- Have I stopped eating meat?
Let me tell you what's up.
(bright, reverberant music)
Hey, welcome to the series, I'm Alysia,
and I'm so glad you're here.
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So today, let's talk about meat.
I have eaten pretty much every kind of diet.
I mean, it's really evolved over the years.
Everything was really extreme, so I had vegans yelling
at me on YouTube and keto became a thing,
and whole30 and I ate too much meat on whole30.
Like they talked about in the whole30 video,
it caused some digestive distress.
And actually, that was probably when I first started eating
so many eggs, which I eat a lot of eggs, but I realized
on whole30, I was like, "Well I wanna do whole30,
but I just can't eat so much meat,"
and I didn't want to eat so much meat.
So that was happening in one area of my life.
And then at the same time, the Earth is spinning
and climate change is happening and oop,
I don't know why I just said that, but documentaries
like "Cowspiracy" are coming out,
and I'm watching them and learning from them.
Also, I have my dog, Kristin, who is my best friend
and unfortunately she passed last year,
but if you were around the last few years with the channel,
you know she was my everything.
And then at the same time, I have my mindfulness journey
and mindfulness really led me to meditation, as a tool.
Meditation, I fell in love with it and I started going
on retreats and at those meditation retreats,
all of the meals served were vegetarian or vegan.
I remember going on my first retreat,
being so anxious about the fact
that it was all vegetarian or vegan food.
I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's 10 days.
What's gonna happen if I don't eat meat
or any animal protein for 10 days?"
And what happened is actually,
I came back and I felt really good. (laughs)
So now, I've done a couple of retreats
and every time I get back, I eat almost fully vegetarian
for about four to six weeks after,
just kind of letting it take its path.
And then, eventually, I start integrating some meat,
but over time, it's become less and less.
And I think part of this has been, also,
my immersion into learning about Buddhism,
which is where mindfulness really derives its roots.
And just because I've been so fascinated by its frameworks
for living a meaningful life without suffering.
Okay, so what else has contributed
to this shift and how do I eat?
So Thich Nhat Hanh, who is an inspirational Buddhist leader
and he he's known for him for engaged Buddhism,
but one of the books he wrote was called "Savor"
and it's a mindful eating book.
So I was immersing myself
in every mindful eating book I could find,
as I was doing all this research school.
And he used a term called, "A part-time vegetarian."
And it totally resonated with me.
(clock ticking) (eerie music swells)
(bell rings)
I felt like I don't really fit in anywhere with how I eat
because I don't know, I just don't like extremes.
Even though I love rules, I found myself swinging around
like the pendulum, like vegan, keto,
all the meat, none of the meat.
And I just kinda wanted to fall,
I just kind of wanted to settle.
And so I did that and seeing that term,
part-time vegetarian, I know flexitarian's been around,
but that didn't really resonate with me.
Something about part-time vegetarian just made me feel
like oh, this is sustainable and doable.
And gives me permission to eat however I want,
not that I needed someone else
to give me permission, but you know what I mean.
So how I eat now, I still do eat some meat and fish,
maybe a couple of times a week.
I eat a lot of eggs.
It's really hard to do vegetarian without eggs,
and I still do eat dairy, which is actually a win
for me because I used to be a little bit afraid of dairy.
I used to have a lot of fear around gluten,
which I don't now, and I talked about that
in my fear foods video, my foods
with emotional attachment and rules thing.
So I personally believe animal protein is an important part
of the human diet, I believe that humans are meant
to eat some animal protein, but I totally respect people
who choose to eat none and encourage them just
to have an understanding of the nutrition
because I do understand the ethical dilemma now,
more than I did years in the past.
I just wasn't as drawn to it and now, I've changed.
I think even if humans, though, we're put on this Earth,
designed to eat meat which like I said, I believe,
I don't believe we were put on this Earth
to abuse animals the way that we do.
And I don't know how to reconcile that.
I'm just trying to listen to my deep truth,
and this video is not here to tell you,
"You should be eating more or less animal protein."
Eat however you're eating.
I have gone all over the spectrum,
and this is just me meeting myself today.
It could change tomorrow, but I know I wanna move
in the direction of less extremes.
I don't want the pendulum to keep swinging forever.
I wanna settle in the middle,
and not feel so agitated and stressed all the time.
As I've grown, I think part of it is just getting older.
I don't feel like I need to identify so much,
by a diet, or a way of eating.
I don't need to fit in with a diet clique or something.
I also don't need to defend the way I eat
to my family, to my friends, or to YouTube.
Even though I did feel a lot of anxiety
and judgment about that for a long time
because this channel has never really fit into any diet
because it's just kind of come with me wherever I go.
At the end of the day, now I see I only need
to really find what resonates
with my body, my heart, and my mind.
And I will just reemphasize the concept
that transformation requires transition and if you want
to go vegetarian or vegan, if you know that in your heart,
mind, body, I hear a lot of people say,
"I wanna do it, but I just can't."
The transition is key, so people who try to drop it all
in a day, it's not sustainable.
Intention is also key.
You have to really know who you're doing it for.
If you're doing this because you feel judged
by people, it's not gonna stick.
I have had thousands of vegans comment
and tell me I'm a terrible person for eating meat.
And that didn't make me go vegan,
so what helped me start to eat less meat was
to figure out why it was important to me.
And if it's not important to you then it's not gonna happen.
And again, that's okay, you eat all the meat you wanna eat.
There is no judgment here.
My intention with putting this out here into the internet
and including in this series is
that it really points to inner wisdom,
which is one of the key foundations of this course.
We have to tune into our inner wisdom first
to make those sustainable changes.
Now, if you're interested in me doing a video,
talking about how I supplement nutritionally
as a part-time vegetarian, or do I supplement?
Do vegetarians need to supplement?
I would suggest yes, especially vegans, but let me know
in the comments if you're interested in that.
Again, this is not the right only way to eat, you do you.
Let me know, what are your thoughts
about part-time vegetarian?
I mean does that resonate with you, do you wanna try it out?
There's not really any rules because probably,
you already are a part-time vegetarian,
unless you're eating meat all day, every day,
which I guess is the diet, the carnivore diet.
But if you wanna eat less meat, consider this framework
as a way to support you, so if you eat meat
with three meals a day now, maybe you consider going down
to two or even a couple of times a week, go down to two.
If you eat twice a day, maybe you go down to once,
whatever feels good, it's just there
as a way to support you if you want it.
What I love about this is it's flexible.
There are no rules and that gives me peace and ease.
I think that the world would just be a better place
(chuckles) if we were each doing the best we could
in this moment, and that's what I'm trying to do right now
for my mind, body, and heart.
And that is thanks to mindfulness.
So that's why it's here.
In the comments, please share a kindly,
it's space for conversation, what your thoughts are.
With kindness, really please go to the comments
with kindness, that's what I ask.
And if there's someone that you know that is curious
about eating less meat or interested
in transitioning and not sure how,
please share this video and series with them.
I look forward to talking about this more,
and seeing where it develops for me
and where we'll go with it on the channel and remember,
no matter what, it's all a matter of mind over munch.
(bright, reverberant music)