Let me preface this posting by saying that I believe the vegan diet is one of the healthiest diets/lifestyles out there. Even though I only lasted a little over a week as a vegan, I'm still taking away from this experience a lot of diet changes that I DO want to keep following.
So what made me give up so quickly? The main reason is because I was making unhealthy, vegan food choices. If a diet/lifestyle is NOT working for you, especially if it's making you more unhealthy it's common sense to adapt and change what you are doing. With my options limited, and my family not willing to eat my vegan meals I found myself not really wanting to cook just for myself, instead I would snack. Before this week, I would take the time to prepare delicious, healthy meals for the entire family that we could all eat, but now I struggled to be inspired by my meals, and my family in turn started ordering pizza, getting takeout, all kinds of horrific things =)
There are a couple great things I will be implementing in my diet though that stems from a vegan diet:
1) I'm going to stay vegetarian, maybe eating fish once a month or less
2) Butter is out! We rarely eat butter anyways because of all the heart attacks in the family. There are so many healthy, great tasting alternatives it makes the choice easy
3) My soy creamer stays! It's delicious and low in calories, what more can you ask for?
4) My addiction to cheese will be kept in check. Instead of being an every day thing, I need to cut back to once or twice a week, less if possible
5) Eggs will be more limited. While they are a great source of protein, they contain about 70% of your cholesterol intake for the day, so 1 egg for breakfast means I need to watch the rest of my cholesterol that day.
6) Vegetables and whole grains need to be the main focus of every meal
Remember life is full of compromises, and you have to find the healthy diet and lifestyle that works best for you. Organic, Vegetarian, Vegan...these are all labels society has given to very specific lifestyles but chances are most people don't fit in just one box. You pick and choose what works best for you and your family, and THAT is the key to any successful lifestyle.
Christen,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to stop in and show my support. I am glad you were willing to experiment a bit to see if being vegan would work for you, and logical enough to abandon it when it was clear that it was not. I'll agree being vegan does has the ability to be one of the healthiest routes available, but as you found it can also lead to being on of the worst as well. Best of luck in your continued efforts to find a balance between health, convenience and taste.
Christen, I agree with your post. When I was assisting my ex boyfriend in raising his son a couple years ago I struggled with preparing vegetarian meals for myself and non-vegetarian for the rest of the family. I too could not fully convert to Vegan however I made some similar choices. I am now trying to broaden my horizon with Vegan clothing and hand bags. Little by little I become less dependent on animals and unhealthy farming practices of the U.S. All in all, I think you are doing an amazing job in raising your family on healthy alternatives!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support! Most of the vegan books I have read are authors who are just as excited and passionate about their diet and lifestyle as I am about healthy, organic food. I believe that is the key to any lifestyle change.
ReplyDeleteAs for struggling with preparing vegetarian meals in a "non-vegetarian" home, what I try to do is make a vegetarian meal that can stand on it's own and then serve the meat as a side dish for those who want it. Another great thing to do is buy yourself easy to make meat substitutes and sub them in when you cook for the rest of the family. Having a cookout? Everyone else might want burgers, and you can throw on a soy or veggie burger for yourself too. Make Stir-fry, adding the meat at the end (tofu/meat substitute for you, chicken or shrimp for everyone else). Hope that helps!