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+.