Hey guys, my name is Alice Robeson. I’m a coach at vegan proteins and a bikini bodybuilder. In case it was not clear from my little introduction, we will be talking about bodily functions in this video. So you have been warned. Today I want to talk about something I hear about very often from new vegans or vegans who are making changes to their lifestyles, changes to their diets, particularly if they are trying to eat more healthfully.
One of the most common things that I hear about with new vegans is that they are having interesting changes as they make the transition to their new vegan lifestyle or to just a more healthy, healthy vegan lifestyle that includes more whole foods and digestive issues can make the transition time quite challenging for me. As someone who has dealt with digestion issues my entire life, I can speak to this and hopefully provide some insight based on my nutrition coaching education.
I do have to say this. I’m not a doctor. Your doctor can help you with specific health problems, but I do have ulcerative colitis. So certain foods and eating too much of certain foods has historic historically been just a big challenge for me. And I know that I’m not alone, and I know that my problems are not going to be exactly like everyone else’s problems.
And I can definitely attest to the fact that food sensitivities do exist. Thankfully, most of them can be worked through and even cured eventually. I’ve dealt with a lot of them in my life and I’ve also helped many clients with digestive challenges throughout my coaching career. So let’s get one thing over with. First, I just want to go over some basic things and clarify some basic terms just to set us up for success in this video.
Number one, what exactly is a food allergy? So food allergy symptoms involve hives, swelling and difficulty breathing. This is all called anaphylaxis. There is nothing else like anaphylaxis and it is specifically an immune system response. It usually happens immediately after coming in contact with or eating the food, but in some cases it can take hours.
I know this because the time that I have experienced anaphylaxis, it actually happened about 45 minutes after coming in contact. So interesting story there. Next, let’s quickly talk about what it means to have a food intolerance or a food sensitivity. So this can happen hours after eating of food. And just to note, it’s usually one of the most recent foods you ate.
So be careful when trying to blame foods that you ate yesterday. For any kind of food sensitivities, your symptoms are going to be things like gas and cramping and nausea, and not as commonly vomiting. And it typically means a lot of diarrhea. It’s when your digestive system gets inflammation and it wants to flush everything out of your colon.
It may be a one time thing, or you will likely be able to build up a tolerance most of the time. And last, let’s briefly talk about celiac disease and gluten. Celiac disease can be very hard to diagnose, though you will likely have digestive issues. Of course, it also comes with other severe health problems that can be kind of hard to notice in the short term, like unexplained weight loss, even after eating a lot of calories.
Also unexplained and often ongoing fatigue and anemia, which I’ve also experienced. And it feels like your heart is pounding so hard that you feel like you’re massively out of shape. It can also kind of feel like you’re drowning a little bit. And other celiac symptoms can be unexplained mouth ulcers, unexplained rashes, and unexplained joint pain.
So celiac disease is very rare and very serious, and these people truly need to avoid gluten 100% of the time. Wheat allergies, on the other hand, are mostly found in children. And again, this is an immune system response that usually happens immediately. You’ll have a reaction with things like hives, swelling, and difficulty breathing, called anaphylaxis.
Just like other food allergies, wheat allergies are mostly found in children, and most of them outgrow this food allergy by the age of ten. Lastly, gluten sensitivity. It is a real thing, but there’s no actual Sharefire way to diagnose this as a medical problem. Mostly. Mostly. You can build up a tolerance when it’s a sensitivity by including it in your diet slowly over time, and maybe by adding probiotics and things like that.
Now that that’s out of the way, back to vegans. First, I want to talk about what a lot of new vegans are exposed to on the Internet and streaming services that initially people find very inspiring. And many, after seeing the content, decide to go vegan for health reasons, which is a beautiful thing. Many of us start out going vegan for health reasons and develop a passion for the animals and for the environment in the coming years.
But unfortunately, many new vegans get convinced that they have to give up a lot of extra things that are not just unnecessary for them to be able to improve their health, but they also become extreme to the point that it can lead to severe under eating. They will restrict or ban foods for themselves. That overall most people should be including in their diet for basic nutritional needs.
And. And they also end up unintentionally isolating themselves with these severely restrictive diets. And understandably, this makes the early stages of going vegan very lonely. They often are isolating themselves from their own families. A good example would be maybe that person is not going out to eat with their family anymore because maybe the only vegan option on the menu isn’t impossible burger, which they have now deemed 100% off limits for all eternity, when in
reality they can enjoy it occasionally in moderation and still live a healthy, balanced lifestyle. So how does this happen so much? How do vegans get it in their head that they need to ban all these foods from their life? There are leaders in the vegan movement who promote these very restrictive diets to the masses, when in reality they should only be talking to people who are very sick.
They should also make it clear that these radical food restrictions are almost always meant to be temporary, even for people who are ill. But new vegans accidentally sign themselves up for what they think is for life and they’re only setting themselves up for failure. There are vegans who are refusing to eat sugar, salt and oil. So’s vegans.
They refuse to eat processed food. They’re whole food plant based. They refuse to eat soy, gluten, mop meats, or they feel like they can never eat a slice of cake or never eat a cookie ever again. Then there are vegans who refuse to eat dietary fats entirely. Or similarly they may only allow themselves to eat limited healthy fats. This ends up falling into a similar camp of banning oils in their diets.
And sometimes they ban similar foods like nuts and seeds. When we know that all these foods contain tons of beneficial nutrients, then there are vegans who think eating raw is superior. The raw diet trend. This is one in particular that should be carefully targeted to individuals who are very sick and also should be made clear that it should only be temporary and just part of your nutrition plan, not your entire nutrition plan.
Because eating almost 100% raw foods will cause a laxative effect and this will lead to weight loss. Weight loss that you don’t want, rapid weight loss. It’s not allowing our bodies to absorb nearly enough beneficial vitamins and minerals that we need, and it leads to more muscle loss than fat loss, which makes it even harder to lose and maintain weight later in life, of course, which makes aging more challenging.
And last, as soon as you start eating normally again, which you will, you’ll rebound, you’ll regain weight rapidly, most of which will be fat gain. It’s a vicious cycle. Similarly, water fasting and juice cleansing, sort of terrifying trends that have become popular in the vegan community, are dangerous when performed alone. I’m just going to be completely real.
Water fasting should only be done under the direct supervision of a licensed physician. Now this also leads me to another point. That new vegans are often sold this idea that veganism is going to mean magical weight loss, but they’re being sold the idea that they can eat as many whole foods as they want to and that they’re still going to lose weight and that they’re still going to be thin for all eternity.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong. A person’s weight is about the number of calories you eat, right? Okay, so back to poop. The standard american diet, aka the sad diet, has become a major problem. Specifically, the sad diet means eating high amounts of processed foods, refined carbohydrates and added sugars, and eating low amounts of fruits and vegetables.
When we don’t eat whole foods, our bodies suffer. That’s the long and short of it. And then later, if and when we start to try and re add whole foods into our diets, our microbiome, which is the bacteria that live in our digestive system, our microbiome is unable to break down and help us digest these whole foods. And that leads to gas, bloating and diarrhea or constipation.
Why is that? It’s because these whole foods are made of something called complex carbs. Basically, complex carbs are hard chains of carbohydrates that are difficult for the body to break down and difficult for the body to absorb nutrients from. Like I said, these digestive changes and a weak microbiome can make the transition to a healthy diet, including a healthy vegan diet.
It makes it challenging for some people. So what am I talking about with complex carbs? I mean, beans and all legumes? Legumes being lentils and peas and all beans. Whole grains, which includes many types of rice, like brown rice, many types of bread, like whole grain bread, whole grain pasta, and similarly the complex carbs and resistant starches found in all types of pasta.
We’ll get to that in a second and last. Complex carbs in vegetables in general, especially raw vegetables. So how do we improve our GI strengthen struggles here are my tips how to help with digestive challenges in general. Number one, start out by eating one portion. Okay, don’t sit down with a huge bowl or a huge plate of any of these foods if you are not used to them.
Instead, you can slowly increase how much of these foods you’re eating over time to avoid upsetting your stomach. Guys, one serving of beans is half a cup, so check out the nutrition label. Number two, drink more water. Most of us live in a severely dehydrated state to digest complex carbs and fiber. In general, our bodies need to draw lots of water into the colon.
And without enough water, that is what leads to constipation. So at the bare minimum, aim to drink at least ten cups of water per day. Number three, don’t eat meals that contain high amounts of fat. Fats are so important for our health, by the way. We should have a little bit of fat with most meals, but many of us go way overboard and that upsets our stomach.
For example, most restaurants cook your food in ridiculous amounts of oils when we are cooking, when we’re cooking at home, when we’re cooking anywhere, we should be using one to three teaspoons, not tablespoons of oil, for cooking. But restaurants are free, pouring oil onto the grill, onto your food, or worse, other high fat foods that we need to eat in moderation.
Vegan cheeses. Any breaded or fried foods like vegan chicken wings, many vegan burgers, chips, french friesen salad dressing, cakes, cookies, vegan butter, vegan ice cream. Having more than one serving and too much fat in any one meal can lead to either constipation or diarrhea. Most people have trouble digesting large amount of fat at one time.
Tip number four. This is optional, but this is one that has helped me and my clients tremendously, is take a probiotic for anywhere from two weeks to two months. Now, most probiotics only have one or a few probiotics, and that’s why I currently take and recommend a probiotic called seed. It’s not cheap, but it has some amazing research to back up its effectiveness, and it has personally worked wonders for me.
And again, you only have to take it for up to two months. So in actuality, I think the price is not that bad. The only other times I recommend taking a probiotic are after you take a round of antibiotics or after you get over a severe stomach flu like E. Coli. All right, now here are some specific tips for the specific foods for new vegans. Are you ready for this?
Number one, let’s talk about tofu? Tofu is made from beans, by the way. When I first went vegan, I had a pretty severe food sensitivity to tofu. It just completely tore up my stomach for a while and I knew that I didn’t want this to be permanent. I didn’t want this to be forever. So I looked up ways that I could fix this and work on this. And that’s how I learned about sprouted tofu.
And who’d have guessed it? Trader Joe’s has an amazing sprouted tofu. And I use that tofu exclusively for probably up to six months, if I can recall correctly. Now, I don’t have a food journal from that time, but if I recall correctly, that’s about how long it took. If you don’t have access to a trader Joe’s, or if none of your local stores have any sprouted tofu, then I recommend starting off with silken tofu.
Soften tofus. They contain more water and are generally easier to digest. Now, what do you use softened silken tofu for? You can try making desserts with them, like puddings or mousse. Then you can work your way up to eating super firm tofu. Start with small servings, of course. And it’s also worth mentioning that some people are not used to eating high amounts of protein in one sitting, and that alone can cause gastric upset.
But just like most other food sensitivities, you can slowly increase your protein intake over time and build up a tolerance. Number two, let’s talk about beans. Like I said before, start out by eating one serving of beans. One serving of beans is a half a cup. There is always beano, which is an over the counter drug specifically meant to help you break down and digest beans, though you should only have to use it temporarily until you get more used to it.
I never found vino to be that effective. For me personally, we should aim to get one serving of legumes per day. Now, this can be lentils, it can be peas, it can be regular beans, or it can even be tofu. Number three, cook your vegetables. Forget eating a 100% raw diet. Throughout history, humans have cooked their food, and for good reason. We need food to be cooked in order to be able to absorb all of the vitamins and minerals and micronutrients from the food in order to get the most
benefit from it, and in order to absorb the most energy from that food. I’m not saying that you’re never allowed to have a salad, for the record. On a side note, you can also process your vegetables in other ways, like putting them in a blender. Again, just adding one serving into things like sauces, smoothies, protein shakes, you can get creative.
Number four is rice. There’s actually new research that came out that shows that if you cook your rice, put it in the refrigerator overnight and then eat your rice the next day, that it becomes much easier to digest. So if rice has been a particular problem for you in your digestive system, definitely give that a try. Number five, pasta. Lots of people came to the assumption that they were gluten sensitive because of the bloating and abdominal pain that they experience after
eating pasta. But pasta is hard to digest for the majority of people because of not only the complex carbs, but also the resistant starches. So what’s the solution? They say that we should cook our pasta out al dente, which means that we cook our pasta for around two minutes less than the package instructions say to cook it. You will know when it’s done because the pasta will get chewy in the middle.
It’s not going to be hard and it’s also not going to be soft like the way that we’re used to eating pasta as Americans. And number six, whole grain bread. One of the best ways to getting used to eating whole grain bread is by eating sprouted whole grains. Thankfully, sprouted whole grain bread is widely available in most grocery stores. It’s called Ezekiel bread.
Now, you’re going to find this in the freezer section of the grocery store, interestingly enough, so you can eat that Ezekiel bread until you get used to eating regular whole grain bread. Okay, guys, that is all of the knowledge that I have collected in my brain over the years from my experiences and from my family’s experience, which almost all of my family has diagnosed IB’s and from client experiences. I hope that you found this helpful and I hope that you had fun dorking out
about the history of diet culture with me. If you like this video, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe. And if you’re looking for vegan nutrition coaching, or if you’re looking for someone to help you make the transition to a balanced vegan lifestyle, go to veganproteins.com. again, my name is Alice from vegan proteins and I’ll talk to you soon.
