I've only really slipped up three times, two of them involving my husband. One day, he ordered my favourite sweet & sour chicken from our favourite Chinese food place, and I ate some. I was less than a week in at that time. The next week, he made beer-battered fish & chips. On the weekend, I had a cold brew frappe at a street festival, which had milk in it.
The most notable change that I've noticed is how much I paid for that frappe by running to the bathroom for the next 36 hours. It turns out that most adults are lactose intolerant, we simply don't notice it because we are so used to consuming dairy (source), which brings me to the next change I noticed...
I feel more energetic. I haven't felt this energetic since I was in my 20s. I've started doing pushups every day.
My acne is gone. I used to get pimples between my eyebrows and on my chin. Those pimples are GONE!
If the clear skin isn't good enough, my food is cheaper! A portobello mushroom cap is cheaper than a steak... go figure! I haven't found a vegan cheese I like, so I don't eat as much of it. Almond milk is a dollar cheaper per litre than the organic grass-fed cow's milk that I was drinking before. Usually, making things from scratch costs less than buying them pre-made and full of preservatives.
On the downside, I got bloated for a while and have been gassier than I was before.
I'm also always hungry, but don't feel bad about snacking. My meals have fewer calories in them and so do my snacks, so I feel like I can eat as much as I want without worrying. I don't weigh myself often, so I don't know if my weight has changed. However, my pants don't feel as tight anymore!
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| I used (Gavin Murphy) the Healthy Irishman's recipe for eggplant marinara and ate it all before we could snap a photo. |
There are many meals that I've wanted to blog about, like eggplant marinara and the vegan Buddha bowl, but I ate them before I could take a picture... I was so hungry!
Ending on a low note: I've been moody. Most of the time, I feel happier and healthier than I have in a long time, but, when I'm tired and hungry and have to deal with some-jerk-in-the-world, I get really upset. I've even had a panic attack. Panic and anxiety attacks are not new to me, but it has been over a year (maybe more) since I had a panic attack.
My moodiness isn't enough to be concerned about yet. Maybe I was even too tolerant of those jerks before. However, some evidence shows that not eating meat could have a dangerous effect on women's mental health. To date, the evidence isn't all that persuasive. Anecdotally, I know quite a few level headed vegan and vegetarian women. The vegans on the message boards even say that moodiness is part of "detoxing" from a diet centred around animal slavery. These vegans assure me my moodiness will pass.
If I put my moodiness on one side and all the pain I was in from my arthritis and various other ailments that eating a plant-based whole food diet have relieved me from on the other, I'm still going for the plants.
That being said, I will keep you posted. Thanks for reading! Here is a far more detailed blog post on what to expect, if you go plant-based (or even vegan).
