needed to go, take a nap and close my eyes at least once a day. I had no energy to do anything and this really started inhibiting me because I couldn't get through my day and my body was forcing me to stop. It was forcing me to lay, to rest. It was really playing into so many other parts of my day-to-day life and for someone who has always been very go, go, go, this was probably the hardest thing is to actually allow myself to stop and rest and to listen to what my body was telling me, which right now, it wanted to sleep and to stop thinking about all the other things that I was telling myself that I needed to do. This was a huge learning thing for me.

Speaker 1: 20:36

My lovely acupuncturist for the last year had simply met me where I was and honored my choice to not include animal protein in my diet. So we tried to find a middle ground, especially over the six months before I lost my period, to maybe try some butter or some ghee or something else that would still include some kind kind of animal fat. But when that year passed of these very heavy extremes with my hormones, I was so ready to just feel better and I was more receptive to everything. I was desperate, you guys. I was just wanting to feel like myself again, to have energy to get through my day, to not need a nap, to be able to work and read and move my body and cook and all of the other things that I was so used to doing. And for months this was my life. I had to really take a step back and alternate my lifestyle to meet myself where I was. Essentially I had to slow down. I didn't have a choice when I told her at our next session that I was ready to try anything, anything that would help that. Now I was all ears and open and willing because everything that I had tried was not working. She made suggestions and the main thing that she suggested for me was to try having some beef for a few days and see how that felt. And again, this was not new for me. This was something that her and I had talked about for over a year now. But now I was just open and there was no judgment here, because I had nothing to lose.

Speaker 1: 22:49

I got my period back a week and a half later. That completely blew my mind. I was so ecstatic, it was such a pivotal moment for me and it blew through my constructs that I had created for myself and lived in about living a certain diet. I know for many of us that periods can be a pain sometimes, but after this, every month that it is here, it is my biggest blessing. Even now it's still becoming more and more regular. My cycle lasts about 38 to 45 days sometimes, but over the last year it's gotten more normal and it just makes my day. I know a lot of women dread getting their period and I do a happy dance when I get my period because not having one and how that affects you like.

Speaker 1: 23:59

There were certain things, even outside of the, that were so prevalent during that time. During that year, I was so anxious, I couldn't sleep, I was depressive, I was so unlike myself and I almost felt like I was going crazy in a way, like is this really happening or am I so in my head? But now that I have gotten it back and I notice a change in how my body has changed, it's like now there's an actual human, a soul that's living in this body where before it was more of a skeleton. I felt like I was a skeleton for so long. Timing is so pivotal as well. Throughout all of this time, I was actually working on getting my health coaching certification and by going through the program, it completely transformed me and my perception about health and wellness and what it means to be a healthy and vibrant human, and that was my biggest reason for becoming a health coach. Actually, it was to help myself through this process that I was going through, which was healing myself from having had an eating disorder for so many years. So, because I was still in my program, it really opened me up to the idea that health is not linear and we are all so uniquely different. Our bodies are ever-changing and that is absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1: 25:53

We see this so much in Eastern philosophies and they work on balance. Whatever physical ailment we are experiencing, they see it from. What can they do to balance out what is going on in the body and, of course, finding the root cause of everything. But in Ayurveda we have something called the doshas and there is vata, pitta and kapha called the doshas, and there is vata, pitta and kapha. And what they do in Ayurveda is, if you have too much kapha in your body, you need more vata and pitta to balance you out. And this is what they practice in Ayurveda, which is one of the oldest sciences in our world. It is a sister science to yoga and many of these principles and lifestyle because it really is a way of life are practiced in India and other parts of the world.

Speaker 1: 26:56

We can see this as well in Chinese medicine, with the concept of yin and yang and how certain food has either more yin energy or more yang energy. And again, they work on balancing the body. If we have too much yang, introducing more yin, and what this shows us is that we need to find balance in our physical body. That is ever-changing. It was a confirmation for me going through this experience and then really putting it into practice myself these principles when I was ready of how bio-individual we are as humans, and what this means is that what may work for one person may not work for another. Your food can be another person's poison, and this is based on how individual we are. There are so many factors that go into this where we live, our genetics, our lifestyle, so many things that fill up that thing that makes us so bio-individual from each other our cultures and I finally understood that when I allowed myself to try different things to balance out what my body needed.

Speaker 1: 28:39

And even though there are some people who may be thriving off of being vegan for even a longer time than I was more than 10 years, or however long they may have been practicing that way of eating, perhaps their bodies are truly meant to eat in this way and it serves them. For me, after 10 years of being vegan, I had to be honest with myself and face that this way of eating was no longer serving me, and this was really my journey with intuitive eating. And I want to touch on a whole nother episode on intuitive eating, because there is so much incredible information there that we can apply to our lives and to just be more in tune with our ever-changing bodies, because they are so divine and they are meant to carry us through this life. And we are living in a time where, in this day and age, we have the technology, the capability, the food, the resources to live longer than ever we truly do. I believe that my generation will live to closer to 120. But in order for us to get there and in order for us to do that, we need to work on taking care and preserving our body now and just relishing it and honoring it and giving it all that it needs.

Speaker 1: 30:20

I hope you guys enjoyed going along this journey and this story with me and that it opened your eyes to see how our bodies are constantly telling us the most incredible things, but it is up to us to truly tune in and give it what it needs. There is so much wisdom that they hold. I feel like, as time goes on, I am just more and more blown away by the capabilities that they have. It is truly incredible that we get to experience life through this gift that we were given. All right, my loves. I will talk to you all in my next episode. I'm sending you love and light and we will talk soon. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode, and share this message with any friends and family. I'd love to hear your takeaways, so share them with me by leaving a comment below or heading over to my Instagram at Jacinda Marie. I am sending you all so much love.