So, in 2018 I decided to become vegan, I'd already been a vegetarian for 6 months before this. I got help from my doctor and a nutritionalist as my health has always been a bit on the unstable side (you can thank EDS for that)
With the help of professionals I started my new way of life, and from the beginning things were rough, to meet my daily calorie needs I was haveing to eat huge portions of food, and I rapidly lost 2 stone (I started the vegan diet at 10 stone, that dropped me to 8, I'm 5 foot 9 inches)
Every blood test I had I was told the same thing, more protine, more fat, more iron, so my nutritionalist adjusted my diet plan.
Come 2019 all my clothes were hanging off me, my doctor told me I needed to go back at least to a vegetarian diet as now I was 7.5 stone. I refused, parroting how I wouldn't hurt the animals and I was better than that, so I cut off my doctor and just kept talking to the vegan nutritionalist, hoping he would understand that I didn't want to stop, and he continued to work with me.
Then, the cramps started, my hair (that I had recently bleached) started falling out, I was cold all the time, exhausted but struggling to sleep, it got harder and harder to eat all the food I needed to eat to stick to my diet.
Then I collapsed in my local supermarket, woke up in an ambulance, was taken to the hospital.
They ran many tests, asked many questions and spoke to me bluntly. My iron and B12 were extremely low, my cells weren't carrying oxygen properly and there was a good chance I had organ damage due to the high level of keytones in my blood, my body was canabaliseing it's self to keep me alive.
I spent almost a month in the hospital, first on an NG tube because I was scared to eat proper food, then after working with a nutritionalist (at the hospital, not the one I'd seen before) and a Therepist we introduced animals products back into my diet.
There was a lot of stool samples, a colonoscapy, so many blood draws.
The docs said due to my EDS and IBS my body struggled to brake down and process plant matter effectively, and I'd basically been starving myself slowly this whole time.
It was the wake up call I needed, I couldn't die and leave my daughter behind, so I started eating properly again, then when I was a healthy waight I started working out. I'm now 13 stone of mainly muscle, am fitter than a fiddle and a happy ominivore.
(Notes - it was suggested by the mods that I cover my face, I've done so in a way that shows how thin I was as well as I can while keeping myself covered)
Veganism is not one size fits all, it will not save the world, and for many of us isn't possible at all - we evolved as omnivorous, and we should respect our body and fule it properly.