In about a week or so I will have been vegetarian for 2 years. It will also be my 5 month anniversary of being vegan. Veganism, according to Wikipedia is: “the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, as well as an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of sentient animals.”
I became vegan after reading Alicia Silverstone’s book “The Kind Diet“. In this book (which I recommend), Alicia argues that you can’t be fully supporting and helping animals unless you transition from vegetarian to a full vegan. Why? Because cows are fully mistreated and tortured to feed us all the milk and cheese that we want to consume. They are kept perpetually pregnant, their calves are taken from them pretty much after birth to be slaughtered for veal and they are impregnated again. They are milked by machines and pumped full of hormones to produce up to 20x the normal amount of milk that they would in their natural habitat. After 2-3 years the cows are so spent that they are not even good for human consumption but they go into other animal feed or into pet feed.
Net-net, as an animal lover and one who had made the choice to be a vegetarian because I fundamentally disagree with how we treat animals in industry farming and the horrendous effect it has on the environment (pollution, deforestation, water usage, to mention a few), that I decided to try becoming a vegan.
Now mind you, I had told Dennis on multiple occasions that “I wouldn’t ever be able to become a vegan” because I believed the lifestyle to be “extreme”. Dennis wasn’t too excited about the idea and we even had a discussion about it. His concern was how we would maintain a half-vegan household and the increased difficulty of eating and living vegan.
That issue became a moot point after we saw the movie “Forks over Knives” (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!) in Amazon movies and realized how BAD milk/cheese was for your health and your body. It stopped being just an “ethical” issue and became a true “health” concern for us. What we realized is that in parts of the world where animal products are not consumed (or consumed in small quantities) people rarely die from heart disease, cancer and diabetes. But in places where people consumed huge quantities of animal products, those diseases were the leading causes of death. Dr. Greger, from NutritionFacts.org, has an incredibly enlightening and eye-opening presentation that discusses the medical proof of the bad effects of animal products on our bodies and our health.
Dennis became a vegan right after we saw that movie and hasn’t looked back since. I have to say that I am beyond amazed that he not only went vegetarian (no meat) but full on vegan pretty much cold turkey.
Here are our observations so far:
1. Weight Loss – we each have lost between 13-15 lbs each! We lost them little by little ( 0.5 or 1 lb per week). The irony is that I have been trying to lose 8 lbs for about 10 years. First it was the college weight gain then it was the baby weight. Dennis and I tried all kids of diets (South Beach Diet, Paleo, the General Mills diet, Weight Watchers) and we would lose about 5lbs and then immediately gain it back. Those paltry pounds were painful to use, we were hungry, cranky and would “fall off the wagon” constantly. The whole thing was difficult, frustrating, time-consuming (tracking calories) and left us feeling guilty and insecure. This was different. We lost this weight naturally,without “trying” to diet. Our level of satisfaction with our body skyrocketed and we felt confident and comfortable in our clothes.
2. Clarity of Thought– after a week of being vegan, both Dennis and I noticed that we were thinking more clearly. I can’t explain why but we both experienced this interesting effect.
3. No ups and downs in energy– The “typical” 3 pm energy drop disappeared and we were more even keeled through the day.
4. Better cardio endurance-even though our exercising consistency has left much to be desired (especially after our second son was born), whenever we got on the treadmill we were able to go faster and further that we had before. Dennis even noticed it when shoveling snow, something that used to tire him out, didn’t anymore.
5. Food adventures– One of Dennis concerns when we became vegan is “what will we eat?”. Going from meat-eater to vegetarian is relatively easy because you just take out the meat of the dishes. When you go vegan, now you have to think about milk (including the milk protein “casein” which is in EVERYTHING including “veggie” cheese). I went to the library and found a ton of books and started experimenting! I got acquainted with vegetables and fruits that I wouldn’t have touched before -because I didn’t know how to cook them. We adopted an adventurous mind-set and set out to try different recipes.
Now the challenge will be our 2 boys – one who is starting school next year- and how to maintain a vegan lifestyle with them in elementary school. Stay tuned!