Highs and lows of a scorching July

Every month seems to hold such importance this year, but I think we can all say that July 2022 has been a particularly challenging month for all of us. The record scorching temperatures gave us a small glimpse into our future. If you are reading this, then we can all be just SO proud that we are doing our best by being plant-based or even just feeding our dogs plant-based which will impact in a small way individually, but collectively in a large way.

I have personally found this month both extremely challenging and overwhelmingly rewarding.

July saw JUST BE KIND expand – a little bit of a dream come true really! When I started the business in 2020, I envisioned doing my best to promote vegan dog food, make an impact to reduce the cruelty of animal farming, and improve the health of our dogs through diet. Each of these goals are immense, and to make an impact, I needed to get my head around being able to grow to include as many dogs as possible or these enormous dreams would not be realised.

I am bit of a control freak and like so many of us, I like things done my way. Everything that I did took me completely out of my comfort zone as a vet, but I loved all the challenges. I began stocking the best foods that I could and at first, kept them in our garage at home to send to you. I outgrew our garage quicky, and then hired our lovely unit owned by James Wilks’ Dad which became my sanctuary and it’s where I began to pack and post the foods to your dogs.

How I loved receiving an order for food or supplement, packing the box myself, adding in some little extras such as personal name stickers on the side of each box. Every parcel I packed and lifted made me feel as though I was really making that difference and gave me such a sense of achievement. I particularly love the names of all your dogs and some I knew from Zoom calls and it all felt so right and so personal…….but it reached a point where it became unmanageable for me alone.

Not only did the parcels get heavier and heavier, (yes I have developed really strong muscles), but I soon began to feel myself growing more and more panicky everyday that I wouldn’t be able to get the parcels out in time and answer all my numerous e-mails that I receive – and keep up with Zoom calls. I began to really feel the stress of trying to do it all… and to my standard! I’m sure so many of you are the same?

Marx happily opens his carefully labelled package

We all have our crutch that we turn to in times of stress, and mine is sugar!! I am a self-confessed sugar junkie and I have been all my life. As a student I remember overeating so much before each looming exam, and I found myself doing just the same as my weeks just grew busier and busier. Yes, I eat a vegan diet, but I found myself turning to sugar rich high carbohydrate foods more and more until it all reached a head at the end of June.

I finally had to admit that I suffer from IBS which was being exacerbated by my overeating…and particularly processed sugar rich foods. I had a bad week where I was in such pain that I finally gave in and phoned the doctor. I have such faith in our NHS system (all 4 of our ‘children’ work for the NHS or will work for the NHS), but when I rang to see if I could get an appointment, there was a 6-week waiting list just to see my doctor.

I accepted this and did the only thing that I could do (which all of us do) …..I decided I had no choice but to change my behaviour completely and sort the problem out myself without resorting to any medication – and that’s what I did!

I am just SO amazed as I have completely sorted my IBS on my own with all that I have learnt!! I follow a low FODMAP vegan wholefood diet (which is essentially a diet that I teach you to feed your dogs as it completely excludes onions and sugar!😊

I can’t say that it was all plain-sailing, but the pain of IBS kept me going and I will now try my hardest to stick to my wholefood low FODMAP unprocessed vegan diet as I have never felt healthier!

“If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better”
― Will Smith

The lovely Jo from Hownd who holds all the same values as I do, came to my rescue as JUST BE KIND grew, and she shared in something so enormous with me, that I feel so fortunate to have met her. She gave me the contact of their packaging company who send out all their Hownd stock, and suddenly my burden seemed so much lighter!

I now keep my unit to send out our sample boxes, and everything else is sent by a dedicated and really lovely professional team who do all the hard packing for me – hooray!! (I’m just sorry that there will be no more personal name stickers on the boxes).

It has now freed me up to concentrate on being a vet again and now my real goal is to educate as many people as I can.

“When more of us play, all of us win”

I saw this on a billboard as the tagline for our wonderful Lionesses football team, and it has such relevance to our vegan dogs too! My aim is for so many of us to feed our dogs a balanced vegan diet, that collectively, we have such an impact.

Thank you for being one of those who like me, is making that difference by feeding our families and our dogs a sustainable and kind diet – we can all be so proud!