Hello it’s me! I am back and a lot happened e.g. I have a new mini job, many projects that are up to come yet (stay tuned!) … and a lot of overthinking over everything and anything- lol. As said before I got a new mini job which I couldn’t be more grateful for. It is creative and has to do with illustration. Most of it can be done from home and it’s quite chilly. What it has to do with the title?

Inspiration was last Friday. For lunch break it came out that I wouldn’t eat meat nor fish and out of curiosity I got asked why. You’ll have to know that I am not vegan but I don’t consider myself as fully vegetarian either, since I barely consume eggs or dairy products. (Please keep in mind that this post is not here to tell you what you have to eat and what not)

Today I am going to share with you first of all why I stopped eating meat and fish and how it lead me to where I am today. I will also share with you what it has changed in me without me intending it. (Sorry for using “I” and “me” this xD Does anyone else also feels guilty when they use these a lot?)

I wasn’t always a vegetarian. It started in 2011 when I stopped eating meat besides chicken and fish which also stayed in my diet. This choice had two main reasons. One was my love for animals and two a friend inspired me. I decided to take things out of my diet slowly. After a mental break down in 2014 I decided to completely take out meat out of my diet. I’ve always been interested in spirituality but also articles said that it could help. So I listened to my guts and as it felt right, I stopped eating meat. I’ve always lived in Germany due to my mother who is German, but since my father is French my sister and I grew up franco-german bilingual and binational, which made us spend a lot of time in France, like being in summer camp but also in our little house in a small village at the seaside. This village being a fishermen’s village fish was a tradition which made it harder for me to keep fish out of my diet, especially when I was in France. As I realized though that it really improved my mental health I decided to go fully vegetarian in 2015. Of course loving animals from the bottom of my heart was a reason too. I couldn’t bare eating them anymore. As time passed I couldn’t even see myself eating meat nor fish anymore. Soon dairy products and eggs became rare too.

The main reasons for me stop eating meat and fish were:
1. Loving animals
2. Inspiration by a friend, spirituality/faith and blog articles
3. Mental Health Issues
4. Contradiction between e.g. “not eating rabbits because their cute but eating cows”

Now what changed within me:
Before I stopped eating meat and fish, I didn’t really enjoy cooking. It was more of a “making noodles and that’s it” thing. This means the approach to food changed not only because I would cook a lot more but also the way I cherished food. Spending time in the kitchen to really cook meal and savor it became more enjoyable. Of course as previously said I loved animals but it’s so hard to describe how deep this love changed. It sounds weird but it’s as if you can love someone but not realize how much you care for them until you really embrace them into your life. If that makes sense?
Also, how much it had to with my beliefs wasn’t something I’ve ever realized until last year.

Let’s talk about mental health issues. As said before it was clear that it could maybe help improve them but the time I realized how much it really helped was during another mental breakdown in 2017, because yes it sucked but the way I handled it was way different from before in 2014, like in a positive way. I felt horrible but I approached things differently and I experienced them differently. I’m not trying to say that eating no meat was everything to how I perceived this situation but I definitely experienced how much your diet can affect your mental health which I really wasn’t that conscious about before.
It’s so interesting to see how one can make decisions for various reasons and how sometimes they’ll benefit from it even more than what they’ve expected to gain out of it beforehand.

My view of life changed and changing my diet was part of it but my mental health issues played a big part in it too. Would you be interested in me talking about mental health and how it changed my view of life in another blog post? Did you also make changes in your life that you benefit from more than what you’ve expected them to do? Share your story and let’s get inspired.

Hopefully you enjoyed this post and have a great day … or evening (xD) ! Wherever you’re from.