Good morning friends and happy Monday! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Our weekend was the perfect mix of family fun, relaxation, and spending time with friends. It was much needed-- especially the relaxation!
What Brought This On? As you know, Devin works for a company that sells science lab equipment. Well several months back he went to go train people how to use their equipment at a nearby university. They university had just built a big facility focused solely on researching athletes who follow plant-based diets. Devin came home and told me about this and my mind was blown. Truly, I couldn't comprehend it. I feel like everything I've known about athletes and nutrition is to eat a balance of carbohydrates, vegetables, and animal protein. Well fast forward a few months and I started hearing more about plant-based diets. I started trying a few plant-based recipes and honestly noticed a significant difference in my energy levels. I used to need 3-4 cups of coffee to get through the day chasing the kids around, but was now noticing I didn't "need" that anymore (want vs need is a whole other conversation 😉). In fact I felt like where I used to be struggling to keep up with the kids' energy, now I was the one they couldn't keep up with.
As you know, Devin and I are both marathon runners. I kept going back to the idea of athletes choosing a plant-based diet because it improved their performance. I am planning to run the Charlotte Half Marathon in November and thought "maybe I should give this a shot?" I figured I would start testing out a plant-based diet now while I am training to see if I'm noticing a difference in my performance while running/training.
What is the Difference Between Plant-Based and Vegan? From what I have researched it looks like these diets have a lot of similarities, but are not exactly the same. My basic understanding is that a vegan diet focuses on what you can't have while a plant-based diet is more about what you should have. Vegan diets eliminate all animal products while plant-based doesn't necessarily eliminate all animal products but instead focuses on adding more whole, healthy foods to the diet. Foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, healthy whole grains, etc.
Is This Forever? We are taking it one month at a time. We are planning to take "before" pictures and keep a journal detailing how we feel throughout the process. Tracking things like: Are we feeling more energetic or less? How is our running/training/working out going as compared to beforehand? Is it more expensive vs less expensive? If at the end of the month we haven't noticed a significant enough difference, we will go back to our mostly plant-based but occasional meat/animal products diet.
Are You Nervous It'll Be Too Hard? Since we've slowly been trying new things out over the past few months it hopefully won't feel like a major transition. For example we tried coconut milk yogurt a couple weeks ago vs regular and honestly liked it! It'll be easy to just grab one item vs another at the grocery store.
Are You Worried About Not Getting Enough Nutrients? If you had asked me that several months ago I probably would've said yes, but since we've been slowly making this transition and are noticing we feel better I'm not worried. We also downloaded an app that will help us track our macros to make sure we are getting enough of everything we need.
Are the Kids Doing This Too? No. We are doing this for ourselves, not for the kids. They will continue to drink regular milk, eat hot dogs on the 4th of July, etc. Does that mean I end up buying two versions of things sometimes? Yes, but that's okay.
I will be happy to report back in a little over a month to see how we feel about making these changes! I hope you have a great day and a great week!!
Very interested to hear what you learn and how this project unfolds.
ReplyDeleteThanks Michele! I'll keep you updated!
DeleteWe have had periods of eating more plant based items, while also having lean meat like chicken and turkey, so never totally plant based. I definitely felt better but I got bored with the foods we were eating. I didn't make two meals so the kids weren't as keen about those meals as I was. I did get them to eat tofu and lentils though so those are part of our meal rotation now. I will probably do it again in the fall for a few weeks as a "reset".
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hear how it goes for you guys. I know you're an Earthy Andy fan. I also recommend following @ohsheglows and @easyanimalfree (both Canadian and both have vegan cookbooks; Easy Animal Free's is coming out in October).
Oh thank you!!! I will go look them up right now. The more inspiration and helpful recipes, the easier this will be!
DeleteWe watched a documentary on Netflix a few months back (gosh maybe even a year ago?!) and we thought long and hard about moving to a plant based diet too! We decided it wasn't a good fit for us but we do eat so many more plant foods now and much fewer carbs/ processed foods. Good luck!!
ReplyDeleteOooh any chance you remember the name of the documentary? I'd love to watch it!
DeleteThis is awesome. I am so proud of you. i love that you and your husband are both on the same page.
ReplyDeleteThanks Adrienne! If I'm being honest Devin probably would've done this years ago... I was the holdout! But now we are finally on the same page :)
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