It has been a year since I ate a vegetable.

Carrots, if I remember correctly. They were the filling for Bò Cuốn, Vietnamese beef rolls, pickled and sauteed with onions. I spent way too much time picking off the onions and the sesame seeds, as they were on the “do not eat” list at the time.

Most vegetables were, at that point.

I have a lifelong, chronic autoimmune illness called Crohn’s disease. As with all autoimmune ailments, my body decided to pick a fight with itself, and the battleground that it chose is my digestive system.

This time last year, I was at my wit’s end. I had tried almost every diet recommended for Crohn’s, with the exception of veganism, and nothing was working. I was eating off a ketogenic diet plan, hoping that the ketones would somehow kickstart healing in my body. (Spoiler: they didn’t.)

Through another round of research, I reached a crossroads: in one timeline, I would be influenced by the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and The Wahl’s Protocol and would start juicing; in another, I listened to the advice of Ted Naiman and Shawn Baker (both MDs) and just ate meat.

I cannot tell you how glad I am that I chose the carnivorous life.

While it still sounds a little crazy, because from birth we are taught that food is both plants and animals, choosing to at only animal products was one of the most freeing decisions I ever made.

Once I decided to stop eating plants, I was elated. Giddy. I didn’t have to worry about vegetables anymore. Vegetables had been giving me anxiety – which ones to eat, how to cook them, which ones I could tolerate.

And then, suddenly, I didn’t have to think about them anymore. It was amazing.

Do I miss vegetables? Not a lot. Every once in a while I wish I could eat a little asparagus or endive or avocado, but those desires pass. I’ve found that I can’t even tolerate a squeeze of lemon on shrimp or a spice rub on BBQ, so I doubt I could tolerate an entire stalk of asparagus.

My guts need a lot of TLC, and this diet has been the first one to give it to them.

Nothing has healed overnight. There are no miracle cures. But my skin is a lot clearer and better (when I’m off dairy). My guts are under control enough that I can go on a long road trip without anxiety (which was not the case a year ago).

The biggest indicator that something had changed was not even a month later, I decided to post in this blog every day for a year. I have failed at every blog previously, but this time I have succeeded. Somehow I knew that this dietary change had given me the energy that I needed.

That energy has gotten me through a stressful living situation, public humiliation thanks to leaky guts, a big move to a new town and a new job, and a minor surgery, all without causing a flare up with my gut situation.

That is kind of a big deal.

Over this past year, I’ve gone through steak phases and meatloaf phases (I’m currently in a shredded crock-pot beef and frozen burger patties on the Foreman grill phase).

I’ve eaten eggs and dairy, or not. I’ve drank coffee, or not. (I’m currently sticking with meat and water to aid healing.)

I have so much more energy, my guts are much more cooperative (although there’s still a long road of healing ahead), and so much more confidence in myself since going full carnivore.

I don’t regret it for a minute.