Veganism: My 90-Day Experience

In a previous post (check that out here), I discussed the pros and cons of living a vegan lifestyle, looking into things like the health effects, common benefits, and issues, as well as the environmental and moral sides. Be sure to check out that post for those details!

Today marks the completion of my 3-month challenge to be Vegan, which I started back at the start of this year. This was my second challenge completed (previously, I did Keto for 3 months, where I explained my thoughts and experiences here) and I’m very excited to be done and say that I was able to do this. After 3 months, I am thoroughly impressed with people who are managing year-long Vegan diets.

Fortunately for all the people thinking about starting a vegan diet, in today’s world, it is very feasible. I found it very easy to find ingredients to make delicious dishes, go out with friends, and still find vegan options pretty much everywhere I went. There were also many alternative ingredients to foods I really liked and didn’t want to go without (mainly pastries…). I started out by trying new foods, going to various vegan locations, creating my own variations of Buddha bowls, smoothies, cauliflower substitutes, and all, which for the most part was actually very tasty, but after a few weeks of having to prep, I ended up making the same few dishes every day. This simply came from the difficulty of trying to plan out meals that would still stay within the restraints of veganism. Luckily for me, I have never been too picky on my food and did not find it too bad to have similar meals regularly. If you are someone like me or someone who enjoys cooking new recipes, you would have a great time with Veganism.

One of my top recipes I used while on this diet was just a basic smoothie. Check out the recipe below: (From https://protocol.bryanjohnson.com/)

Add the following into a blender and blend for 2-3 minutes.

1) Macadamia Nut Milk (or any other nut milk)

2) Small amount of pomegranate juice

3) 2-3 tbsp Macadamia Nuts

4) 2 tsp Walnuts (ground or not)

5) 2 tbsp Chia Seeds

6) 1 tsp of Flaxseed

7) 1-2 tbsp brazil nuts

8) 1 tbsp dark chocolate chips

9) 1 tsp Sunflower Lecithin

10) 1/2 tsp of Cinnamon

11) 1/2 cup of berries (frozen or not)

12) 3 cherries

13) Protein Powder (optional)

The proportions are really just recommendations. Try slightly different amounts of milk, pomegranate juice, nuts, berries, and protein powder to get the nutrients and taste/consistency you like.

Going into this, I expected many dishes to be unpleasant, as you have to avoid so many categories of foods that you would be very limited in what you could eat. With the help of the internet and especially the blueprint, by Bryan Johnson, I could find both very healthy and delicious foods. For ease and health, I made lots of berry, nut, and seed smoothies that were great lunches. Managing to get 500+ calories in a smoothie with a good amount of protein (using protein powder) and a lot of vital nutrients from various seeds and nuts, truly made the transition easy to stay healthy while enjoying a sweet, delicious meal. Though it was a bit depressing to avoid various meats or dairy, which have always been a big part of my diet, I found that various mushrooms, cauliflower, and nut milks were great substitutes and surprisingly able to create very similar flavors.

The best and most surprising dish to both be very healthy and taste delicious was Buddha bowls. I love Buddha bowls because they are so versatile, just being a mix of whole grains, greens, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, and a few more minor ingredients. Changing any of these choices out for similar foods that better fit your preferences is always super easy. Check out the recipe below:

1. Put a sweet potato in the oven with a few holes for 45 min – 1 hour at 400 degrees (this will be cut in half and topped with green onions and olive oil after)

   

2. Trim the ends off some asparagus and boil in water for about 3 minutes, rinse and drain to be added to the bowl.
3. Cut up 6 leaves of kale as a base to the bowl
4. Dice/slice up the following to add over the kale and asparagus:
   • 2 Carrots (shredded)
   • 1 Red Pepper
   • 1/4 cup walnuts
   • Handful of Cilantro
5. Top with Apple cider vinegar, Cumin seeds, Lemon juice, and a bit of Dill and mix.

The bowl left with a sweet potato drizzled in olive oil is delicious.

The switch to Veganism was in no way bank-breaking. Certain ingredients did cost more, mostly some fruits and veggies that I started to eat a lot more of (mushrooms being the most notable), but the biggest difference was eating out. Eating vegan options at restaurants usually seems to have a premium put on it because of the special diet aspect, but if you keep your outside eating to a moderate level, you won’t notice too much of a difference. In some ways, I did save money from my vegan diet as well. The biggest thing was the lunch smoothie that I mentioned previously, having over 30 – 40 grams of protein after adding protein powder and probably costing around a dollar or two max per smoothie because I bought very large bags of nuts and seeds from places like Costco that lasted me weeks. That’s 2-4 weeks’ worth of lunches from 40 dollars worth of nuts, seeds, and frozen fruits.

From the cost side, I think the most expensive was getting enough macadamia nut milk to manage all the smoothies I was making, but more than that, mushrooms. Mushrooms are such a healthy food to be eating, and had a lot of them, especially Shiitake and Maitake mushrooms.

My common breakfast, before I started to do an early morning fast until noon every day, was a mix of broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms, see the recipe below:

1) Boil black lentils (45 grams) for ~45 minutes – 1 hour

2) Boil 250g of broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms (shiitake or maitake) for ~7 minutes

3) Make a mix of:

– 1 clove garlic

– 3 ginger roots

– 1 lime

– 1 tbsp of cumin seeds

– 1 tbsp of Apple cider vinegar

– 1 tbsp of Hemp seeds

– 1 tbsp of olive oil.

4) Plate with black lentils as a bed for the broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms, and pour the mix over the dish and enjoy.

5) Adding hemp seeds and dark chocolate chips are great for more protein and antioxidants.

The taste was not amazing for this, but it was truly a superfood breakfast/lunch. If eating everything separately is not your thing, I have also seen this recipe blended together (though I find this significantly worse to eat than plating it).

Personally, I spent a lot of time looking for and preparing meals that were focused on getting a balanced set of nutrients for my body. My biggest concern when starting this diet was that I would be so focused on not eating the wrong things, that I would just fill up on junk foods. This is one of the reasons why people end up becoming less healthy on plant-based diets. Given my meals as an example, I had a healthy mix of veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, and various powders (protein powder, creatine, collagen (not technically vegan…), chlorella, cocoa, and others that were always used to augment meals and make sure I was getting all the nutrients I needed to feel good. After my body got used to the different diet (this took a few days), I felt great for the entirety of the three months. I found myself feeling very energized all day while still losing weight and increasing my lift weight while exercising. This was a bit of an unintentional side effect due to me putting extra emphasis on planning my meals since the Vegan diet was so foreign to me. It was an unexpected proof to me as a result of this diet that 1) planning out your meals has a significantly positive effect on both your body and your mood, more so than I realized, and 2) diets that tend to be very restrictive, even Vegan diets, can have many creative and delicious of staying healthy and meeting your diet goals.

On the day-to-day, my life was very much the same. After you get used to checking labels and knowing what to look for, it becomes very simple to know what you can eat, where you can eat, and to find good, healthy snacks and meals. I spent my first two weeks trying different foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then stabilized on a few options for each that were easy for me to prepare, well-rounded for my diet, and tasted good. I really enjoyed variety-enabling dishes like Buddha bowls and smoothies because I could mix and match with the ingredients I had on hand and pretty easily get a well-rounded meal with all the nutrients I needed. The diet also stifled my snacking addiction, since it is quite difficult, more difficult than you would think, to find vegan snacks to munch on that aren’t just completely terrible for you. Many protein bars and snack mixes tend to have some type of dairy in them, which is a no-go. Overall, the diet was not too difficult to adhere to and get used to after the first week.

The most difficult part of the vegan diet was that there were tons of celebrations, outings, snacks, and even healthy foods that I needed to reject. I’m used to having lots of milk, eggs, sandwich meats, steaks, etc., most of which I could still eat when I tried my previous challenge (Keto, check it out here), but cutting out all animal products altogether limited me in a way that completely altered my diet. As someone who spends a great deal of time with family and friends, we eat relatively healthy, but there are lots of kabobs, yogurts, fish, lamb, etc. and it was very weird for both myself and others to avoid these foods daily. Apart from this, I actually found the diet very tasty, much more so than I expected, and also much easier to stay healthy. My original concern was that I have heard many vegans have to deal with the initial lack of nutrients as they get used to managing to eat healthy while being very strict, but utilizing a mix of seeds, nuts, fruits, mushrooms, cauliflower, and broccoli, I felt I was getting everything I needed every day and actually felt great all throughout the day.