I started my vegan journey on April 10th. I tried to make sure that I documented as many meals as I could without forgetting. I started by taking pictures of what I ate, but then kept forgetting to do that, so I switched to a food journal, and jotted down everything that I ate to keep on track with myself. I decided to go cold turkey as I originally had anticipated doing, but to my surprise it was harder than I had thought it was going to be. The first few days were challenging to switch from meat to a more plant based diet, since I actually had to change my thinking around what I ate and how I planned my food out throughout the course of the week. However, after the first week it got a lot easier to make decisions naturally to cut out animal products when anticipating food. It became less stressful to incorporate a more plant based meal into my diet and lifestyle. I will post some pics down below to show my progress.
One result that I have noticed overall is that I feel better in my body. I don’t feel as sluggish after lunch or dinner, and I actually do have more energy throughout the day to perform my daily tasks at work and at home. I am loosing weight slowly, and do notice it in my body when I look at myself in the mirror. I feel better emotionally knowing that I am not contributing to more killing of animals 95% of the time, and that has been a good experience for me.
In step one of this overall blog post, I did reflect and admit that I would sometimes fall through the cracks, as a normal part of the process of changing a whole lifestyle choice. To give some context as to why I slipped up from time to time, I will do a bit of explaining. I work in a doctors office in a center with other offices. In the building, just down the hall from my office, there is a cafe. In that cafe is where morning coffee and muffins are sold, then transitions to selling lunch for staff and patients. I will post a picture of what one (out of 3) weekly menu looks like that we have at the cafe. You will pick up pretty quickly, that it’s 99% not at all vegan friendly. Aside from the ‘hot food’ there is a fridge with salads, sandwiches, Baby Bell cheese rounds, lots of deserts, salad dressing, and some other small things. Don’t let the fact that I said salads fool you. Not one is ever totally vegan except for two since starting this process. A pic of one vegan salad is below. The rest all have chicken and cheese in them. And if by chance their aren’t both it’s either one or the other. I only get a 1/2 lunch, so I don’t have time to get in my car and go anywhere else locally to get food. But I would rather eat a salad that way then what is normally served as you will see. I also have them with a Cliff Bar to help me make it from 12pm-5pm without getting hungry,
Overall, I would say that this project has been successful, because I do feel differently about relating to meat, and want to continue on after this class is compete, of continuing to eat a more consistant plant based diet. I am interested in packing lunches from the dinners that I make at home in the future.
