About Veganist Living
I created Veganist Living because when I made the decision to adopt the vegan lifestyle, I felt as though there was no all-encompassing resource for me to go to for guidance, recipes, educational literature, or merchandise related to veganism. (Especially one without a political platform.) So, I decided to create my own online community!
I want to not only create a social forum that allows people to rate, share, and enjoy other vegan’s cooking creations, but also help make newer vegans transition into the “veganist lifestyle” more easily and in a tasty way.
Within the next year, I hope to grow this site into a wonderful community that brings all facets of veganist living onto one site so that when someone visits www.veganistliving.com they can answer why and how to become a vegan.
About the Veganista, Ashley:
Here’s a brief synopsis of my health over my lifetime to explain how I came to adopt my current lifestyle. Growing up I was no stranger to chronic sickness, I had severe environmental allergies, and by the age of 16, I was already being diagnosed with tendonitis of my hip flexor muscles. I just thought this was all normal and that abiding by the doctor’s rules and popping a pill was the “fix.”
Sure enough, in my 20’s I developed chronic digestive problems and inflammatory issues (thanks in part to such pill-popping,) suffered from chronic joint pain, and was diagnosed with a plethora of adult-onset food allergies. It seemed like every year I was trying to cure one thing about myself and another would pop up!
I didn’t understand. When compared to most people, I lead a healthy life. I was an athlete that loved to workout, 95% of the time I was eating like a health food nut, and I really tried arduously to practice self-care. It does help that I have a background in nutrition and personal training, so I know the human body and its processes well, but none of the healthy adjustments in my diet or lifestyle were helping long-term. I gave up gluten and wheat 3 years ago due to an intolerance- decided to forgo dairy and eggs when they popped up as irritants on my blood tests, and nothing seemed to work.
Alas, at 29, I started to ask myself why I never really felt 100% despite these valiant efforts. Determined to get to the bottom of my incessant lethargy, bloat, joint pain, and overall discomfort, I began to read Kathy Freston’s: Veganist. She coalesced the literature I had read over the years studying nutrition by some of the brightest scientific minds in the country and shed some light on the true benefits of being a "veganist." I always thought that these studies about veganism were only for people who had terrible cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or other, more serious health problems and not my own, which always seemed miniscule in comparison.
Being one who loves a challenge and is willing to try just about anything, before even finishing the book, I quit meat cold "turkey" (I was already dairy- and egg-free) and have yet to miss it. Every testimonial I have read about how becoming vegan changed someone's life used to, forgive me for saying, piss me off. With an ironic twist of fate, now I am one of them! I attribute my high energy levels (which make my workouts incredible,) better digestion, lack of bloat and joint pain, and overall feeling of happiness to this new lifestyle-I now know that y
ou do not need to have a serious disease to benefit from being vegan.
I hope to help people understand more about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle, how to become vegan, and how to cook vegan through Veganist Living.
