Christmas cake

A quick shout out to Ruby Tuesdays of London for her amazing vegan cakes.  We bought the following delicious creation for Christmas:

It is Christmas evening and Julie and I have already finished half of it!

Yum +1

2 months on, a review

So here we are, nearly 2 months on from when I started this adventure.  My original intent was to try the diet for 30 days and see how hard it was, measured against the benefits delivered.  Let's take a look at the breakdown:

The Good

• The food is great.  Seriously, vegan food is better than omni food.  Without the overpowering taste of meat and especially cheese, the other flavours have a chance to come out to play.  
• Energy levels have stabilised and I no longer have the rollercoaster highs and lows from my big meals. I'm not as run down by the evenings and my gym sessions have been strong. Snacking really is the way forward folks.
• I've lost all the weight I wanted to. Now I need to make sure I am having enough calories to maintain that weight.  I have to eat more... Wow, I'd never thought I'd end up in that situation.
• I feel pretty good about my decision.  This is a weird one, but the psychological benefits of knowing you are doing something ethically responsible are quite tangible. 

The Bad

• The diet hasn't managed to magically stop me from injuring myself.  I pulled my calf when in Australia and 3 weeks later I'm still struggling with it.  So no super-human powers for me.
• It can be a hassle.  Seriously, egg and milk make their way into everything processed. This means either being careful by reading a lot of packaging or making lots of my own meals.  I've gone for a compromise between both - if you have ever tried my cooking you will understand why I still like packaged food :)

  

  Tanilba Bay, the best journeys off the beaten track!

The Ugly

• Looking back at my attitudes prior to "the conversion", I see a lot about myself I don't like to admit. I was bigoted and revelled in my meat eating ways.  I didn't think about or look into why people chose to be vege or vegan, instead I only considered how annoying it was to have one around.  To anyone I ever said anything stupid or insensitive to - I'm sorry.

So what's in store for me?  I'm sticking with the diet for the foreseeable future.  I can't see myself ever going back to meat eating and the more I learn about milk and egg production I don't expect to be including those back in my diet in a hurry.  The journey continues...

Days 22 to 28 - Holidays

Been doing lots of holiday stuff (as you might expect) so not a lot to add. I've managed to stay vegan for the duration and got some quality runs in.

Will post a proper update later with photos and insights :)

Day 21 - Aussie run

Recovered from some of the jet lag. Still waking up too early and feeling tired at 7:30 in the evening. Oh well, such is the life of an international jet setter such as myself ;)

Went for a 10k run around the local park (1.3k x 8) - not the most inspiring run I've ever done. But glad I got out there anyway.

One thing I've (re)discovered is that Australia is a very meat-centric place. We went to the food court for lunch and trying to find a vegetarian option, let along a vegan one, was a challenge. Managed anyway, but I think it will be a bit of a struggle for the rest of the trip.

Days 19 to 20 - Come fly with me

So we flew off back to Australia on Friday evening on Virgin Atlantic. I was able to select a vegan food option for the flight, so hopes were high that I wouldn't have to subsist on my emergency backup snack supply (biscuits and pumpkin seeds). And the result in the end? Not bad really. Quite a lot of fruit, with the hot portion of veg in a tomato type sauce.

The flight itself was fine - no issues to report. Didn't sleep on the second leg as hoped, but everything went as well you could hope for 20+ hours in a tin can.

Day 18 - Indian delight

So out for dinner with the team for an early Xmas dinner.  We went to an Indian restaurant called Cafe Spice Namaste near Tower Hill DLR station.  There was a set menu, so I told them ahead of time that one of the party was vegan - to which they said they would be able to accommodate.

So we rock up and not have they just accommodated, they have pulled out all the stops! The chef had prepared a set of separate dishes, each more delicious than the rest.  In all my years I don't think I've had such a delightful range of dishes with subtle and unique flavours.  Needless to say I stuffed myself silly and we all had a great meal/evening. 

Highly, highly recommended.

Tomorrow evening I'm off to Australia for two weeks. That should be a fun challenge :)

Day 17 - More of the same

No big insights today.  Lunch was the same delicious vegetable burrito as yesterday. Dinner was the rest of the falafel stuff from last night.  So much for variety :)

I went on a 20km long run this evening. Just picked a direction and started going.  Felt pretty good, nearly completely recovered from my illness. The hydration pack was awesome, the evening beautiful and London foggy.  No sore knees and/or calves.  Took it slow and easy, came back feeling pretty damn good. I think I'm building a good base to start extending my miles, hopefully staying injury free.

Go plant power! :)

Day 16 - Cruising

Another good day, now 90% recovered from the horrors of my food poisoning.  I was able to put in a solid showing at the gym, although I'm still feeling a little sluggish.

The highlights of the day were once again my food :)

For lunch I went to Tortilla and had a vegetarian burrito.  Since I didn't have meat, I was allowed to have a few other extras instead.  The best part for me was that without the meat, the rest of the flavours could come through and I enjoyed it quite a lot more than normal. Also, no post lunch sleepiness. Win all round!

Then dinner was falafels on pita with carrot, cucumber, lettuce and tomato. Another simple meal, but really tasty and filling.  Honestly this gig just keeps getting better and better!

Day 15 - Too much fun

This whole vegan gig is getting to be a lot of fun.  I'm finding new and interesting things to eat each day, some old, some new. 

Today's lunch was catered (a small reward for a 6 hour meeting) and consisted of sandwiches (all with either cheese or meat), a giant bowl of fruit and another of baked crisps. Everyone dove for the sandwiches and I beelined for the fruit and crisps.  Two bananas, an apple, a plum, two handfuls of grapes and a pile crisps later and I was in heaven.  All for about the same calories as two sandwiches - yet all the more nutritious and filling. 

I was doubly pleased since I didn't need to make a fuss, instead I just went with what I found compatible and made the most of it. No-one should be "that guy" who makes a big deal out of how hard done by they are at every meal.  I did get a quick question over my fruity choice - "don't you eat bread?"...  Now, I've learnt that the V-word tends to polarise people quite a lot, so I've found just saying that I don't eat meat or dairy (or anything animal derived if pushed) fits in with most people's world view.  People have all sorts of diets and preferences, so it goes down well.  It is a little sad that "vegan" has become such a emotionally loaded word, but such is the way of language and perception.

This evening I couldn't be bother preparing anything, so dinner was left over goodies.  Doesn't sound that great?  Well, not if your leftover goodies are all delicious:

Yup, that's a pineapple, avocado, cucumber and tomato burger.  And yes, it did taste wonderful!

Preparation time: about 2 minutes :)

Day 14 - Back on track

I've shaken the worst of the food poisoning now. I was even able to do a short 5km run this evening, although a painfully slow one.  I did try out the (somewhat superfluous) hydration vest and it was extremely comfortable.  Look forward to giving it another try soon.

On the food front, we had veg burgers today for lunch and they were awesome! Did not find myself thinking meat would add anything to it. Instead all the flavours came together more naturally and I managed to stuff two of them down, even though my appetite is still quite suppressed.  The best part was that even though it was a big meal (calculated it was about 900 calories) and I felt totally stuffed from it (and still do)... No the best part was missing the associated "bleah" low energy moment straight afterwards.  Feels nice to normalise the energy curve from the previous roller coaster ride.

Will start back with another easy run tomorrow, gym on Tuesday and then a medium/long run on Thursday.  Then jet-setting off to Australia to see family.  Can't wait :)

Day 13 - Recovering

Still feeling quite ill from the food poisoning, but I'm slowly recovering.

That said, I had a rather nice dinner this evening - vegetable kuey teow and a spinach salad.  I was assured the keuy teow didn't have any dairy or meat in it (they left out the egg).  I'm not sure if that is true, but I wanted Thai food and I realised how challenging it can be to find something without dairy.  Sure, vegetarian is a snap, easy to explain as well.  But making sure there aren't any pesky animal products is not easy for a beginner such as myself.

Not my actual meal, but a fair facsimile

Obviously with the illness I haven't been out and running, which is a real shame as I want to try out my new vest.  Curse you chunky vegetarian soup for stealing my weekend!

Day 12 - Bleah

Been ill all day with food poisoning.  Very likely it was the organic chunky vegetable soup I had last night.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Day 11 - Ups and Downs

Had an important meeting today that didn't quite go as well as I'd hoped.  Left me feeling a bit "bleah" for the rest of the day.  Not the vegetables fault though, so enough of that!

What is interesting is how my weight loss program has been going.  I've been limiting myself to a net intake of 1,800 calories a day.  That means if I do a big run, I eat more to compensate the calories burned.

The chart below shows my daily weigh in over the past 40 or so days.  You can see that 11 days ago I stopped eating all animal products, marked by the red line.  What gets interesting is how my previous diet involved a great deal of daily fluctuation (the maxes and mins) with a steady downward trend.  My new plant powered diet is more consistent and the rate of weight loss is a bit steeper (for no additional exercise).

My goal is to reach 10% body fat (at about 12% now) which means I will aim to plateau out at around 74kg or so.  With my new diet that shouldn't be a problem at all.  The interesting thing will be making sure I don't lose too much weight.  Wow, never thought I'd have to worry about that!

Day 10 - Jinxing myself

No sooner had I posted about my sleep being better than normal, then I had the worst night's sleep ever.  Stressing about work unnecessarily, tossing and turning the whole night. I do marvel at my ability to jinx myself... Which gives me an idea... Ahem.  I'm on day 10 and and I'm lucky that random people haven't given me millions of dollars for no good reason. Hint hint.

Hey, you never know, it could work.  Not likely, but call me an eternal optimist.

Anyway, it is all okay, since I got a new toy to play with today!

As my runs have been getting longer and longer, I've been struggling with how to stay hydrated and comfortable at the same time.  So far I've tried:

• The bum-bag bottle.  Hated it. Bounced around and just wasn't comfortable.
• Just running with a bottle in my hand.  Not bad, but annoying over time.
• Running with a fancy bottle with a hand strap. My favourite so far, but a bit annoying with gloves as it gets slippy.
• Forgetting to bring anything.  Not recommended.  Had to stop running and walk home.  Seriously, don't do that.

Which brings me onto my latest attempt:

That's right, a hydration vest! This one is from Salomon and was generally highly rated by people who should know a lot more about this sort of stuff than me.  I tried it on briefly and it does feel snug and comfy.  Will take it out for a spin on the weekend and see how that puppy goes.

On the food side, I've started to repeat various easy to make/buy foods.  I need to expand my vegan repertoire and my culinary skills. I'm sure I'll be posting some disasters here in no time :)

Day 9 - Who doesn't like a PB?

Clearly not me. Very victorious though.

Today I went for a 10km run at lunch and managed to set a new PB (not hard at my pace, but hey). I'm taking this as definitive proof that my plant based diet is working in at least some small measure. However that got me to thinking and I believe that in order to progress you can't focus on a single thing - you have to take a holistic approach.  So while I've been focusing a lot on my diet, I've also been thinking about how I feel (aches, pains, tiredness, energy, etc), my sleep and my thoughts.

So I'm aiming for:

• Positive thoughts - I will not stress about the things I cannot change and will not allow anger/fear to control me
• Good eating - not just eliminating animal products, but thinking about everything I'm using to fuel my body
• Proactive actions - stretches and targeted exercises for weak areas
• Rest - making sure I get to bed at a good time and sleep deeply 

But above all:

• Hard work and patience - good things come to those who work both hard and smart. Progress from determined effort is its own reward.

I think I'm making progress on all these, however incremental. Onward!

Day 8 - Is there such a thing as too much avacodo?

Legs are a little sore from yesterday's jog, but otherwise feeling fine.  On the food front, I had tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole twice today. I'm pretty sure that's the vegan equivalent to junk food.  Not ideal, but yummy all said :)

I finished Rich Roll's book Finding Ultra which I enjoyed immensely.  Above all the guy knows how to put together an interesting tale.  I didn't find the product endorsements too annoying (a common complaint on the Amazon reviews) and love the message about not being too old to become super fit.  I'm 35 and often wonder if I'm past my prime, but if you take Rich's word for it, I have plenty to go yet.

One thing I've noticed in the past 8 days is my weight has fluctuated a lot less. Normally it varies by as much as 1.5kg a day.  I always measure it in the morning at the same for consistency. Since changing my lifestyle I haven't exercised more than normal (perhaps a bit less actually) but I've lost 1kg in a very consistent, gradual manner - between 0 and 200g a day.  So the weight it coming off and it is doing it in a controlled manner, this seems positive!

Day 7 - Long Run

Today was my first plant powered long run.  It was wet, raining, cold and muddy.  I also tried out my new minimalist trail shoes the New Balance MT10s.  The plan was to go out to Victoria Park, which is 5km away, then do laps of the park, splashing around in the muddy paths with my trail shoes.

At least they look like proper trail shoes now...

So how did it go?  Not quite as I was expecting.

The first thing I found out was the shoes are not comfy for hard surfaces. I'm a natural mid-foot striker, so I thought I'd still feel springy. But no, no springy-ness, instead I felt each step as it struck the concrete.  Not the shoes fault though, instead it was mine for not thinking it through properly.

Once I got to the park and the trails, I discovered the second thing - these shoes make no claim at all about water resistance.  In fact, they are better stated as sieve-like, water goes in easy, water comes out easy.  I imagine in a variety of conditions that will be really useful (trails on a warm day, after running through a river, etc).  Doing muddy 5km laps of the park with a 5km run home on concrete in soggy socks was not a training highlight I'll cherish.

So, once again not the shoes fault, but instead discovery process for me. 

Injury wise, my knee started playing up at the 3km mark, but by some miracle stopped hurting at about the 12-13km point.  Either I corrected my form or the soggy socks drove any consideration of pain out of my head.  Or maybe I'm just getting past a period of adjustment.  I may never know :)

What was the verdict for my first plant powered run? Inconclusive. For a start it is too early in the process for my body to have made many adjustments. Secondly the weather and my poor choice in running gear weighed heavily on the run.  I did manage to bang out 20km, in less than ideal conditions and as I write this in the evening, I'm feeling pretty much recovered. So +1 for recovery speed if nothing else.

Day 6 - Plant Powered

This evening I had a food breakthrough! Thanks to a recipe from Scott Jurek's book Eat and Run (brilliant book, highly recommended) I've finally managed to make my first really yummy vegan meal.  Sure, I've bought some nice meals, and enjoyed a variety of delicious vegan food in the past week, but this time I made a complete meal that worked!

I decided to try out Scott's Long Run Pizza Bread recipe and this time I made sure I got all the ingredients right.  I made a special trip to the shop to get all things not in the cupboard, including spelt bread, tofu, miso, nutritional yeast and seasonings. I then followed the instructions precisely and voila! Success!

Messy, but looks promising

Some tofu "feta" added and 15 minutes in the oven later they turned out great (no professional photography here, clearly):

Not too bad! Tasted pretty awesome too

All said, I'm just so pleased, since I was despairing that I'd never get the hang of cooking anything well. Previously my most complex dishes involved nothing more than 4-5 ingredients, no measuring and a touch of luck.  This has been quite a journey already, and there is lots of room for improvement in the future.

Now, I did say this was the athletic vegan and I haven't mentioned my running much yet.  Mainly focused on getting nutrition right first. Also, my nagging injury from my last long run has limited my options.  Excuses aside, I went for a medium paced 10km run today and it went pretty well all said.  It was very windy and I wasn't pushing myself, but I was only 1 second a km off my PB.  So I'm pleased with that.  Tomorrow is my long run; this time I'll do 5km laps of a park that is 5km away (aiming for a total of 25km).  Let's see how my new plant powered body holds up.

Day 5 - Stupidity Inc.

Drank way too much red wine last night (no idea if it was even vegan wine) and payed the price for it today.  The evening was great and the (hopefully) vegan curry was delicious... the first time anyway.  Anyway, enough gory details - lesson learnt, again.

I tried out a quinoa vegetable "paella" from Fat Free Vegan for dinner.  I think the recipe was a good one, but once again my tendency to try experimenting with things landed me in bland-land.  I do like quinoa though - I can see myself enjoying that fairly regularly.  Just need to learn how to cook with it properly.  As with anything new, it is a bit much to expect brilliance right out of the gate.

It was supposed to look like this.  Maybe next time...

So, apart from cooking related disasters, anything else worth sharing? Well I am surprised how little I find myself missing meat.  I fully expected some sort of craving for chicken to overcome me, but so far I've had nothing of the sort.  I've also not wanted any chocolates and other sweets, which is a gigantic plus for going vegan in my books.

One thing I've noticed a couple of times now is people's different reaction to my rather radical change in diet.  Some people actually get really defensive when I mention going vegan, immediately explaining how much they love meat.  I've then had people explain to me that being vegan is really unhealthy and I'm going to drop dead of protein deficiency any minute now.  Where does this need to defend meat eating and attack plant based diets come from?  I think that I have given a similar response to vegetarians before.  Why do we do this sort of irrational justification? Not sure - but it is quite an interesting response.  Of course not everyone is like that, some are much more like "that's cool!" and are interested in how I'm doing.  I like these people the most :)

One solution is to take the emotive "vegan" word out of the conversation and instead go with that I'm on a "cleanse" (oh cool, short term hippy stint, I can accept that) or more simply that I'm adopting a Plant Powered diet (taken from Rich Roll's book).  That sounds a lot easier, but leads to far less fun conversations!

Day 4 - Reading List

In order to bring me up to speed, I'm reading a number of books. I mentioned Rich's book yesterday, however I've gone for quite a collection, as you can see:

Yes, Living Vegan for DUMMIES.  I'm not too proud to admit it!

Currently reading the dummies book and Find Ultra in chunks.  I go for the dummies guide when I remember I'm supposed to actually follow nutritional guidelines and for Finding Ultra when I want a little inspiration.  Both are proving to be really top books so far.  I'll review when I'm finished.

I actually got the Advanced Marathoning a while ago and I'm nearly done.  Fantastic book, very scientific in approach and I can't recommend it enough to anyone with an interest in running a marathon in the best time they are able to.

Out for dinner tonight, so I doubt I'll have any athletic or nutritional breakthroughs. My main aim is to see how tempting I find everything while I'm there.  Let's see.

Day 3 - The Same, But Different

A full 3 days into my new programme and how are things going?  Well, that's not as easy to do as you might think.  Trying to separate any actual changes from things that would have happened anyway is quite difficult. Which changes are purely mental and which are physical?  No idea yet.  Maybe I'll never know.

Anyway, the food side is going well – breakfast was the Maca stuff, which is honestly nothing really special as far as I can tell.  Maybe continued use turns you into superman, time will tell.  Lunch was vegan fruit and oat biscuits, since I couldn’t be bothered trying to find something that wasn't full of animals. The biscuits were nice and oaty, which is really all you can ask really.  Finally, dinner was a revitalised version of Monday’s chili, which was vastly improved through the addition of some of my missing ingredients.  

On other fronts, I’ve been feeling a little snacky.  This isn’t unusual, so I’m going to dismiss it for now. Energy levels seem fine, neither up nor down.  I did a short 6km run to test out my calf (no pain, yay!) so that bodes well.  It was an extremely easy run, but it did feel good.  Very much looking forward to getting out for something a little quicker and longer.

All said, not an exciting day food wise.

What is interesting, is reading Rich Roll’s book “Finding Ultra” which I’m enjoying  thus far, about a third of the way through.  The idea that someone can find their passion at age 40 and then go on to do all the amazing things Rich has done… Well, you can’t help but feel a little inspired.  I’m not sure I have his level of inner drive to go above and beyond (hey, I don’t mind a bit of comfort zone) but I can admire it and perform my own scaled down version.  Both Rich Roll and Scott Jurek convinced me that vegan is compatible with being strong and healthy; they are both exactly the sort of athlete I’d like to become.  Well, “become” is a bit strong, perhaps emulate is more apt.

Day 2 - High expectations

Breakfast, fruity oaty cereal with soy milk. A fairly mundane start to the day.  Jumped on the scales expecting to have lost at least 2kg from my efforts over the past two days and was rewarded with a 100 gram increase! Short-termism? Me?  Possibly.

So far there haven’t really been any physiological or psychological changes.  Not too surprising considering the duration of the experiment thus far. There have been a few interesting things:

• I haven’t been hungry.  Actually, this isn’t quite correct.  I’ve felt full, but sometimes I’ve felt like eating out of habit.  When I stop to think about what I want, I find that I’m not actually craving anything, except maybe the ritual of stuffing my face.  Interesting.
• I haven’t experienced any lightness of being or spiritual awakening.  I have felt a little better and alert at times. But then I’ve felt sleepy too. Too early to draw conclusions.
• Last night I slept for 9 hours and woke up sleepy.  No idea why.  Probably just lazy :)

I went to the local coffee shop (Taylor Street Baristas… I love you guys!) and got a soy flat white.  Oh. My. God.  Best coffee ever.  Instead of covering the coffee flavour, the soya added a silken smoothness to it.  I have always liked soy milk, but given a choice of going back, I’d gladly stick to soy purely for the taste.  

Next up, off to the Holland and Barrett health food store to see what they have.  Turns out the answer to that is “quite a lot”.  It isn’t cheap though… Once again my hobbies are looking to set me back a few extra pennies.  Anyway, grabbed some vegan multivitamins (I don’t trust my ability to correctly balance my diet yet), almonds (yummy snack), quinoa (seems to pop up in a lot of recipes) and “Maca’s Secrets” cereal (not sure why I got it, seemed like a good idea at the time).  My vegan pantry is starting to fill out nicely!

Anyway, lunch was chili chickpeas a broccoli, corn, kidney bean salad.  Both were delicious and filling.  I’m beginning to see why people claim that going vegan actually expands your food choices rather than limiting it.

More food than I can eat... And that's really saying something!

In the evening I went to the gym.  This is what I was curious about. Would I feel weaker? Sluggish? Like Superman?  A weird mix of each?  Anyway, I started with my normal weights – push ups, sit ups, lunges, chin ups, leg press, dips, chest press and the like (basically 3 sets of 8 for everything).  The difference in the end? Not much. Felt like normal.  Next up was cardio.  Since I hurt myself running on the weekend I went to the stationary bike.  So very boring.  10 minutes was all I could take before feeling like going into a coma.  So I jumped onto the treadmill and did a slow 10 minute jog.  If it wasn’t for the pulled calf I would have felt pretty good all said.  Let's see how I go once I can get a proper run in.

I’ve been reading up on Veganism, understanding more about the dietary requirements, along with gaining a better understanding of the moral issues.  I’m not sure about throwing out the leather lounge, but I will definitely be avoiding purchasing anything new that is an animal by-product.  So for now I’ll go with trying to be 100% food vegan, with a slow trajectory towards the full lifestyle change required to be a “lifestyle vegan”.

Day 1 - First Steps

Why?

I've decided to take on a vegan (no animal products, including cheese, milk, honey, etc) diet for at least 30 days (and depending on how that goes, ongoing).  The reasons for the dramatic change in diet are many, but primarily it is to support my health and through that, my athletic performance.  I'm planning on running the Edinburgh marathon in May and I want to do everything I can in my power to do it well. For the past 35 years a meat heavy diet has carried me through, but I've never really felt in control of my diet.  Instead it is quite the opposite, eating at the whims of cravings and still always feeling unsatisfied.  Something is clearly missing, so time for a change...

The Food

So the first day wasn’t so bad. In the morning I had porridge with milk (wait, that isn’t vegan!) as I didn’t have any soy/rice/hemp milk yet. For lunch I went out to Wahaca, a Mexican restaurant in the Wharf that is fairly vegetarian friendly.  Going through the menu it was starting to become clear that being vegan isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Everything marked (V) for vegetarian also included a lot of cheese.  When the waiter (server? What do people prefer to be called these days?)… When the guy came over to take out order he didn’t bat an eye at my “can I have this one, without cheese?” questions. Which I thought was rather kind of him.  All said, a meal of rice, tortilla chips, guacamole and salsa left me feeling quite full. Things are looking up.

For dinner, I decided to try out a recipe for “The Best Vegan Chili in the World”.  Worth a shot in any case.  So stopped in at the local M&S, ingredients list in hand.  I stepped out with maybe half of them fulfilled.  Right, never said this would be easy.  So I stop at the Tesco’s on the way and get another 25% of the required goodies.  The rest I’d have to fudge.  After chopping, cooking, pouring and simmering, I ended up with… Not a complete disaster, but definitely not something I’d want to serve guests.  Julie wasn’t impressed, complaining that one of the beans was icky and that it was too bland.  I’m not sure about the icky bean (I quite liked them) but it was indeed quite bland.  It seems the ingredients I skipped were of some importance.  Lesson learnt.

The Exercise

None today, still recovering from Sunday's 25k long run.  Gym tomorrow.

Result: not disaster, must try harder, C+.