![]() What I Discovered When I Went Vegan for 3. Days. Author’s note: As some readers have rightfully pointed out, “going vegan” is not just a matter of diet. However, being vegan might make the Warrior Diet a little more difficult. Vegan or Vegetarian Diet Might Be Best for Weight Loss Significantly greater loss during six-month study despite no calorie restrictions. Brian Flatt's 1 Month Vegan Weight Loss 4 week diet plan to lose weight Released The 1 Month Vegan Weight Loss by fitness expert. I have less and less desire to eat meat based products, especially as I discover new cool vegan recipes. Veganism is not just a diet, it is a way of life and viewing the world. There are of course different kinds of people eating a vegan diet and not all follow a spiritual path and some are still very angry about the way animals are treated, bless them! This post, and the experiment it describes, pertains only to animal use as it relates to food. This is the second experiment in two months that has made a dramatic difference in how I live and how I feel on a day- to- day basis. Last time I stripped my life of unnecessary and unused possessions, and this time I stripped it of animal foods. ![]() ![]() I ate 1. 00% vegan for 3. I found I took to it very easily, and my body felt like it had been waiting for me to make this change for a long time. What I discovered. It wasn’t hard. I listed my seven main reasons for never considering veganism before, and the main one is that I thought it would be too hard. I’m not sure what I thought would be hard about it: craving foods I couldn’t eat, finding something interesting to eat, having to read labels. Once I found how well my body fared without cheese and meat it really didn’t appeal anymore. The hard part was finding stuff to eat in social situations. The raw vegan diet is an amazing catalyst for healthy weight loss and having a fit strong body. I have lost over 40lbs on the vegan/raw vegan diet.Most restaurants will offer the token veggie meal and not put much thought into it. Usually is just one of their other dishes, with tofu or veggies replacing the meat. It wouldn’t take much effort to add one inspired vegan dish to a menu. Not enough of a market for it yet I guess. There is a great support network of restaurant reviews and forums set up to make this part of it easier for fellow vegans. That was a particularly cool part of this experiment — discovering that there’s a super- helpful vegan subculture out there making life easier for others. I ended up expanding the palette of foods I ate, rather than restricting it. The thought of removing several broad categories of foods from the picture made me expect to feel restricted to a few familiar dishes, and I’d already been feeling a bit of a lack of variety. 1 Month Raw Vegan Results FruitAndFamily Natalie Subscribe Subscribed Unsubscribe 5,595 5.5K Loading. How I Lost 36.4 lbs in 3 Months + 3rd Month on Raw Vegan Diet + How To Start Raw Vegan - Duration: 4:32. Lose 15 Pounds in One Month: Free Sample Diet Plan Fitday Editor Fitness Weight Loss Although it is not generally recommended to lose 15 pounds in a month, it is possible, provided you have a substantial amount of weight to lose. As healthy weight loss. Intervention Participants were advised to consume either a low-carbohydrate vegan diet or a high-carbohydrate lacto-ovo vegetarian diet for 6 months after completing 1-month metabolic (all foods provided) versions of these diets. The prescribed macronutrient intakes. The opposite happened. I ended up experimenting with new recipes a lot more and eating foods I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. I learned quite a few new recipes and my culinary life is more vivid and interesting than ever. Food is more exciting to me now, and I honestly expected it would have to become a less gratifying part of my life. I did spend more time cooking, trying a few new recipes a week. I love cooking so I didn’t worry too much about trimming my cooking time but I definitely could streamline it pretty easily if I had to. I felt awesome physically, and right away. ![]() Within a few days, I began to feel unusually light and alert. Everything seemed to require less effort and I had very little mental resistance to the prospect of doing things. Simple tasks like getting out of a chair or clearing up my dishes seemed to lose some vague character of annoyingness I didn’t realize they used to have. Psyching myself up to exercise was much easier. There was no heaviness after I ate, no recovery period. My morning grogginess went away much quicker. There was no 3 o’clock wall. I didn’t get tired until bedtime. I guess I had always been living with a persistent, mild tiredness, and it really seems like meat and dairy were keeping it in place. I can’t think of anything else in my life that changed that could account for it. Reactions from others vary. I didn’t go around announcing my new diet, but food is such a prominent part of human life that it does come up. Most wanted to know why, some asking as if they’re just curious, and others asking as if I’ve violated them in some way. In light of my immediate physical benefits, my new diet felt pretty damn sensible once I started, so it kept surprising me that the majority of the world still regards veganism as some vaguely menacing fringe thing akin to Scientology or Communism. Many people seemed to assume I was secretly dying of cravings for steak and cheeseburgers, and that it takes some sort of enormous ethical strength to eat vegan. I wasn’t, and it doesn’t. When asked “Why?” my go- to answer was that it makes me feel physically good, which is true and is probably the main reason. I didn’t want to get involved in an ethical debate, because once a conversation becomes a debate, communication ceases. But the ethical issue does enter the picture for me, which I’ll get to a little further down. Overall, food didn’t cost any more, but spending more on food is a good thing anyway. I thought I’d have to double my food budget, buying tons of perishables, specialty foods and vegan substitutes, but it didn’t end up that way. I did spend more on groceries, but not by as big a margin as I thought. Many vegan staples can be had in bulk for dirt cheap: lentils, rice, beans, tofu, couscous etc; there is also no meat in the budget, which is the most expensive part of most people’s grocery list. But what extra I did spend on groceries, I saved on casual, off- the- cuff meals out. There were no greasy diner breakfasts at work, no grocery- store deli sandwiches and no fast food. I was never a fast food junkie but I did lean on the enormous convenience- food infrastructure in my culture, and health consequences aside, that’s always a poor way to spend money. So I didn’t really end up devoting much more of my budget to food, but I don’t think expanding your food budget could possibly be a bad thing. It’s a common point of complaint (in the US especially) that healthy food is way more expensive than unhealthy food, and while I’m not sure if that’s true, that’s no reason at all not to buy it. The typical American household spends less than 1. There has never been a culture in history that spends less of its income on food. Healthy food is not expensive, we’re just used to committing a pitifully small proportion of our resources to our health. The positive effects of eating clean are worth a fortune. To limit healthy foods because of concerns about how much more money it will cost is totally backwards. Other than whatever it costs to live in a decent home, what expense could be more non- negotiable than whatever it costs to eat good food? This decision is what determines what our bodies are made of, how long we live, and what the quality of that life will be. To not eat healthy food because it’s “too expensive” is like not sleeping much because it’s too time consuming — yet that’s how some people operate. Vegans are generally not considered at all in the designing of menus, public and private. I learned quickly that the world assumes you will consume animal products freely. Restaurants generally have two vegetarian options, and no vegan options unless you make a special request. Sometimes there are side orders that are accidentally vegan, but in general the message you get is that it’s unreasonable to want food without animal products in it. This marginalization was a new experience for me, being a young, white, non- religious, non- disabled English- speaking male, and maybe it’s good for my character to get a hint of what it feels like to live in a world that wants you be different than you are. Revisiting animal foods. Part of the experiment was to try a few animal foods when my 3. My first day after the experiment, I ate all vegan except instead of my usual soy latte I had one with cow’s milk. My first impression was that it tasted kind of dirty. It felt like it was something I wasn’t supposed to have in my mouth. I felt a bit of guilt — not that I felt my purchase was overtly harmful, but that I knew my body didn’t really want that. Wanting to see the effects of a whole beverage, I drank the whole thing. Within an hour I felt really awful and went home sick from work. The next day my mission was to test out cheese. I had a vegetarian sandwich which was vegan except for a slice of cheese. I again felt the same dirtiness and hint of guilt when I detected the cheese, but it was milder this time. I didn’t get sick, I just felt that heavy, draining feeling I used to get. I’ve tried a few others since then. I had no desire to eat any meat but ended up having a chicken wrap on the plane to Kona because the meal situation was purchase- only, and they had already sold the only two vegetarian wraps they had. It was unpleasant but I needed sustenance and I didn’t want to subsist only on the pound of nuts I had in my bag. I had a piece of fish in my lunch today and wish I’d gotten something else. It was okay but totally unnecessary and left me sluggish and cranky. My meat experiment is over. Right now I’m still in full- on vacation mode so we’re eating out a lot, and I’m having a bit of dairy now and then. I don’t find it as violently repulsive as that first latte was, but I’m definitely going back to 1. I get home on Sunday.“I would do it but I could never give up cheese.”There’s an interesting phenomenon I noticed that I think is worth bringing up. I encountered this a lot: people who have an interest in going vegan for health or ethical reasons, but claim they couldn’t give up cheese. I used to say that too, that exact phrase: I could never give up cheese. It’s such a typical response that it’s a perennial joke in vegan forums. What’s fascinating to me is that no non- vegan with vegan sympathies wants to just say they won’t give up cheese, it’s always can’t. The implication is that they are different than me in that they have no real choice as to whether they eat cheese or not, while I am lucky to have such a choice. Of course, in the developed world we adults all choose what we eat. There’s nobody who can’t give up cheese. I mention this because I know I used the word “couldn’t” when I meant “wouldn’t” as a way of exempting myself from any expectation on my part to attempt to live my values when it comes to food. It was a convenient disqualifier: “well maybe I should be vegan, but clearly that’s not an option because I’m not one of those people who could give up cheese.”This is a classic example of rationalizing behaviors we have that don’t jive with our values, which I get into below. And the ethical issue, which I didn’t touch until now. I went vegan for 6. Not so long ago, the word “vegan” conjured up images of anaemic- looking, sandal- wearing hippies. Even athletes Venus Williams and Mike Tyson have become converts. According to The Vegan Society, the number of vegans in the UK has doubled in the last nine years from 1. The market research company Mintel reports the non- dairy milk market leapt from 3. One of the key pioneers of the new vegan lifestyle is Kris Carr, a model and actress turned blogger who wrote the wildly successful cookbook. Crazy Sexy Kitchen. And Stella’s own columnist Ella Woodward, of Deliciously Ella fame, who was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (an autonomic nervous system illness), suffered from chronic pain, blackouts and stomach trouble until – inspired by Kris Carr – she adopted a gluten- free, vegan diet, and her symptoms disappeared. A growing body of evidence suggests veganism could improve blood pressure and lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, while a major study published in July in the Journal of General Internal Medicine reviewed 1. During the trial, I would have a series of blood tests measuring any changes in my key vitamin levels and cholesterol, which was high. I would also use a newfangled scale, the Tanita RD- 9. Powerhouse vegan Venus Williams (GETTY) To say I was sceptical would be an understatement: I was certain my meat- free life would turn me into an anaemic, hungry mess. For years I had been mostly Paleo, following a diet close to that of our ancestors, eschewing all grains and dairy in favour of lean protein, fruit and vegetables. It had worked for me for about three years: I lost some weight and my sugar cravings stopped. My weight was creeping up again, and although I like to work out, I was constantly plagued by muscle pain after even the lightest weights session, and didn’t have the energy to go out more than once a week. I also had a nagging voice in my head that wondered what all that meat consumption was doing to the planet: plants, after all, can feed far more people per hectare than cows. Deliciously Ella's baked tomato chickpeas, creamy cashew coleslaw and a sun dried tomato, bean and kale stew with sweet potato wedges (Instagram) “I hate vegans,” said my friend Simon over Sunday lunch on the first weekend. What’s wrong with milk, anyway?” His response wasn’t unusual: the most startling effect of my diet during the entire 6. Just speak to them for 1. People get defensive about their meat eating,” says Jasmijn de Boo, CEO of The Vegan Society. I think part of it is guilt at their own meat eating.” I don’t know that I agree, but in the face of such opposition, I did feel compelled to continually defend my decision. Going out to restaurants became monotonous. Writer and 'cancer thriver' Kris Carr (GETTY) Two weeks in, despite eating lots of vegetable fats, including nuts and seeds, coconut oil on my toast, avocados every which way and truckloads of nut butters, I was surprised to find I had lost 2kg. What’s more, my visceral fat had dropped by half a point (from 3 to 2. That has huge implications for people’s health because it’s visceral fat that leads to things such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.” During the first month, I lusted after the food on other people’s plates. I watched as my family ate barbecue chicken one Saturday, wanting that greasy sensual pleasure so badly it made my head hurt. What I missed most was butter: I began to wonder if I could be a vegan who eats butter in the same way that some people who claim to be vegetarians still eat fish. I felt lighter, more agile and people told me how great my skin looked. Miraculously, while my previously non- existent sex drive came back with a vengeance, my once- ferocious PMS disappeared. My cholesterol had dropped from 6 to a very healthy 4. The triglycerides in my blood, a type of fat that can indicate an increased risk of heart disease, dropped from 9. He also noted that my folate and zinc levels were above average. Folate, on the other hand, is important for helping the body break down and convert the food we eat into energy. This is something that could cause problems over time, as these nutrients are essential for making energy. Oh She Glows' rocket and spinach salad with strawberries, toasted sliced almonds and coconut flakes As such, Cohen isn’t convinced that veganism is the right diet for me. After being a strict raw vegan for six years, Gianni became exhausted, irritable, was hardly able to get out of bed and had zero sex drive. Blood tests showed some of his hormones were dangerously low, including testosterone and pregnenolone, which are essential for both sex drive and energy. Ellen Degeneres (left) and her wife Portia de Rossi are both vegan (REX) “People who go vegan will initially get a high because of what they take out of the diet – saturated fat, processed or fried foods – and the great surge in vitamins and minerals they’re getting from the increased vegetables and fruit they’re eating,” says Gianni. So by all means try veganism – it works for a lot of people. Just make sure that each year you have blood tests done to keep an eye out for deficiencies, then work with a nutritionist to correct them.” Now that my trial is over and I can eat meat, I am flummoxed by the fact that I simply don’t want to. I had expected to want nothing more than a rare steak or plate of lusciously grilled octopus once the end came. I have told myself I can eat meat if I wish, but I keep being drawn to vegan cooking and vegan choices. Moreover, 6. 0 days in, I feel so good I don’t even care who hates me at dinner parties. And yes, I will tell everyone who listens that I am a vegan and loving it – usually within the first 1. Anna Magee is editor of Healthista. Anna's blood tests were done by the nutritional therapist Jonathan Cohen and Regenerus Labs.
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