New Diet
As of today, I am going to follow a raw food vegan diet for six months. I hope to succeed at this goal and will blog the details here as they unfold.
I am primarily doing this for health reasons. I am very much overweight, so much so that, right now, I’m actually afraid to even weigh myself. We’ll see what happens.
September 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Can I make a short suggestion…
Don’t.
For the catholic tradition Lent, I went vegan for 45 days, and although I did lose weight (10kg in 45 days). It was done very unhealthily. I grew weaker, paler and it took me a couple of months to recover fully from it. Put my squash game out of whack for an entire season, and it killed my immune system quite a bit.
However, if you are still keen to do it, allow for me to share some tips and thoughts, so that hopefully it should make your experience a little more pleasant. Consider it food for thought. Seeing as you can’t have food for eating :P. Most of these you probably already know, but consider it advice from someone who’s been through it already.
• I recommend taking lots of different vitamin supplements, although you will be getting most of them from the different types of fruits and vegetables you’ll be eating, the iron that you get from things like green vegetables is a different type of iron that you would get from meat, and when you’ve grown up absorbing the Iron from meat, if you suddenly cut your body off form that supply, you’re body freaks out and doesn’t like it. After about 3 weeks the amount of energy I had dropped significantly, and I was taking Iron Supplements and multi-vitamin supplements (which also contained iron) the entire time. I was drinking Soy Milk rich in Iron, and drinking Iron ‘enhanced’ orange juice. Keep an eye on signs your body is giving you, my mates were telling me I was looking a lot paler then usual, and I felt really tired after doing exercise which pre-vegan I felt fine doing.
• Also, if you’re a tea drinker (I know I am, so this applied heavily to me) ‘Black tea (with/without milk)’ inhibits your bodies ability to absorb Iron that you get from vegetables. So, you may need to switch to green tea.
• Becoming a raw food vegan is not just a change in diet. It’s a change in lifestyle. Hours that you would normally use for certain things like coding, or other things (I’m not sure what you do…), will need to be put into food research and food preparation. Because, if you’re ever in a rush and you need take-away. Take away vegan food == salad. And living on salad does not give you the vitamins your body needs. However, there are some nice vegan meals out there, I had the pleasure of having some, and I’ve had some before with some vegan friends.
• There are lots of foods that you can’t eat as a vegan obviously. But some are less obvious, such as Coke contains fish extract, most lollies (candy if you’re american) contain gelatine, made from animal (mainly horse) hooves and most beers and alcohols are not vegan friendly. There are plenty of resources on the web for vegan friendly foods and drinks.
• After lent had finish, I’ve put it all back on, because I didn’t change my entire lifestyle, just my diet for a short period of time. I’m eating a little bit unhealthy at the moment, because I don’t leave enough time to prepare proper meals, or set aside enough time for exercise. Going through this vegan period made me realise that if I want to be healthy, I need to set aside set hours during a week for exercise and for making proper food. Not to go on a crazy diet. I’m currently analysing all the different things I’m involved in, and how I can fit ‘looking after myself’ within all the different things I’m involved in. But it’ll never be with a vegan diet.
That’s just my short rant on veganism. If you’re keen to do it, go for it, I’m RSS’d to your blog, so I’m keen to hear how you go. If you’re committed enough, you can do it. But my warning is that this is not a part time commitment. This is not a ‘I’ll just have the salad’ diet. There’s a lot more to it. This is a full-time commitment, and if you don’t realise that, you’re going to end up more unhealthy then when you started.
So, if you’re doing this for health reasons, do it right. If not, there are many other ways to lose weight and to be healthy then to ‘Just have the salad’. The main issue with losing weight is not the foods, it’s the lifestly eyou lead. That’s the point I want to make. Trust me, I know.
Staying Tuned,
- Guardian Proxy