Matt's sister came to visit during Christmas break. We don't get to see them very often but we always enjoy our time with them. She has been eating a vegan diet for a while now and I was curious about her reasons for doing it and how it was working for her. She told me it all started when she watched a little documentary. I watched that documentary last summer along with a few others. I've been wanting to change the way we eat for a while and while I have made some changes for the better I have a long way to go. In talking with Tami I told her some of the natural cleaning and beauty products I use. (I should do a post about that sometime) She was shocked at how often (or not) I wash my hair that I wash my face with oil and that I make almost all of my household cleaners. So we decided to try each others crazy for a couple of weeks.
January 1 I started a vegan diet. And just because I was curious, I kept track of what I was eating in MyFitnessPal. The first week I ate really well. I was never hungry and I never felt deprived in any way. (Oh, and I should mention, I decided to stick with brown carbs as much as possible. Matt and I had some bloodwork done for insurance at the end of the year. My cholesterol was on the high side so I need to make some changes anyway.) I ended up averaging about 1200 calories a day. On the days I worked out my net calorie intake was between 900-1000. I know that sounds really low but like I said, I wasn't hungry. Salads and beans just don't have a lot of calories. So the first week was really good. The second week I didn't plan my meals as well. And when you completely change the way you eat you need a plan. So it was starting to feel like work when it was time to eat. I'm sure if I did this for several weeks I would get into a routine, I wouldn't have to check every label, it wouldn't take as much time. But I only committed to two weeks. On day 11 we went out of town for the day. It is really difficult to eat out on a vegan diet. There are animal products in everything. It was really eye opening. Everything on the McDonalds menu has some sort of animal product even the apple pie. We tried to go for Thai food and they have fish sauce in almost everything on the menu. French fries at most places are vegan but how healthy is that? I guess technically Oreos are vegan too. And I found that even at the grocery store there are vegan products but when I would read the ingredients I couldn't pronounce half of them. So is it good to eat vegan if its made in a lab?
So here's what I've decided. Whole foods, moderation. That's what will work best for me. I didn't miss meat at all. I did miss eggs. And I think eggs are good for you. I am not going to buy as much milk. And when I do it's not going to be full of hormones. We all decided we like almond milk. It's really good on cereal and has way less calories than cows milk. I'm not going to cook nearly as much meat. And just like milk, no hormones, no antibiotics. Real food. I learned that I love brown rice, and quinoa. I will bake cookies with good, real ingredients. I've learned that real food is delicious. And it really doesn't take much more time to prepare than something from a box in the freezer isle.
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