KayaYogini

(Should you become a vegan? Read this first… )

Life is full of hard lessons, periods of stress, growth and changes. Changes bring about new levels of excitement and gratefulness, but also new levels of learning. This year and the last ones, honestly I think every year has it’s turning points, but this year in particular is very fast. The year of the fire horse. The fast pace suits me perfectly. I love when things go fast. When things happens, fall into place, life brings about fun and excitement. 

This year, I moved to a new apartment, a really lovely place. It’s large, it’s central to the city center and it’s by the sea. It’s beautiful with it’s old, French inspired charm, it’s old fashioned sophistication. Me and my boyfriend, we both are into renovation, but from each our standpoints. He knows about all the practical stuff, he comes from a builder standpoint, and I come from an art standpoint. Together, we create a really nice place, high standards and quality in materials, although high costs. It’s about our values, preferences, lifestyle and also hobby. As I’m writing, I’m watching over the sea from our balcony. This weekend the weather turned warmer again. There are a lot of boats today. 

The last year, I was down with long covid. I was on a sick leave for one whole year. I came back to work 100% last fall, but I’m still recovering. Was it really long covid? I were never tested for covid, so I can’t be 100% certain. Maybe it’s chronic fatigue? What the doctors found though, is that my lung capacity was very low and that makes sense. In the beginning when I got sick, I felt like I could get enough air although I was just lying In bed. Just sitting upright was too much. Whenever I do too much, I would get a lot worse and recovery would start from scratch. I’m still not back to where I was, If I do too much, I have to recover and lie down, and it takes a really long time. 

Well, life has taken a new turn. My former colleague from the yoga studio asked if I wanted to join her in a new business venture within nutrition and it turnes out this has been really good for my health. We work together as partners in a Norwegian company that produces test based nutrition. I’ve now tested my omega 6:3 ratio, and as a vegan for many years now, it turns out my omega 6:3 balance is so bad I don’t even have words. I was in shock to find that my ratio, which should ideally be 3:1 or less, was 41:1!!!

What happens when your balance is that much off? Does it have anything to do with my sickness? I’m starting to wonder if it does. The ratio between omega 3 and 6 has to do with the health of our cells, the permeability of the cell walls and in turn how much nutrition we take up from the food we eat. That in turn will affect our energy levels. Omega 3 is antiinflammatory. With too little omega 3 compared to omega 6, we might feel inflamed all the time, aches and pains, maybe feeling like we have the flue constantly (which I feel a lot). It also makes it so that we recover slower from exercise. My recovery is really bad. Whenever I do too many physically straining things, I get really tired afterwords, and it can last for days.

Here is an article (in Norwegian for my Norwegian readers) if you want to know more about the research around omega 6:3 : https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/for-stor-andel-flerumettet-fett_-omega-3-og-omega-6_-kan-odelegge-for-immunforsvaret-1.17816173 

I can only say what I’ve experienced. So far, I’ve tried out our blue algae product. I will keep you updated when I receive our vegan omega 3 oil and maybe I’ll write about the other products too, but for now, I want to tell you what the blue algae has done for me. In short, I think it works better than the astma medicine. It helps with oxygen uptake, and for this reason it’s used by many people who do sports. It also is super anti-inflammatory. I used to get super sore, really fast after exercise although I practiced super lightly. Last week I’ve went out for a jogging session and I was able to jog faster that I expected and didn’t get any soreness at all. This blew my mind!

Can I recommend anyone to become a vegan? Well…. only if you take omega 3, and you have to take something that has polyphenols. Nuts and seeds are good, but with too much, your omega 9 levels will be too high. Taking a high quality omega 3 supplement is crucial. 

My yoga practice has changed as well due to my health. I’ve not been able to practice Ashtanga for quite some time. However I’ve been practicing short sessions of kundalini yoga which is really fun and transformative. However, it is my hope that with better cell health and omega 6:3 balance, I might be able to practice ashtanga yoga again. 

The days go by working, refurbishing, and learning about nutrition. I always have to learn new things, now I’m deep diving into nutrition. As always I’m on my own yoga journey and I think that learning about health from experience is a part of it as well. 

PS: I wrote this post some weeks ago, but I wanted to post it anyways as an introduction to my nutrition journey. I have now tested  our omega 3 oil and I will blog about this soon!

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the products. I’m happy to help you.

Thank you for reading and following my blog.