My Journey to a Vegan Diet ( Part 4 )

It is the middle of June 2019 and the beginning of me throwing myself fully into a vegan diet.  A year had nearly passed since my appointment with Dr S up in London.  In that time, I had more good days than bad but because of the big attack I had the previous week as told in my last blog post, I was determined to follow all the recommendations from the specialist once and for all.

The next day I went out and purchased a few plant-based cookbooks.  I have always loved reading recipe books and following them to create delicious meals for my family.  Cooking has always been a great passion of mine and one day in the future I would love to write my very own. 

I sat down and planned out my meals for the next week, trying to choose ones that I could adapt to suit all my family to make life easier.  I started following lots of other people on vegan diets on Instagram to gain inspiration.  I would take pictures of all the meals I would make and post on social media, really enjoying getting positive feedback on how they looked by friends and family.  This I found to be a real positive thing for me as knowing I had to do this every day would spur me on to make delicious meals and follow the diet even more!  Whilst talking to a friend I happened to mention how I would love to improve my food photography and they happened to know a local lady that had one awards for hers and gave me her number.  I emailed her to ask if she would be willing to do a one-to-one session with me, which to my delight she agreed to, and I booked a date for the coming weeks.  Making meals look aesthetically appealing on the eye, would gain me new followers on social media platforms but also help me to find others that I could follow and get ideas from. 

I made sure I slept and ate meals regularly and started exercising lots more including workouts, running and lots of walks around the beautiful countryside near where I live in Hampshire.  Vitamin B2, C and Magnesium I now take regularly each day along with a vegan based multi vitamin.  I source locally grown produce where possible and in season.  This can be slightly more expensive but well worth it for the taste and to help support local businesses through the tough times we all find ourselves in at present.

Initially I would make the recipes in books and on the internet, but began to change them slightly over the weeks adding or substituting different ingredients to ones that were favourites of mine. I would make a note of what I had done with the thought that in the future I can share some with others that I have created.  This as I have stated before is what I plan to do in the coming months via my blog with the hope I can inspire others to give a plant-based diet a go. 

As the first few months went by I noticeably started to feel a lot better and full of more energy.  Planning my meals out a week in advance, is something I would recommend to all, especially if you lead a busy life.  Also if you have various different dietary requirements in your household I found this to be so much help. It also keeps weekly shopping costs down and stops food wastage as you only buy what you actually need.

One of the biggest problems I would come across was when my family would plan to go out for a meal out.  Restaurants do not always cater for a vegan diet or if they do it would almost seem a bit of an afterthought on their part, putting a dish on the menu to show they’d made an effort without really thinking how it tasted!  This has certainly improved recently with a spate of plant-based healthy cafes and eateries opening up all over the place and restaurants and cafes starting to accommodate vegan diets much more.

Christmas 2019 came and went by.  This time of the year has always been a very manic and hectic time for our family and business, and in previous years I had noticed I would struggle with my dizziness spells more around then due to stress levels being a lot higher.  This year no such thing happened, which I put down to my changes in lifestyle and diet. 

Feeling really good for a while now it spurred me on to try to wean myself off of my medication.  So from January 2020 I dropped the amount from 4 tablets down to 3 twice a day for a month and then to 2 from the beginning of February.  I didn’t tell anyone that I had decided to do this as wanted to not make a thing of it but also was worried they may try to talk me out of it believing the prescribed medication was a reason for my feeling better.  I was still religiously following my diet and loving all the meals I was cooking. I started to visit Vegan festivals and markets to speak to producers and sample new things.  This would also give me new ideas of what to have myself at home and keep me motivated to carry on.

By mid-March I dropped the Nortritolyne down again to just 1 tablet twice a day.  I was determined to come off of them once and for all as am really not keen on taking any medication for long sustained periods of time, even though I believed for years that what I had been prescribed had been helping.  I was due to speak to Dr S again via a telephone conversation in June so was hoping to be able to tell him I had stopped altogether by then.  I kept at this level for 6 weeks, making sure that what I was doing was the right thing in reducing them slowly and check all was still going well.  To my happiness I was feeling so much brighter in myself each day and decided to stop altogether from the beginning of May 2020, whilst in the middle of the first UK lockdown!

I spoke to Dr S in June 2020 and told him how I had now been without an attack of dizziness for nearly a year and had come off all my medication.  At first I could sense he was concerned I had done this too quickly but after we talked it all through was happy for me to continue as I was.  He told me if at any point I started feeling bad again I would have to go back on the tablets again.  Dr S also said that I could start reintroducing foods that I had cut out of my diet, but only in moderation and if I felt bad after something in particular to make a note and cut it out as it could be one of the triggers.  He decided he would not make any further appointments with himself as believed what I was doing was working well but if anything changed dramatically that I was to get back in touch. 

I thought about the foods I had given up and a lot of them are not on a plant-based diet so made the decision as I wasn’t really missing anything and loving what I was eating, it was not worth risking. 

So I have now been without any health issues and eating a vegan diet for nearly 2 years. I would like to point out that I am not saying that what I have done would be as beneficial to all other sufferers of Vestibular Migraine or Vertigo/Balance problems, but if it helps even a few people to feel better and not have to put up with the problems I had, it would make me very happy. 

I would be more than happy to chat to anyone and answer any questions they may have.  Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my posts explaining ‘My Journey to a Vegan Diet’ and please could I ask you to share it with friends and family members to spread the word to as many others as possible.

I can be contacted via my blog, my social media platforms and my email – thehappeaveganman@hotmail.com