I hope that I learned something useful about myself recently. I could wait six months to verify that it works and then post it if it's successful, but I'll go ahead and share now and then if it doesn't work, I'll have to submit a correction post.
This year, on the occasions that I strayed from healthy eating and then came back, I wondered: why was it so easy for me to be a vegan for the last 6 years but it is sometimes difficult to be a nutritarian? Both involve denying myself a category of foods. In fact, being vegan involved a complete 100% abstinence from certain foods whereas being a nutritarian just involves mostly abstaining (that turned out to be a clue). Interestingly, this year, I strayed for the first time in 5.5 years from veganism, about 3 times. That's because I gave myself permission, since Dr. Fuhrman allows for a small amount of animal products. I didn't follow his advice as he intended since I ate ice cream, one of the worst foods you could eat. But that straying clued me in to something.
Before I strayed from veganism (first time Nov. 2010), my vegan logic when choosing food was, 1) is it vegan? 2) if not, what's something vegan I can eat? I have a clever clever brain (as do you) and all of my cleverness was applied to finding something vegan to eat.
As a nutritarian, because there is some leeway and you can eat an occasional cookie and still be healthy, sometimes my clever clever brain, which loves sugar, will go all out to argue why it's justified. It is a powerful force when my clever clever brain goes all out to convince me of something. It is too smart for me. It will just keep on arguing until I am convinced.
If I were to decide that for me being a nutritarian means eating only health-promoting food, then maybe my decision process will be like the vegan one. 1) Is it nutritarian? 2) if not, what's something nutritarian I can eat. no arguments. And then my clever clever brain, which is a powerful force, can go all out applying itself to finding me good nutritarian food to eat.
So I decided I want to be vegan and nutritarian, which for me means, no animal products, and no disease-promoting foods (that is, 100% healthy foods instead of 90, 95, 98%). It's just easier that way.
I'm not saying I'll always be vegan and nutritarian but I want to be now and I hope I will be forever.
