Changes!

It’s been nearly a week of this self inflicted torture. Tomorrow will mark day 7. It hasn’t been too terrible, aside from going through the meat withdrawal (which I learned is a real thing!)

That is the part they don’t tell you in all the ‘Becoming Vegetarian’ books out there. They give you fantastic recipe ideas, explain the importance of  making sure to get your daily protein, and to be careful of your iron levels so you don’t end up anemic. What they don’t tell you is that your body will begin to detox after about day 2, and you will begin to feel slightly like you want to crawl out of your skin, or in my case, like you just want to sit in bed and eat candy and cry.

It was a complete emotional rollercoaster. I was miserable. Everyone around me irritated me to no end, my bones hurt, my joints ached, my skin hurt, I was easily annoyed (even moreso that ususal. I am not an overly patient individual) and had no tolerance for anything that upset or angered me, the list of which kept changing every 5 minutes. If something didn’t bother me half an hour ago, you could pretty much guarantee that within the hour I would be complaining that it was now bothering me.

I asked a friend at work about this who had taken healthy eating to the extreme last year, he told me that how I was feeling was similar to that felt by people who try and quit smoking.

I put a post up on my Facebook page about how crappy I was feeling, another friend answered. Her husband is working towards being a naturopath and she told me that basically what was happening is that I was going through meat withdrawal, that my body was detoxing and trying to balance its self out as it was no longer getting meat. She said that most cases last a week, that I was to drink lots of water and get plenty of sleep. Which I had been doing.

I went back to Friend #1 and told him this, he said that I must be getting the better side of this detox, because it hits some people extremely hard. If this is detox being easy, I would hate to see the opposite. Even my husband was politely trying to avoid me, it was that bad.

However I have begun to notice some changes. Today and yesterday I have woken up and have actually felt…..awake. Normally I wake up and am so groggy, I can’t believe it’s morning, and am wondering how 8 hours could have gone by so fast. Yesterday I woke up feeling wonderfully awake, and I noticed the same thing today. I also noticed today that I don’t feel quite as psychotic as I did yesterday, and the day before that. (Thank goodness. I couldn’t handle much more of that.) And (the best part!!) my husband commented today that my skin is looking really healthy….almost glowing.

Tonight’s dinner? Potato crusted halibut, baked yams with honey and lime, some kind of whole grain (maybe a rice dish?) and of course, plenty of veggies and salad. An excellent start to the weekend, I’d say.