My sister and I like to give each other challenges to do. One, it's a way for us to bond and do fun things and two, we like to brag when the other starts losing. I challenged her to do the 365 Project and she challenged me to do a week of being vegan.
Guess what I'm doing now?
Goal: Eat vegan from July 24th to Ladies Night on July 29th and see what the effects are on my body and if I won't die of hunger.
Day 1:
I was not prepared. At all. We got back from Ruidoso Sunday evening and I went straight to a dinner party then passed out. In the morning, I was tired and exhausted and went to grab something for breakfast only to find nothing I could eat.
I drink my coffee with cream and sugar so I couldn't have it and had to drink sweet tea instead. I was starving. Went home for lunch. Finally found some rice and a bag of steam-able veggies to eat. It was the saddest little meal I've had. After desperately searching the house some more, I realized the garden veggie Pringles chips we just bought were vegan.
I think I downed half the can.
After work I went to the grocery store and got some fruit, salad stuff, fake vegan meat, chips and salsa, and almond milk so I could eat cereal. I forgot pasta sauce since the sauce we had already was four cheese, to my dismay.
I ate a salad for dinner, snacked on chips and salsa, ate a cup of Special K cereal with almond milk, and drank V8 fruit blend. I had a headache, was tired, cranky, and couldn't seem to feel full. Day 1 was awful.
Day 2:
I was exhausted! Seriously, I slept through my alarm then had to run and throw on clothes and eat some more Special K for breakfast. My stomach felt like a black void and I had the worst headache. It's the kind that feels like your head is split open and makes you nauseous.
For lunch I went crazy because I was starving. Tomato soup, slices of bread, chips and salsa, and the veggie Pringle chips. I gorged myself because I was so hungry and just wanted everything in sight to get into my stomach.
After work, I was still starving. I snacked on baby tomatoes and homemade pickles. Ate another cup of cereal. I was also exhausted and the headaches were persisting. I spent a good amount of time just laying on the couch with my phone, trying not to take a whole bottle of pain medicine.
For dinner, I wanted to try something beyond rice and veggies. I had bought some meatless vegan chicken strips and googled how to make your own teriyaki sauce. With some modifications (because I didn't have everything and I was too lazy to go to the store), I made the sauce with some steamed stir-fry veggies and added the chicken. All of it went on top of some white rice and boom, dinner.
Surprisingly, it was very delicious. The chicken didn't taste just like chicken, but close enough and the texture was kinda similar. But the sauce was good and I even ate the vegetables I usually hate.
I passed out early for bed and dreamed of cakes and cream cheese and everything I couldn't eat.
Day 3:
I was less tired in the morning but did wake up starving again. I realized the food I was eating just wasn't lasting that long. I made the effort to get up, fix my hair, eat a big bowl of cereal, and take some fruit to work. Since I've had to forgo coffee and I forgot to make more sweet tea, I drank water at work.
The headaches were still ongoing but I looked it up and it's apparently my body detoxing from dairy and meat. I chewed some gummy vitamins for good measure and drank more water.
I started to dislike Almond milk less, though I wouldn't drink it straight. It was a weird tan color I just couldn't get passed. In cereal it wasn't bad, I'll give it that.
Lunch was tomato soup again since we ate all the leftovers and I didn't feel like salad. After lunch I was fading fast. I could not. stop. yawning. I drank even more water and finished off my Pringles to keep myself awake.
Marisa was supposed to make a vegan dinner, but ended up losing her debit card (RIP debit card) so I settled for a spinach and tomato salad with Italian dressing. I'm starting to notice that certain flavors are starting to be overpowering. Certain things are too sweet, the Italian dressing was overpowering and too much. It's strange.
Day 4:
Today was the first day that I didn't get awful headaches and didn't feel like I needed a nap every other hour. I ran out of cereal but found out the "butter" we had was actually vegetable oil spread and I could eat it. So I made toast with jam.
I'm drinking more water and more fruit. A lot of bananas and peaches from the store, snacking on tomatoes. Vegetables I hated and would pick out of my food I'm just shoving into my mouth because I'm hungry and don't wanna hassle myself with picking them out.
Lunch was a dull affair of leftover tomato soup with bread and veggies. Most of my lunch break was spent cleaning up the dogs' kennels since Almond had an accident due to an upset tummy.
I snacked on salsa and chips, finished my tomatoes, cried over my forbidden donuts and Lunchables.
For dinner I decided to cook again. There was some gnocchi in the cabinets and we had another bag of meatless chicken. I cooked them up, threw some steam-able veggies into the microwave and then mixed it all together and made vegetable and chicken gnocchi with plain pasta sauce. It was pretty good and very filling! I actually liked it a lot and say of all the vegan stuff I bought, I liked the meatless chicken the most.
Day 5:
No headaches! It was a miracle! I ate toast again for breakfast and had some tea and found I was less tired for once. My sleep schedule was still all crazy and I ended up staying up too late coloring my coloring book, but I wasn't dead on my feet so that was good.
I ate leftover gnocchi for lunch and decided to cook meatless ground beef tacos for dinner. Honestly, it didn't taste that much different from regular meat. I seasoned it like normal and topped it with tomatoes and spinach instead of lettuce and put a little salsa on it. Rony and I both ate them all and agreed that the meatless beef was pretty A+. 10/10 would buy again. I think next time I'll try and incorporate it into other dishes and see how it holds up.
Day 6:
Saturday was the last day of the challenge. I had to get all the way through Ladies Night and then I could stuff myself with pizza and donuts and anything I wanted.
We were crazy busy so I ate cereal for breakfast in between running around. Around 2, it finally settled down enough that we decided to go out and eat. I wanted to try and see how easy or hard it is to order vegan food at a restaurant so we went to one of our favorite Thai restaurants. All I could think was that I was pretty sure most of the noodles are made with egg and I'd have to suck it up and get a fully vegetable plate and this was going to suck.
I got lucky. My favorite dish, Lard Na, was made with rice noodles and they had a tofu option so it was all vegan. I've never had tofu but Rony recently got won over by it so I figured I would try it to.
During the whole week, I was surprised by how less picky I was getting. Usually I pick out cabbage and any weird vegetables I don't like. Sometimes I was too hungry to care and shoved everything into my mouth, everything tasting like pure gold in my mouth from starvation. I was less anxious about the tofu at that point. And it was actually not bad. The gravy had soaked in and it didn't really taste like anything and the texture reminded me of a less chewy version of tripe in menudo which I love. I was pleasantly surprised.
Rony got tofu as well but it was fried. I tried his and it tasted like weird egg but I'd eat it. It wasn't bad. I ate my whole plate and felt full and happy. I was proud. It was my last vegan meal and I had expected the worst, but the whole week was better than I thought.
Ladies Night came and I survived. I did ALMOST ate a cookie on accident though. Tabby had picked all the M&M's off hers and I didn't want it to go to waste and had put it in my mouth right as I realized it wasn't vegan. So I spit it out and almost cried. I would have been so mad if I ruined my whole week in the last hour.
We all went to my house and ordered pizza and played games and drank to celebrate Ladies Night and me ending my veganism. The taste of cheese pizza had never tasted so good. I ate chips and bread sticks and dip and hung out with my friends. I even drank the cold brew coffee that had been sitting in the fridge.
We laughed and listened to music and stayed up until almost 3am. It was a good end.
Final thoughts:
I will tell you, I threw a fit when my sister gave me the challenge. I couldn't survive without dairy. It was gonna be awful. I was gonna die. This was too much work. Even Rony was like "hell no" and didn't want to do it.
But I genuinely surprised. Yes, the first few days were hard as I figured out what I could or could not eat, figured out my intake, and suffered through dairy detox. I was miserable and tired and grumpy and just wanted to shove donuts into my face. After I got groceries, tried to cook and got things I could eat then it actually wasn't bad.
I noticed I started to crave dairy and cheese less, I ate less sugar and caffeine, and cooked a lot more. I started looking at labels and taking vitamins and eating less processed food. The few times I seriously craved foods was in places like the mall and when everyone but me had junk food.
Were there downsides? Yes. I'm going to be honest. I had gas all damn week. It was crazy. Everything gave me gas and I hated it. I was also hungry all the time, ranging from "maybe I should snack" to "holy shit I'm going to eat paper if I do not get food." I would have to eat very filling lunches to last me from breakfast until after work when I would eat fruit or something small to relieve the hunger pains before dinner.
I was tired, fast food was almost completely out of the question, and the groceries were slightly more expensive for less items. Lubbock is a small town and does not have that many vegan/vegetarian options and I hated spending so much on groceries.
But at the end of the week, I was super proud and it's made me think a lot about my diet currently. I gave up red meat, but all of the meatless options were just as good as actual meat. So now I think I may be giving up poultry eventually and just eat fish. When we go to Seattle, we'll be able to get fresh, local fish and that way I don't have to feel guilty about the meat/poultry industry.
It's weird to be making all these dietary changes but I have to admit that I did feel good at the end. I didn't change weight, but my body felt healthier and I had to consume so much food that was plant based that I wouldn't really have to worry about overeating. If I had worked out this week, I'm sure I would have saw some changes.
So how have things changed almost a week later?
Monday I drank two sips of coffee and felt like my heart was going to explode from caffeine. I hate some chips and a cookie and felt sick all day. Cheese is almost unappetizing to me and I can't go back to regular dairy milk. So far turkey meat doesn't make me queasy but I essentially can't go back to a regular diet without feeling nauseous and worse than I did at the beginning of the vegan challenge.
I won't keep being a vegan, but unless I want to feel like crap for a whole week, I can't go back to eating how I did. So I've cut out coffee and soda and a lot of sweets and dairy. If I do eat junk food, I can only eat a tiny bit or else I feel awful.
But I'm kinda okay with it. Yes, I would like to go back to eating whatever I wanted but in the end, I understand that it's my body telling me it does not like it. So I'll be like a weird lenient vegetarian.
In a month or so, I'll let you know how it goes :)
-Sam <3