Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Day 1: My 21 Day Vegan Adventure

So after reading book after book on eliminating meat and dairy, I am finally giving it a shot.  For the next 21 days, I am giving up all animal products.  I am using this site as my launch pad: http://pcrm.org/kickstartHome/.  I am so lucky that Charlie is joining me.  It will be so easier not to smell the food I am missing.  He is my added motivation to complete this challenge...although I did have to put a bet on the line. For the next 21 days, I plan to blog about this adventure and post my menus.

Here was my food list:

Breakfast:

  • Herbalife Vanilla Shake with banana and cinnamon

  • Half cup of coffee with non-dairy creamer


Lunch:

  • Carrot and Ginger Soup with brown rice

  • Pint of blackberries


Dinner:

  • Whole wheat spagehetti with marinara sauce

  • Handful of red grapes

  • Mandarin oranges (mini snack can)


How did I feel today?  Well, I think I need to increase my calorie count.  The plan is to eliminate fat and cholesterol found in animal foods not to starve myself.  I am craving sweets more than anything.  I miss cheese and chocolate.  At the office today, I turned down my favorite chocolate chip cookies and a hunk of chocolate.  Ugh. Tomorrow I will try some new recipes to have ready in the fridge to eat at a moments notice when these cravings strike.

Why am I doing this?  One of my goals is to complete a half Ironman (70.3).  The Half Ironman triathlon involves  swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles and then running a half marathon (13.1 miles).

The two things I need to work on most to accomplish this goal are to improve my nutrition habits and my swimming skills.

Being vegan will help me cut back on excess fat and drop the extra pounds.  Since I dropped 25lbs in 2010, I have noticed a huge difference in my running speed.  I also have less aches and pains with less weight on my bones.  Nutrition has a huge impact on energy.  Just by cutting back on dairy and meat last year (not eliminating them completely) has given me huge results.  I am curious to see what happens after 3 weeks of cutting it out completely.  I want to see the best results, and from the many sources I have read, they all seem to point in the same direction.   I tend to balk at the mainstream and search for road less traveled.  So this path feels right to me.  Let us see where it takes me.
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  1. driftcloselyJanuary 5, 2011 at 4:38 PM

    Don't completely deny yourself of sweets. Eating vegan reduces a lot of "bad" fats from your diet and completely eliminates cholesterol.

    There are many delicious vegan chocolates (dark, even "milk). Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World have some fantastic cupcake recipes. They also have a cookie book, but I find that cookies without a proper egg substitute causes them to turn out not so good.

    You're definitely missing a lot of protein from your diet based on your food log. Add some beans, tofu, seitan, TVP. A great, healthy, hearty spaghetti sauce can be made by simply adding rehydrated TVP to the sauce. :)

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