My Health Goals for the Summer ☀️

Here are my summer goallsssss!!! 😄

Drink more water, less coffee:

I’m mainly a water person, but I picked up drinking coffee again for 1 month because I was having trouble staying awake. 😴 But, I’ve noticed negative effects from drinking coffee within 1 month, such as drier skin and hair. Also, my mouth/throat would get dry so much faster too. I would get headaches and migraines more often after picking up on this coffee habit. The migraines were the worst of them all. I’ve decreased my consumption of coffee. Even with decaf coffee, I was still feeling negative effects after consuming it regularly. Much less to the extent compared to caffeinated coffee. I mean, I stopped drinking coffee 5-6 years ago for a good reason. Now I’m reminded why I stopped once again. It’s not good for my body and mind. And, that is quite disappointing because I have a few bags of coffee left. I guess I could just give them away or drink it once in a blue moon. Back to drinking pure water… 💦👌🏻

Back to my exercise routine:

I’ve been exercising more consistently. I took a break due to joint issues due to veganism — an update coming up soon! Hiking, lifting weights, running, cycling, and so on. I’m just going at it with tons of rest in between. Since it’s summer, I’m really excited to increase my physical activity. I really do enjoy the warmth and humidity that summer brings when I’m exercising for some reason. Am I sweating or is it just hot? Both? 😂 haha. I’m just kidding. Well, that’s another good reason why to stay hydrated too. To replenish from sweating. Not just from exercise but also because of the warm, hot, humid weather!

Cutting down on skin care products:

I’ve been really exhausted knowing that I have bottles after bottles of skin care products that I don’t even need. My obsession with skin care started when I was little. I started messing with my mother’s makeup and skin care products at an early age. I mean, I love skin care. It’s really addicting and has been a love of mine for so, so, so many years! But now, I feel like I don’t want to spend an excessive amount of money on too many skin care products anymore. I don’t even spend that much on makeup either. I use whatever I need, and they seem to last forever too. I’ve been trying to use up all of the skin care products I don’t intend to buy again anymore. It’s taking forever to finish them, but it’s not too bad. Since I started my acne journey a few weeks ago, they seem to come in handy when my skin needs more moisture. I tried using them on my body, but my body rejected them. I developed a rash. Maybe they’re just to sticky. I’ll try again some other time. I think decreasing my consumption of beauty products have helped with my mental health as well. Also, money-wise. I’m saving lots of money by not purchasing anything new. I don’t really need this many products. My main goal is to treat my acne, which I’ve been suffering with on and off for most of my life. I’m happy with my current skin care routine. My skin looks fine. 🙂

Eat more vegetables & healthier:

I’ve been skimping out on vegetables. I eat them, but I need to eat more vegetables. I miss my green smoothie days along with a healthy diet, of course. My skin was spectacular, clear, and clean. I started drinking green smoothies a few times a week already. They taste atrocious, but I think I’ll get use to them after a few more weeks. 😂 I’ve done it before, I can do it again. I wonder if it’ll help clear my skin up once again or at least improve it even more. 🥕 I’ll make an update soon on my progress. Stay tuned!

Get enough sleep:

I’ve actually been getting enough sleep, so sleep isn’t a big issue. Also, since I’ve cut out caffeinated drinks like coffee, I’ve been sleeping much better. Drinking coffee and caffeinated beverages messed up my sleeping pattern. I would toss and turn due to being awake from the caffeine. I don’t drink caffeinated drinks before bed, by the way. It’s always in the morning when I wake up. Somehow that stuff just doesn’t leave my system quick even after drinking tons of water. I’m glad I’ve decided to cut that habit out. Sleep is very important for the overall health.

No more dairy/Eat less dairy:

When I started eating dairy again, I started having issues with my skin. I noticed that my skin became more oily and also noticed blackheads and some clogged pores. I developed acne. Looks like I can’t eat much dairy. I’ve decreased my dairy consumption. I’ve gone days without consuming dairy, and my skin looks so much better. I knew I couldn’t eat dairy before, but I wanted to try it again anyways. I guess it’s the same as before, no dairy or eat very little dairy (or eat it once in a while). I can get away with eating just a little once in a while. But, I don’t care for it much anyways. I rather have nice skin. lol.

Those are my thoughts on my health goals for the summer. Hopefully they’ll last much longer. An update on how it’s going soon!

What are your health goals for the summer?? 🌞😎

I Ate Meat After 7 Years of Being Vegan…

About 2 months ago, I started eating meat again. I didn’t expect this to happen but it did. I started having health issues at the end years of veganism. I developed joint issues, brain fog, my hair was falling out. I was tired all the time. My skin looked awful! I couldn’t believe how much my skin aged! I saw fine line and wrinkles that weren’t there before. My skin looked dull and washed out. On top of that, I battled with really bad skin issues for nearly 3 years at the end of veganism. I had a bunch of tiny little bumps all over my face. I remember having a rough patch of these bumps along my jawline. At that time, I thought it was just acne and that it’ll go away soon. I tried prescription medications and creams. Over-the-counter creams. I tried adding more healthy plant-based foods into my diet. I exercised. I did all that I could to get healthy again. Nothing worked. NOTHING. It’s like my skin was resilient and had a hard time healing. I would get blemishes, and it took them forever to heal. This is something I’ve never experienced before. My skin was clear before and at the beginning to mid-veganism. Even though I’m prone to breakouts, it was manageable when I wasn’t vegan. When I was vegan (end years of veganism), I wasn’t able to keep my breakouts under control with anything. It would get worse and worse day by day no matter what I did. Until one day this happened.

I started taking fish oil supplements for my joints and hair. My joints were in excruciating pain. By the way, I was taking algae supplements when I was vegan. Algae supplements are very expensive!! But I bought them anyway because there was no way I could possibly take fish oil supplements when I was vegan. I also ate chia seeds, flaxseeds, hemp seeds, and plenty of other vegan foods that contained omega-3 fatty acids. I made sure to get my omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources. But, the results from them weren’t the same compared to taking fish oil. Just one week into taking fish oil supplements, my joint pain eased and my hair stopped falling out. It became thicker and fuller. It grew so much faster too. You know, I had a very difficult time growing my hair as a vegan. In the beginning it was great, but I had poor growth in the last years of veganism.

Since I wasn’t vegan anymore, I went out and bought some salmon and tuna. Why? Because salmon was my favorite food pre-veganism. And I didn’t feel guilty about it anymore. My health was failing, and I did whatever I had to do get healthy again. After eating fish, I started eating chicken and beef. If you’re wondering if I had issues eating meat, I didn’t have any issues with fish, but I did with chicken and beef, especially if it had a lot of fat on it. I would doze off and fall asleep after a fatty meaty meal. ha. It took me about 1 month for my body to get used to digesting heavier, dense meats. But, I can digest them easily now. I guess after so many years of being meat-free that was bound to happen.

And no, I didn’t see an improvement in my skin after just eating meat for one day or even a week or two weeks. It took a whole month to see drastic changes in my skin. I woke up one morning and my skin looked soft, dewy, and looked like it had more collagen to it. It looked elastic and more plump! The fine lines and wrinkles I noticed diminished! My skin had color to it. My lips looked rosy again. Also, the bumps I was dealing with on my skin vanished. My skin looked so clear for the first time in so many years!!! Not only that, a lot of my skin care products that I had issues with while being vegan are working on my skin now! If you have been following my updates on skin care, you’ll notice that I mentioned products that I’ve used before that didn’t work in the past are working now. Well, it’s because I started eating meat again. That’s what cleared up my skin! My skin is healing so much faster now. Brain fog vanished in a month and a half. I stopped feeling tired. I wake up each morning with so much energy now. I’m just way happier and feel so much healthier!! Last but not least, I’m really upset about developing joint issues on a vegan diet. I was livid when I learned about it. So, the vegan diet wasn’t doing me any good in the end. It made me sick and gave me health issues that I didn’t have before.

There ya go. 7 years. Waste of my life.