A while back I came across a documentary on Netflix called The Game Changers. At the time, I added it to My List so I can watch it at some point in the future. It languished in my list for a few weeks until I eventually watched it after some prodding by a co-worker.
It was interesting. Basically, the documentary was about the benefits of eating a vegan diet especially for endurance and high-performance athletes. I am a die-hard meat eater. It is not uncommon for me to have a 16 oz Rib Eye steak for dinner….and nothing else. Just the steak! So the thought of eating a vegan diet seemed like an impossibility. Despite that, I decided to do my own research.
I read a few books like Finding Ultra by Rich Roll and Eat & Run by Scott Jurek, both of whom are endurance athletes that eat only vegan. I also explored what kinds of foods I currently eat that are vegan and what kinds of foods I can start to eat. After a couple months, I decided to try it for 28 days. One of the books I read was the Engine 2 Diet which is encourages you to try it for 28 days. Also, when I decided to try this, I had exactly 28 days before my next trip to FL and I figured it’ll be easier to eat vegan while at home and not have to try and find vegan food while traveling.
Most folks that are vegan choose to do for ethical reasons. They will not even wear leather or use products based on leather. That is not me. I will still wear leather belts and shoes. My car seats are leather. I am choosing to try a vegan diet with two purposes in mind:
1) To see it helps with recovery. One of the benefits is to supposedly help with recovery after training sessions
2) To see if can lose weight
It has now been 9 days and I have managed to stick to a vegan diet. While not al that healthy, I have discovered that many things I ate in the past are in fact vegan, for example Lays Original Potato chips, chips and salsa, french fries etc. Pasta with a vegetable pasta sauce has been a main go-to dinner.
I am making one exception that vegans avoid and that is honey. I’m not eating much and it is only in some honey roasted peanuts I bought.
I am a bit worried about my protein intake but we’ll see how it goes. I am taking a multivitamin and another supplement that provides my Iron and B12 needs.
I don’t think I’m losing weight but that is because while my diet is vegan, it still isn’t as healthy as it can be. I’m not going to stress too much about that aspect as yet though.