How Veganism Compromised My Mental And Physical Health
I Quit As An Act Of Self-Care
I never intended to be vegan.
A few days before Thanksgiving in 2015, my brother told the family he was becoming a vegan. Wanting to support his decision, I spent the weekend watching YouTube videos and documentaries to learn more about the lifestyle.
When I took the first bite of my dinner later that weekend, I froze.
Looking at my dog, I couldn’t see the difference between him and the piece of turkey in my mouth. I instantly felt ill and couldn’t bring myself to swallow the mouthful of food.
At that moment I became a vegan, and I wasn’t prepared for the mental and physical consequences.
It reinforced my disordered eating
Before becoming a vegan, I struggled with my body image and was obsessed with returning to a weight and pant size I thought was “ideal” for my petite frame.
As a food lover, it was a constant inner battle between my love of food and wanting to control my weight.
I “compromised” by allowing myself to eat freely (often to excess) in social settings, but behind closed doors, counting calories, tracking macros, and skipping meals was the norm.
Having not dealt with my disordered eating, becoming a vegan exacerbated the problem.
Within the first 3 months, I lost 30 pounds as I fumbled my way through this new lifestyle.
Although losing weight wasn’t my motivation for going vegan, the rapid results set in motion a belief that veganism was the answer to my weight woes.
I tried my best to resist the primal hunger cues signalling I was undereating, and when I could resist no longer, the pendulum swung to the other extreme, and I would overeat to compensate.
I was always sick, tired and in pain
Veganism is often associated with the notion of optimal health. There’s no shortage of stories of high-performance athletes switching to a plant-based diet to optimize their performance.
I don’t identify as an athlete, but the purported health benefits of veganism like reduced cholesterol, reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, reduced pain and inflammation, and increased energy were enough for me to believe that a vegan diet would resolve many of my long-standing health issues.
And for a while it did.
In my early vegan days, my energy levels were high, I was rarely sick, my cholesterol levels improved compared to my pre-vegan days, and I was sleeping well. Overall, I felt “healthy”.
But the benefits were short-lived. After a year, I started to fall ill frequently and was always fatigued. Each time I caught a cold or virus, the recovery was long, slow and would leave me with lingering symptoms, like a persistent cough, for months.
As more time passed, more health issues and symptoms surfaced including chronic headaches, digestive issues, brain fog, and sleep difficulties.
Despite suggestions from my doctor to reintroduce small amounts of eggs, fish and meat to see if there were any improvements, I ignored her medical advice to stubbornly uphold my vegan ideals.
I became highly anxious
As soon as I labelled myself a vegan, I felt the sudden weight of expectations and scrutiny, like a backpack full of bricks.
After joining several “supportive” Facebook groups, I saw people berate and shame others for their slip-ups and mistakes instead of offering kindness and compassion.
Accidentally consumed something non-vegan? You should have read the labels carefully.
Own or bought something with leather? Don’t call yourself a vegan!
Ate something non-vegan because there were no other options? You should have come prepared.
Craving something non-vegan? That’s disgusting!
I became anxious and terrified of making even the slightest mistake or getting “caught” slipping up, believing that a mistake would mean I was a terrible person or that I was weak for not having the willpower or discipline to be a “good” vegan.
I didn’t take the decision to leave veganism lightly.
Leaving was a slow burn. When the anxiety was too much, secretly “cheating” helped release some of the pressure to make it through another day.
Partway through a trip to Hong Kong to visit my grandparents, they gently nudged and teased that I could go back to being vegan once I returned home — it was the permission I needed to let go. When I returned home, I confided in a few friends who reassured me there would be no judgement if I chose to eat meat again.
It took me a year to fully quit. My public, yet quiet declaration came when I ordered fish tacos. Other than a few exchanges of confused looks, nothing needed to be said. We all moved on.
Although I still have occasional moments of guilt for eating animal products, I feel relieved that my vegan days are behind me and that I can now focus on healing my relationship to food, my body, and my mental health.
