Back on Track

Can't believe it has been close to six month since I posted last. In that time I have attended Cannes film festival, graduated from university, given up smoking and begun my new and exciting post-academia life.

During the last 5 months I have fallen on and off the dietary wagon many a time but feel I'm finally starting to find some balance.

At the moment, I would say, I'm 100% vegetarian, 98% vegan and about 90% raw. Within all of that I try as much as possible to stick to the Dr Doug Graham formula of 80/10/10 - that is, 80% carbs/ 10% fat/ 10% protein.

There are healthy and unhealthy ways of eating vegan and of eating omnivorously but it has come to be my belief that the optimal healthy diet is one free from meat, dairy and preferably wheat as well.

When you don't eat like the vast majority of the population, this kind of eating lifestyle can seem odd or restrictive but for the first time ever I've been able to make major positive shifts in my eating habits without it feeling like a chore or a punishment.

So many health benefits are thrown about with relation to eating raw - abundant energy, needing less sleep, weight loss, clearer mind. Although I think a lot of it is exaggerated, even at this early stage I feel it's not all complete nonsense.

The energy thing is 100% true. Sometimes I feel I have so much energy I might burst if I don't go for a jog or do some kind of exercise. It's kind of like drinking a big coffee except without the heart palpitations, the inability to concentrate and the almighty crash as the caffeine wears off.

Needing less sleep...I should cocoa!!! The day I need less sleep is the day I'm worshipped for miracles. I don't need less sleep but I wake up a lot less groggy than I used to. I have been getting a lot less sleep than I usually do but most of that is down to stupid hot weather and the sun coming glaring through the windows at very unseemly hours of the morning!

Weight loss - hmm...I must say I had a good old panic when I first started eating High Carb Low Fat. I don't tend to weigh myself but I do measure my waist and in a matter of days I gained two inches round my waist and looked like I'd swallowed a beach ball. I was very disheartened. I wasn't overly worried about losing weight, I'm no bikini model but I'm a UK 10 so certainly not obese either.....but GAINING weight! That was not something I hoped for!! Not after it took me so long to lose all the 'living in America' weight in the first place.
HOWEVER, this weight gain was easily sorted out when I realised it was water weight, bad food combining and some serious bloating as my body got used to the amount of fruit I was eating. I now try not to mix anything other than greens with my fruit meals to help with digestion and after about 1-2 weeks my body seems to have adjusted to the fibre content of my new lifestyle.

Clearer mind- I'm still in the early stages and my diet is not 100 per cent clean so maybe I'll never notice greater clarity but as I mentioned earlier, I am a lot less groggy in the mornings. I would also say, unless I'm imagining things, that my moods are a lot less swingy and that in turn is helping my brain with the no cigarettes.

So, HOW has my diet changed? Here is a list of a typical day. It is not perfectly vegan, it is not perfectly HCLF raw either but for the sake of being honest, here it is:

Breakfast (about 8 or 9 o'clock)
A four banana green smoothie (bananas, water and greens)
2 banana pudding (bananas and cocoa)

Lunch (about 12 or 1 o'clock)
A four banana green smoothie

Snack
Some salt and vinegar snack-a-jacks and either a packet of polo mints or a very small chocolate bar. (This is where I slip the most....but I wanted to be honest)

Dinner
Varies but is usually a cooked vegan meal involving brown rice or gluten free soba or wakame noodles.

After dinner
Peppermint tea

That's pretty much it....though I'm not hungry after dinner, after a couple of hours, I do psychologically feel the need to eat something more, so sometimes I give in to that and will have a piece of fruit and bloatiness be damned.

This usually means I take in somewhere around 1800 calories or more. I do struggle a little with making sure to get enough protein but I'm usually only slightly under and I'm monitoring that and figuring out ways to increase it without the fat content skyrocketing...though again, it differs from the 80/10/10 raw food ideal..I may strategically eat a few almonds or macadamias as an if all else fails alternative.

A slight side note with regards to fibre and the amount of fruit you need to consume to get enough calories...when I first started to eat 6 bananas worth of food in the morning, it was a real struggle and hurt my stomach to the point of being uncomfortable and er..not to be too graphic..but it didn't seem to hang around too long after I'd eaten either.
However, after less than two weeks, my body has adjusted to the caloric density and breakfast has become the high point of my eating day.
If and when I start to increase exercise I reckon I'd have no trouble upping the fruit some more.

So, there you have it. I plan to keep this blog updated with how things are going and to be honest as possible about how I'm doing and how I'm feeling about it all. My way of eating right now is still  a work in progress and will, fingers crossed, become closer to the 80 10 10 ideal. However, I know myself fairly well and I am aware that if I were to be a zealot about such things, I would only rebel against myself and be doomed to failure (failure = S.A.D diet...(is that right way to say it Standard American Diet diet??). This is my own personal food-body experiment and I'm excited to see how it goes and if these will be, as I hope, lasting changes.

Becoming a SuperVegan

I had been vegetarian for a while but I was the kind of vegetarian who would, on occassion, slip and eat Burger King. After an episode of a quirky comedy show I even found a name to excuse it. I was simply "stress eating meat". Oh, ok then, then that's ok.
After this birthday I started to get a bit more serious and lay off of the meats but dairy, I told myself, I can't live without cheese or worse yet, ICE CREAM! That's just ridiculous. Besides, I'm just a vegetarian for health reasons not ethical ones.
Then, thanks to a twitter post by Kerry whose story I'd read through the website Vegan Testimonial I discovered an internet radio show called Citizen Radio. I think I was at the point where I was ready and open to what they had to say. Probably because I knew, in my heart of hearts, that all the reasons for not giving up on ice cream or having a sneaky burger every now and then before were not reasons at all but excuses.
So, now I am a fully-fledged vegan. I don't eat cheese and I don't eat ice cream (because I know what's in them and can't guarantee how the animals are treated) and I CERTAINLY don't have a sneaky meat burger every now and then.
It's only been about a week so I haven't really had enough time to say I miss dairy but I'm discovering alternatives. I tried soy ice cream the other day and bought some vegan cheese for grilled cheese too. I have to confess that neither product hit the spot. Neither tasted like the REAL thing but it's a decision about what's important to me. For me, the fact that I can't guarantee those cows have had/ are having a good life gives me the motivation not to eat it and whilst I might not find a substitute that tastes EXACTLY like Ben and Jerrys, I have faith that I will find new tastes that will be different but just as good. (Have I mentioned my addiction to Kale?)
I think another person I have to mention in this post as motivation for my transition to veganism is an ex-housemate of mine. I'm not sure if she'd want to be named so I will leave it vague like this but she will know who I'm talking about if she were to ever read this.
We lived in a share house together about five years ago and although it's taken me until now to actually go vegan I think her example was definitely part of the process. Mainly, I think, because up until then, I thought all vegans were shouty and preachy and would try and tell me I was evil....to be honest, I've never met a vegan like that but I think, much like a tee-totaller who goes out to the pub with his mates..because they are abstaining from something for ethical reasons, we take it as a judgement on ourselves and the hackles go up.
Anyway, but because my housemate was never judgemental (she couldn't be with an omnivorous bordering on carnivorous boyfriend) and was very unassuming in her vegan-ness I was less defensive about it and I became a lot more curious about her eating habits. I think, her example, and that of my vegetarian aunt, gave me the impetus to even just go vegetarian.
All kinds of horror stories and stereotypes get put about about vegetarians and vegans. The one about them being pasty and without energy immediately springs to mind, let alone all the supposed nutrient deficiencies, which for the most part, all you have to do is a little bit of reading to realise are untrue.
 I don't want to be a preachy vegan but at the same time, I think it's very important to negate the fallacies that get put about. All I know, is that, as I've said before, the less animal product I eat, the healthier I feel. I am two dress sizes lighter since going veg, even if it wasn't the strictest....and when I'm eating mainly fruit and veg, contrary to popular belief about vegans and vegetarians, I have SOOOOOOOOOO much energy that often times, I'm not sure what to do with it. I have to be careful not to have smoothies too close to bed time or I'm bouncing off the walls!
I will be interested to see what the health difference between vegan and veg are as time goes on and I will keep you posted.
In the meantime, comment below and leave me all your favourite myths about veganism/vegetarianism and in a later post I can address them and allay any fears about my supposed imminent bad health! lol

Vegetarian....Vegan....Raw

For a long time now I have tried not to eat animal products. Not out of some huge righteous ethical stance (though sadness for the poor moo cows does play a part).

This is not intended to be a rant on the evils of meat eating. It is merely known fact that vegetarianism is better for the environment.

I chose to stop eating animal products for the health benefits. I find I feel better, have more energy and get sick less often when I eat a mostly vegan diet.

A lot of people I have found, when you say you are vegan, become incredibly concerned about your nutrition....but what about calcium? What about protein?

The image of the energy deficient, rickets and scurvy suffering vegetarian or vegan is NOT because they are vegetarian or vegan...it is because they have poor diet.

Someone who doesn't eat meat or dairy but instead lives on cans of coke, chips and dark chocolate bars is not going to have much energy and is CERTAINLY going to have nutrient deficiencies.

If you eat a diet based on fresh fruits, vegetables and wholegrain it is a no brainer that you are going to have a much better health level than someone who eats a typical highly processed, additive containing western diet.

A book on the subject that has been of great inspiration to me but which is NOT about advocating banning meat is Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food .

This book is not about veganism or even vegetarianism but simply about trying to eat foods that are REAL foods and not a multitude of chemical formulas. Eating things as close to nature as possible.

A form of eating that takes this to the Nth degree is Raw Veganism. Whilst I appreciate the concepts of such diets, particularly Fruitarianism, and I have dabbled a little in this area - buying raw foods when out, making some raw food recipes and drinking fruit smoothies - I am not quite ready to get so extreme.

I do, however, have a green smoothie on a daily basis.

Oh, and p.s. - with regards to calcium and protein - 1 cup of spinach has almost the same amout of calcium as a cup of milk but milk has only 1/3 of the amout of potassium. Potassium and other such minerals are necessary for the absorption of calcium. You can drink ten gallons of milk if you like but the majority of the calcium in it, you are going to quite literally pee away!
As for protein, yes, meat is the best source BUT the RDA is only 46g whereas half a turkey breast contains 96g! ...I'm no doctor or nutritionist but the controversy of the original version of the Atkins diet (kidney problems, loss of calcium, high blood pressure, heart disease) shows that a diet too high in protein may not be a good thing.

I'm not adding this to lecture you on how NAUGHTY you are for eating meat but in order that you think before lecturing ME about my nutrition because it's just fine thanks very much! :)