One week ago I decided to completely uproot my meat eating, cheese chomping, egg consuming, chicken nugget binge diet and swap it in for a vegan diet. Yes, it actually does taste like a dirty word as I say it.

After discovering the root of my stomach issues (which turned out to be my gallbladder), realizing I can’t keep ignoring my dairy allergy and deciding to dive deeper into my yoga lifestyle I decided to do something extreme, at least to me, and become a vegan….for a month.

Why go vegan?

The gallbladder produces bile which is pumped into the stomach and helps the body break down and utilize fats that are consumed. My abdominal pain and digestive discomfort stems from my gallbladder not working correctly and until my gallbladder flares up again, I won’t know what exactly is wrong with it.

I was instructed that the next time I have stabbing pains under my rib cage again to go to the ER so they can run the tests needed to determine the exact issue.

The next time? I thought, this is going to happen again!? My doctor guaranteed the pain would be back within 6-12 months. So at least I have that to look forward to…

He also instructed me to reduce the bad fats in my diet like fried foods, cheese, and fast food; all the good stuff. Doing this will help the situation but eventually I will need surgery and have to be on medication the rest of my life, my doctor continued.

Yea, no thanks…

I am definitely into trying to mitigate health issues myself, within reason, so veganism seemed like a great choice considering there is no cheese allowed and most fried/fast foods contain animal products, ruling them out of my new diet.

Along with trying to heal myself the old fashioned way, I’m a yoga instructor and have allowed that lifestyle to seep into the corners of my life, just not my diet. Many of my yogi buddies are vegan or vegetarian or don’t eat red meat and make it look so easy and freeing and cool to be honest.

And on top of that, I have a dairy allergy so I shouldn’t be eating any cheese let alone the amount that I do eat daily.

So I settled on a vegan diet until October and these are some of my thoughts through week one.

The Internal Dialog of a first time Vegan:

I’m so hungry I could die. (to the melody of ‘I’m so lonesome I could die’ thought several times a day)

If no one sees me eat an egg, did it really happen?

Vegan Corn dogs?! Yes I’ll take twenty! But who cares? No big deal… I want mooooreeeee…. (Lots of loopy singing happened this week)

We hates nasty vegetables!

-We love vegetables!

We hates them, we need some eggses precious.

–No, we don’t.

We needs it.

-At what level of hunger do we turn into Smeagol/Gollum?

All levelses, precious.

-Fair enough.

I swear to the old gods and new, if any one eats one more of the vegan cookies I made, there will be blood tonight.

Wait…poptarts are vegan?!?!?

Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza… vegan, right?!? And good pizzas (like those from jim’s razorback pizza) can be a treat for the growling tummy!

How do they milk coconuts to get coconut milk?

End of Week One.

Although this has been a difficult week due to my junk food dependence, I survived and I feel pretty good, amazing even. My energy levels have increased, I don’t feel like my stomach is going to implode from gastric pain, food tastes more vibrant and is more satisfying.

Stay tuned for week two updates:

Does she survive a road trip to Arkansas?

Will she be able to continue marathon training?

Will she just give up because omelettes are just too damn good?

Find out next week!

Check out Madalyn’s article on the The Odyssey Self Love Beauty community.