Going Veganish

We are going Vegan or Veganish. Don't attempt to adjust your screen, you heard correctly.

It all started a discovery that Netflix offers documentaries. I came upon Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, one man's journey to cure himself of illness by doing a 60 day juice fast. The results - no more medications, glowing skin, and a clean bill of health. I was hooked and began watching a whole slew of food related documentaries, which pointed to process foods and animal fats as the culprit for the decline in the obesity epidemic. I learned about the ways animals were treated in today' meat production industry and how hormones and other drugs were used to combat unsanitary living conditions.

Sick? Nearly dead? But that's not us, after all, we run half marathons, we're "healthy". Even active people are not immune to stressors, work, commuting, household chores, relationship, etc. So eating the Standard American Diet (SAD), of dairy, meat, carbs, processed foods, this is what I was experiencing:

• 7lb weight gain (despite doing more challenging workouts)
• Chronic lethargy
• Coffee Addiction (need it first thing in the am or I'm cranky)
• Insomnia
• Unable to taste food (tastes were muted, this would come and go, but my doctor had no remedy and pointing out that my 7lb weight gain suggested there was no real problem with my appetite - gee thanks)
•  General sense that I was being pulled by addictions versus providing myself with real nutrition. See below.
• Blood tests showed I was healthy.

Here's a typical day:

• 6a My fix - Starbucks iced coffee/pumpkin bread (40g sugar)
• 10a. Starving
• 11a Lunch - salad, bag of chips, diet coke to give me energy
• 2p Afternoon crash, cookie or a granola bar, or most of the time nothing
• 4:30p Hungry and tired, I go shopping at the grocery store, buy a bag of cookies I can snack on before dinner.
• 6p Dinner - Meat with a side of veges, and rice or potatoes

So here's what I did:

• Breakfast - Green Smoothie (Large Handful of Kale, 1 banana, 1/2 green apple, 1 cup soy, water, 1 tsp Better n' Peanut Butter)
• Lunch - Salad
• Afternoon Snack - Green Smoothie
• Dinner - Mostly Veges, beans, some grains

First day, I was terribly hungry. I had a brain fog some of the time, and I drank coffee since I felt I needed it to get through the day. Each subsequent day, I felt less hungry, and felt more energetic.

After three days, I was shopping for groceries, I just HAD to have cookie, after all I'd been so good up until then. So I bought it, I went home, opened the cookies and ate one, and it tasted gross. My taste buds had changed. My body now wanted better foods. I also realized I only bought the cookies, because I was hungry.

After 9 days, I actually began forgetting to drink coffee in the morning, and preferred tea instead if anything. I had lost 7lbs, and felt lighter, no longer bloated and tired.

At Week 3, I'm am continuing to find more Vegan and plant based recipes to make for dinner. Today's dinner, a vegan pizza, was an epic failure, but my Banana Muffins were a winner. Over all, I would say the biggest gain from this is realizing that you can have a say about what you eat, not just succumb to what's available - it just takes a little preparation.

We'll keep you posted on our progress. Eddie hasn't stared doing the smoothies, but he's committed to not eating processed foods, eating less meat and more vegetables, and drinking 1 cup of green tea a day.