Vegetarian

The doctor visit

Yesterday was my doctors appointment. I was a little nervous.

I asked my doctor a few questions

1. Ever since I have become a vegetarian I feel as if I have been getting many injuries and feeling run down at times. Do my injuries have anything to do with being a vegetarian? Her answer: No. As long as you are getting enough calcium and vital nutrients you are doing great as a vegetarian and can stay that way. (Yay!) She had me get blood drawn to see how I’m doing with vitamins/minerals- just in case.

That made me happy!

2. I ate ice cream the other night. I don’t usually eat dairy and I felt pretty awful for a full day. Is it possible that I am lactose intolerant? Her answer: Yes. About 70% of the population has some sort of intolerance to lactose and it is especially possible to develop it if you don’t consume dairy for a long period of time and then try to go back to it. She had me get blood drawn to check for a lactose allergy.

3. Why do I keep getting injuries? Her answer: You probably aren’t letting yourself heal fully. I want you to take 2 months off of running.

So I got a ton of blood drawn, left the doctors office, and got an iced latte to cheer me up! [P.S.: I’ll find out the blood work results in a few days]

(This post has WAY too many pictures of me hahah)

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Anyways, I suppose what you are all wondering is am I going to take 2 months off of running?

My answer: I don’t know. My knee has been bugging me again lately and I have cross country training camp on Sunday. Since the doctor offered to write me an excuse from cross country I am still able to get the scholarship and go to my school (praise God for his blessings!!). But if I use the excuse I won’t be able to run until October 9th. That kind of sucks.

I guess what I am going to do is see how I feel. I’m probably going to cross train until Sunday and see how my knee feels then. I’ll go from there.

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I’m really glad the doctor said it is possible (as long as the blood results come back good) for me to continue to be a vegetarian. I’m interested to find out if I’m lactose intolerant and I’m just going to go with the flow with how my knee feels for running.

Pondering my nutrition

As I said in my last post, I enjoyed a good 7 mile run Monday night but I woke up feeling pretty awful yesterday. My joints were achy and my stomach hurt the whole day. I might know the culprit:

It was so good though.

I find that I can have about 1 serving of dairy a day and then I feel like crap if I have any more. This makes me sad because I love cheese, ice cream, yogurt, milkshakes etc. but I don’t know if it is worth the pain.

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Another nutrition issue I was pondering was vegetarianism. I feel that once I quit eating meat, limited dairy and eggs, I started to see an increase in injuries and a decrease in overall health. Some days I wake up and feel lethargic despite getting adequate rest, eating enough, and even decreasing exercise. I am wondering if this is due to not getting certain nutrients from animal products.

I have been a vegetarian in the past (circa freshman year of high school) and I actually became really sick because my body wasn’t absorbing protein.

(Little freshman me looking tired)

I guess what I have been thinking about is that vegetarianism and veganism might not be for everyone. This makes me sad because I am a vegetarian for moral reasons. But if not eating animal products is harming my health then I guess I will have to put aside moral beliefs.

 I scheduled a doctor appointment for August 9th to address these issues and to get blood drawn to see if I am missing any nutrients, especially ones derived from animal products. I’m not sure if being a vegetarian would cause any of the issues I am dealing with because I always make sure to get enough vitamin D, protein, fat, carbs, calcium, etc.

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What do you think of vegetarianism and health? 

Any suggestions for me? (I promise I already eat enough every day)