Introduction:
so i became vegan a little over a year ago. before that i was mostly vegetarian for about a year as a transition. before that i ate mostly indiscriminately. i avoided soda, pork, and probably some other stuff i can't remember. i think i mostly just ate whatever food my mom made until i started doing agency work, which is when i started making a lot of my own food.
anyways, i suppose what triggered my health journey was a knee injury i got back in april of 2014. unfortunately, i'm still dealing with chronic pain now, but i've pretty much isolated the problem and it should be completely rectified by spring of next year. most likely sooner. anyways, i suppose i fell into depression. when it first started i could barely walk at all without extreme pain. months went by and i still couldn't jog. eventually i became very weak, very fat, and very unhealthy. i remember once i laid down on my stomach and tried to get up from that position. i can't remember exactly how long it took, but it was extremely difficult and likely took between 3-6 minutes. today i can do it in less than a few seconds. unfortunately i'm still much weaker than what should be my base strength.
anyways, i just never wanted to live like that. it was horrible. i went to the doctor, got an mri, and all he could tell me was "it's a normal knee", and then sent me away. about half a year later or so i went to an acupuncturist and he showed me that my posture and stability were awful. he told me information about my foot positioning and how important it is to correct my posture. that's where my journey began. i finally had a starting point, and a path. i continued to learn about muscles, joints, exercise, etc. things i haven't been taught about through my entire life. it wasn't enough. that's when i started to learn about eating habits, and nutrition. since i was too weak to have any hope of working, i was broke. so i couldn't buy a good variety or amount of food. that's probably what caused my progress towards a well balanced vegan diet to be so dreadfully slow.
and you know what, one of the main reasons things got so bad for me is because i started to become lazy from about halfway through grade 8 (13 years old). i literally had absolutely no ambition, and my motivation for day to day tasks slowly slipped away. i wasn't interested in any sports or extra curricular activities, i wasn't interested in any specific field to study in because there was no inspiration in my life. the only things i was exposed to were how dreadfully boring everything is. my mom just went to work every day and only talked about the bad things in her work. my brothers just smoked, drink, bring their crappy friends over and talk about other negative things. literally everything i was exposed to was negativity. there was no hope or inspiration, and the financial situation was even worse so there were no opportunities for me.
thinking back. one of my greatest wonders in life is: what if before i was born, my parents became competent enough to learn at least basic things about the importance of posture, basic functions of body motion, eating habits, and nutrition, and before conceiving me they made sure i would be born and raised in a suitable environment? would i not have had to suffer through this hell? would by now, at 23 years old i would be living happy, financially stable, and living life in greater capacity than i am now? would i not have been exposed to vastly more opportunities and experiences in my life up until now? a lot of stuff happened, and i suppose things happened that were out of my parents' control, but surely they could have tried to learn more and become more competent parents before i was born. i wouldn't have had to deal with so many problems in my life. i could have been living by now, instead of trying to reach the point where i can start living.
i searched for inspiration on my own when i had the means, and i found my desire to become a game developer, but because i had no motivation for school in the past i lack much knowledge that i could have learned back then. i lack many basic skills that i could have picked up on the way. now i'm not even sure where to start. most of the opportunities i could have had are in the past, and i'm still trying to get over my chronic laziness which is a really bad habit i've had since i was 13 for reasons i explained earlier.
Family:
i've always been the kind of person who is very good at observing others, as well as learning from mistakes that other people make. ever since i was born i lived with 2 older brothers. i suppose we all had good times, but the only help i think they've given me in life is showing me mistakes that i should learn from. an older brother is supposed to help inspire and nurture the younger brother. however, i can't blame them for that, since they were pretty much forced to delve into life before me and didn't have anyone to inspire or teach them either. well maybe they had some inspiration, i don't know. they are twins and i am incredibly different from them despite us being brothers. my path in life is just very different. i still struggle to understand myself sometimes.
it's clear to me now that the main problem comes from further up in the family tree. i love my family and i'm not trying to push guilt on them. this is just a realization i've come to. my grandmother spent a few days here not too long ago, and i noticed that she seems to have a lot of the bad habits that my mom has. obviously my mom learned them from her and she just can't break away from these bad habits. she probably doesn't even acknowledge that these are bad habits.
anyways, ever since i became a vegan and my knowledge about eating habits and nutrition started to increase, i of course also started sharing my knowledge with my mom. not just telling her the information in my own words, since she doesn't put a shred of care on anything i say, but mainly showing her studies and informational videos from doctors and other smart people about nutrition and health.
my mom got an injury about a year or so ago and ever since then she's been having constant pain in her lower back, elbow, knees, etc. i constantly offer her a solution for these problems but instead she goes to waste all of her time and money on the doctors who couldn't help her make any recovery progress since she was injured.
she spends most of her time on her cellphone. in her bedroom her room light is some crappy blue light light bulb. she passes out most nights with the tv and her bed room light on. i tell her and show her information about the negative effects of blue light on the body and sleep, and she doesn't give the slightest ****. obviously if her body can't rest and recover properly then nothing will change for her.
i don't know about everything she eats, but i notice that it seems she mostly eats about 1 or 2 meals every day, and all of her meals are extremely small. she eats processed junk and animal products regularly, and her main meals barely contain any nutrients. over the past year and some months i constantly talked to her and showed her quality information about the importance of proper nourishment and eating for health and recovery and of course she couldn't care in the slightest.
she simply talks to me like i'm wrong and stupid just because i'm living in a different way than she could even imagine, even though to me it has become second nature and common sense. it baffles me how she always fails to comprehend what is so simplistic. the other day when we were picking up the results for our blood tests (we both got a blood test), she complained to the doctor how she had kfc and had stomach pain after. then she claims something in the chicken must be giving her pain. obviously it's common sense to me, and if she cared even a slight fraction about any of the information i've been telling her and showing her then she would be able to make that connection. i can only assume she doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the importance of any of the information, or she just doesn't care enough about making changes for health. even seeing the results of my blood work which was great after a year on a vegan diet which she first thought was ridiculous compared to her blood work which was not great, she still can't make the connection that the information i give her is important for health.
at one point after a lot of information i showed her she decided to stop drinking cow milk and drink some plant based milks instead. months later she went back to cows milk saying that when she started drinking the plant milk her elbow started hurting her and when she went back to the cow milk her elbow stopped hurting. of course to me it's common sense that the type of plant milk she was drinking likely didn't have enough protein, and because she doesn't eat properly to get protein the protein from the cow milk would help her a lot. so by drinking plant milk that doesn't contain a lot of protein she is losing out on a ton of protein, which is probably only about 10 grams or so anyways. she just doesn't know the first thing about health or nutrition. either that or she has bad gut health. she spends like literally 5+ hours on the toilet everyday, and i'm sure a whole food plant based diet would fix that right up too, but of course she doesn't care in the slightest.
because she still thinks i'm a stupid 13 year old kid even though i'm a 23 year old man and learned a lot on my journey so far, she just doesn't place even the slightest bit of importance on anything i say or show her, and she constantly makes assumptions about me based on the kind of things i did back when i was around 13 years old. like for example the toilet upstairs has been broken until recently. i told her multiple times the toilet is broken and i've been using her bathroom because of that. then when she's on the phone she gossips to her friends that i use her bathroom because i don't want to have to clean my bathroom. kind of stupid childish stuff like that. she's too busy on the phone, and going to doctors that won't help her that she doesn't have time to learn anything about her own son. obviously i can tell that she is not well and she will only continue to get worse. i really doubt she's seeing any doctors that know how to help her at all and she doesn't want me to help her, so there's nothing i can do for her. i'm not sure how much longer someone in her condition can live without making improvements to diet and lifestyle.
i don't think it's her fault. she just isn't capable of understanding the significance of healthy eating and lifestyle choices. even so, from the time i was born i was looked after by a parent like her. someone who doesn't care in the slightest about healthy eating or lifestyle choices. someone who doesn't have much significant knowledge or opportunities to offer their offspring. even with my limited 23 years of life experience, if there is one thing i can offer society right now it is the knowledge that some people simply should not reproduce, and those that do reproduce need to be taught specific things and have specific skill sets. they also need to have a suitable environment to raise their offspring in. if my parents had covered these bases then i would not have had to experience such suffering, and by now i would be in a much better position in life. my other ambition is to experience life as much as i can with whatever youthful time i have left. when i'm in my thirties i can settle down with a very nice woman and have children. i will make sure that i can actually raise those kids properly and have significant knowledge and opportunities to offer them so that at least they can have the kind of life that i could have if my parents, and my grandparents had more insight...
for the record my dad really tried. if not for my dad and step mom then i'm sure things would have been A LOT worse for me. one of my greatest regrets from my childhood is that i didn't have the ambition to spend more time with my dad when he was trying to teach me math and other stuff, and help me become more active. there was too much negativity in my life blinding me from what little positivity there was, and what little opportunities i could have grasped onto. by the way, a significant amount of that negativity came from media, and my environment (school, neighborhood, etc). it's mainly because of media and environment that my brothers had such a hard time too. hypothetically, if life could start over from the time i was born but living in a better environment and being exposed to more positive media outlets, i think things would have turned out significantly better for all of us. maybe in that sense i got the short end of the stick because all of the negativity was funneled down and spewing onto me, without any positive influences other than my father to wipe off the negativity. i mentioned earlier that i was always good at observing people and learning from their mistakes. it's very true, but obviously that trait grew over time. if it wasn't for one of my friends in middle school convincing me to not drink and smoke with my brothers then there is a chance things could have been different. because of my learning ability i only needed one positive opinion other than my own to prevent me from engaging in those negative habits. maybe for most other people it's a lot more difficult to deal with peer pressure and temptation, so they fall to bad habits because of media outlets and their environment.
Closing:
well it's about 8 in the morning and i haven't slept since yesterday. of course my sleeping schedule keeps getting messed up no matter how many times i go through the hassle of fixing it. damn. i originally just wanted to talk about my mom not starting a plant based diet or becoming a vegan despite her health issues. oh well. i think it's a good read.
so i became vegan a little over a year ago. before that i was mostly vegetarian for about a year as a transition. before that i ate mostly indiscriminately. i avoided soda, pork, and probably some other stuff i can't remember. i think i mostly just ate whatever food my mom made until i started doing agency work, which is when i started making a lot of my own food.
anyways, i suppose what triggered my health journey was a knee injury i got back in april of 2014. unfortunately, i'm still dealing with chronic pain now, but i've pretty much isolated the problem and it should be completely rectified by spring of next year. most likely sooner. anyways, i suppose i fell into depression. when it first started i could barely walk at all without extreme pain. months went by and i still couldn't jog. eventually i became very weak, very fat, and very unhealthy. i remember once i laid down on my stomach and tried to get up from that position. i can't remember exactly how long it took, but it was extremely difficult and likely took between 3-6 minutes. today i can do it in less than a few seconds. unfortunately i'm still much weaker than what should be my base strength.
anyways, i just never wanted to live like that. it was horrible. i went to the doctor, got an mri, and all he could tell me was "it's a normal knee", and then sent me away. about half a year later or so i went to an acupuncturist and he showed me that my posture and stability were awful. he told me information about my foot positioning and how important it is to correct my posture. that's where my journey began. i finally had a starting point, and a path. i continued to learn about muscles, joints, exercise, etc. things i haven't been taught about through my entire life. it wasn't enough. that's when i started to learn about eating habits, and nutrition. since i was too weak to have any hope of working, i was broke. so i couldn't buy a good variety or amount of food. that's probably what caused my progress towards a well balanced vegan diet to be so dreadfully slow.
and you know what, one of the main reasons things got so bad for me is because i started to become lazy from about halfway through grade 8 (13 years old). i literally had absolutely no ambition, and my motivation for day to day tasks slowly slipped away. i wasn't interested in any sports or extra curricular activities, i wasn't interested in any specific field to study in because there was no inspiration in my life. the only things i was exposed to were how dreadfully boring everything is. my mom just went to work every day and only talked about the bad things in her work. my brothers just smoked, drink, bring their crappy friends over and talk about other negative things. literally everything i was exposed to was negativity. there was no hope or inspiration, and the financial situation was even worse so there were no opportunities for me.
thinking back. one of my greatest wonders in life is: what if before i was born, my parents became competent enough to learn at least basic things about the importance of posture, basic functions of body motion, eating habits, and nutrition, and before conceiving me they made sure i would be born and raised in a suitable environment? would i not have had to suffer through this hell? would by now, at 23 years old i would be living happy, financially stable, and living life in greater capacity than i am now? would i not have been exposed to vastly more opportunities and experiences in my life up until now? a lot of stuff happened, and i suppose things happened that were out of my parents' control, but surely they could have tried to learn more and become more competent parents before i was born. i wouldn't have had to deal with so many problems in my life. i could have been living by now, instead of trying to reach the point where i can start living.
i searched for inspiration on my own when i had the means, and i found my desire to become a game developer, but because i had no motivation for school in the past i lack much knowledge that i could have learned back then. i lack many basic skills that i could have picked up on the way. now i'm not even sure where to start. most of the opportunities i could have had are in the past, and i'm still trying to get over my chronic laziness which is a really bad habit i've had since i was 13 for reasons i explained earlier.
Family:
i've always been the kind of person who is very good at observing others, as well as learning from mistakes that other people make. ever since i was born i lived with 2 older brothers. i suppose we all had good times, but the only help i think they've given me in life is showing me mistakes that i should learn from. an older brother is supposed to help inspire and nurture the younger brother. however, i can't blame them for that, since they were pretty much forced to delve into life before me and didn't have anyone to inspire or teach them either. well maybe they had some inspiration, i don't know. they are twins and i am incredibly different from them despite us being brothers. my path in life is just very different. i still struggle to understand myself sometimes.
it's clear to me now that the main problem comes from further up in the family tree. i love my family and i'm not trying to push guilt on them. this is just a realization i've come to. my grandmother spent a few days here not too long ago, and i noticed that she seems to have a lot of the bad habits that my mom has. obviously my mom learned them from her and she just can't break away from these bad habits. she probably doesn't even acknowledge that these are bad habits.
anyways, ever since i became a vegan and my knowledge about eating habits and nutrition started to increase, i of course also started sharing my knowledge with my mom. not just telling her the information in my own words, since she doesn't put a shred of care on anything i say, but mainly showing her studies and informational videos from doctors and other smart people about nutrition and health.
my mom got an injury about a year or so ago and ever since then she's been having constant pain in her lower back, elbow, knees, etc. i constantly offer her a solution for these problems but instead she goes to waste all of her time and money on the doctors who couldn't help her make any recovery progress since she was injured.
she spends most of her time on her cellphone. in her bedroom her room light is some crappy blue light light bulb. she passes out most nights with the tv and her bed room light on. i tell her and show her information about the negative effects of blue light on the body and sleep, and she doesn't give the slightest ****. obviously if her body can't rest and recover properly then nothing will change for her.
i don't know about everything she eats, but i notice that it seems she mostly eats about 1 or 2 meals every day, and all of her meals are extremely small. she eats processed junk and animal products regularly, and her main meals barely contain any nutrients. over the past year and some months i constantly talked to her and showed her quality information about the importance of proper nourishment and eating for health and recovery and of course she couldn't care in the slightest.
she simply talks to me like i'm wrong and stupid just because i'm living in a different way than she could even imagine, even though to me it has become second nature and common sense. it baffles me how she always fails to comprehend what is so simplistic. the other day when we were picking up the results for our blood tests (we both got a blood test), she complained to the doctor how she had kfc and had stomach pain after. then she claims something in the chicken must be giving her pain. obviously it's common sense to me, and if she cared even a slight fraction about any of the information i've been telling her and showing her then she would be able to make that connection. i can only assume she doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the importance of any of the information, or she just doesn't care enough about making changes for health. even seeing the results of my blood work which was great after a year on a vegan diet which she first thought was ridiculous compared to her blood work which was not great, she still can't make the connection that the information i give her is important for health.
at one point after a lot of information i showed her she decided to stop drinking cow milk and drink some plant based milks instead. months later she went back to cows milk saying that when she started drinking the plant milk her elbow started hurting her and when she went back to the cow milk her elbow stopped hurting. of course to me it's common sense that the type of plant milk she was drinking likely didn't have enough protein, and because she doesn't eat properly to get protein the protein from the cow milk would help her a lot. so by drinking plant milk that doesn't contain a lot of protein she is losing out on a ton of protein, which is probably only about 10 grams or so anyways. she just doesn't know the first thing about health or nutrition. either that or she has bad gut health. she spends like literally 5+ hours on the toilet everyday, and i'm sure a whole food plant based diet would fix that right up too, but of course she doesn't care in the slightest.
because she still thinks i'm a stupid 13 year old kid even though i'm a 23 year old man and learned a lot on my journey so far, she just doesn't place even the slightest bit of importance on anything i say or show her, and she constantly makes assumptions about me based on the kind of things i did back when i was around 13 years old. like for example the toilet upstairs has been broken until recently. i told her multiple times the toilet is broken and i've been using her bathroom because of that. then when she's on the phone she gossips to her friends that i use her bathroom because i don't want to have to clean my bathroom. kind of stupid childish stuff like that. she's too busy on the phone, and going to doctors that won't help her that she doesn't have time to learn anything about her own son. obviously i can tell that she is not well and she will only continue to get worse. i really doubt she's seeing any doctors that know how to help her at all and she doesn't want me to help her, so there's nothing i can do for her. i'm not sure how much longer someone in her condition can live without making improvements to diet and lifestyle.
i don't think it's her fault. she just isn't capable of understanding the significance of healthy eating and lifestyle choices. even so, from the time i was born i was looked after by a parent like her. someone who doesn't care in the slightest about healthy eating or lifestyle choices. someone who doesn't have much significant knowledge or opportunities to offer their offspring. even with my limited 23 years of life experience, if there is one thing i can offer society right now it is the knowledge that some people simply should not reproduce, and those that do reproduce need to be taught specific things and have specific skill sets. they also need to have a suitable environment to raise their offspring in. if my parents had covered these bases then i would not have had to experience such suffering, and by now i would be in a much better position in life. my other ambition is to experience life as much as i can with whatever youthful time i have left. when i'm in my thirties i can settle down with a very nice woman and have children. i will make sure that i can actually raise those kids properly and have significant knowledge and opportunities to offer them so that at least they can have the kind of life that i could have if my parents, and my grandparents had more insight...
for the record my dad really tried. if not for my dad and step mom then i'm sure things would have been A LOT worse for me. one of my greatest regrets from my childhood is that i didn't have the ambition to spend more time with my dad when he was trying to teach me math and other stuff, and help me become more active. there was too much negativity in my life blinding me from what little positivity there was, and what little opportunities i could have grasped onto. by the way, a significant amount of that negativity came from media, and my environment (school, neighborhood, etc). it's mainly because of media and environment that my brothers had such a hard time too. hypothetically, if life could start over from the time i was born but living in a better environment and being exposed to more positive media outlets, i think things would have turned out significantly better for all of us. maybe in that sense i got the short end of the stick because all of the negativity was funneled down and spewing onto me, without any positive influences other than my father to wipe off the negativity. i mentioned earlier that i was always good at observing people and learning from their mistakes. it's very true, but obviously that trait grew over time. if it wasn't for one of my friends in middle school convincing me to not drink and smoke with my brothers then there is a chance things could have been different. because of my learning ability i only needed one positive opinion other than my own to prevent me from engaging in those negative habits. maybe for most other people it's a lot more difficult to deal with peer pressure and temptation, so they fall to bad habits because of media outlets and their environment.
Closing:
well it's about 8 in the morning and i haven't slept since yesterday. of course my sleeping schedule keeps getting messed up no matter how many times i go through the hassle of fixing it. damn. i originally just wanted to talk about my mom not starting a plant based diet or becoming a vegan despite her health issues. oh well. i think it's a good read.
