Yep - as of today, I've completed the 21-day vegan detox diet that's all the rage. No meat, dairy or eggs for three weeks. It's been a bit of a change, but nothing terribly bad. In fact, I've rather enjoyed it. Some random reflections on the journey in no particular order:
- I lost a lot of weight, somewhere in the 10-12 pound range. This was the main reason I did the diet. The trick, of course, is keeping it off. We'll see how long that lasts. But for now, I'm pleased.
- I didn't miss meat as much as I thought I would. I'm not a huge steak-eater and hamburgers make rare appearances in my diet. The meat I'm more inclined to eat is when it's part of something else - turkey in a sandwich, chicken in my wife's awesome chicken pie, ground beef in a bowl of chili. I thought I'd miss this kind of meat moreso, but other than the occasional craving for a slice of pepperoni pizza it hasn't been that bad.
- Probably the hardest thing to give up was dairy. I've always been a big milk-drinker - some in my cereal in the morning, a glass or two with dinner at night. It's a pretty significant part of my diet. Problem is, the milk we buy at the grocery store has all kinds of hormones that were given to the cows that produced it; and those hormones wind up in our body. Soy milk and almond milk are acquired tastes, but after a while you get used to it.
- I thought a lot more about the foods I put in my body. And I guess in a sense that's part of what the diet is about. You can't just grab whatever's in the fridge or whatever you've got in the pantry. You're constantly asking yourself: Does this have eggs in it? Does it have milk? This wasn't a bad exercise to engage in outside the diet itself. How many of us eat whatever's right in front of us without thinking about where it came from, what's in it, etc?
- I ate less. Kind of a natural byproduct of the previous one. Besides, if your fridge is like ours, you have multiple kinds of sandwich meat and cheese but not a lot of beans and greens.
- Side effects of the diet - your body has to go through an adjustment period as it transitions to the vegan diet. For me, it hit around Day Three or Four. I felt a little tipsy that was something between slight fatigue and a weird high of sorts. I had this odd metal taste in my mouth, probably a little iron deficiency going on. Once I hit Day Five, though, it was all good. I found my energy level was much better.
- As with everything, there's an app for that. Although I didn't use it much, since it called for some recipies that were either a bit extravagant for my tastes, or unreasonable for one reason or another. But it's still worth checking out. And when you do, you'll learn that....
- Cous cous and black beans rock. They're in just about everything in the diet, and that's perfectly fine with me. Others that found their way into my diet over the past 21 days - peanut butter, good ol' fruit, carrot sticks, soy milk. Oh, and give the green smoothie a try. Sounds gross, but it's actually pretty tasty.
- It's a bit of a challenge when your family isn't doing the diet with you, but it's not impossible. Basically I made my own meals beside the rest of my family for three weeks. The only time this was hard was when the wife and kids had her most excellent homemade chicken pie. That was a tough one to sit out. And going out to eat had its challenges, especially in my locale where "family cooking" is most prevalent and certainly not very vegan. In the end, though, everything worked out fine.
So - where to go from here? More than likely I'll retain some elements of the vegan diet but not so hard-core. I'll probably throw fish back into the mix and eat beef and chicken very sporadically. I'll eat some eggs but do my best to make sure they're free-range and organic. As far as milk - this is the one thing I think I'm going to give up altogether. Soy and Almond milks are not a bad substitute, and void of any nasty hormones. Big deal for me, as I've been a "milk boy" for most of my life. Hopefully this modification will continue helping to keep the weight off!
Comments