Monthly Archives: October 2019

Hmmm, I think I’m on day 7? Or 8?

Doesn’t matter really, what matters is that I’m still going and not planning on stopping.

I’ve been reading a lot on a number of Facebook groups for Vegans. There is so much to learn. Honestly, it can feel a bit overwhelming.

There’s this whole thing about oil and that many vegans don’t cook with oil nor eat anything with oil in it. My understanding is that these are avoided for a few reasons. One, they’re not natural but rather made through a specific process and they don’t contain nutrients but are rather high in fat = empty calories.

I have to admit that at this stage in my journey I couldn’t care less. There are pretty much two groups of vegans: your average vegan who doesn’t eat meat nor any other animal products including eggs & dairy, and the whole-food plant-based group who avoid anything that vegans do in addition to anything that’s processed or refined.

I’ll quite happily put myself in the vegan only group as I’m still getting my head around my diet and making sure I get sufficient nutrients and food groups into my system (protein, calcium, vitamins, amino acids etc.). Full disclosure, I’m still figuring out if I may indulge in cheese every now and then in which case I’d be a vegetarian. But no, I haven’t yet!

I know I don’t want to eat animals anymore, that’s a given for me. I had a chat with my daughter today about the morality of people killing animals to eat them. I have to say that but I never gave it much thought previously, probably because I didn’t want to. It still makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about it. I always felt that no matter what I do, animals will get killed anyway. Does that make it okay to eat them?

In myself, I’m feeling okay. I’m currently experiencing my period (TMI?? Yeah, thought so) so that never helps! I most definitely feel good about eating better and less processed food. I’ve also indulged in some baking, including pancakes and muffins. We had nachos one night and instead of sour cream & cheese I added creamed corn (for mine anyway). Here goes….

The pancakes were especially nice, I’ll definitely use that recipe again! So light and fluffy without eggs, love it. I actually think those were better than any other pancakes I’ve ever made.

I brought  brown rice & quinoa rice cakes with sea salt which are really tasty too. I had four of them today with a range of toppings: peanut butter & banana, Marmite & vegan cheese, avocado & pumpkin seeds, kale, spinach & avocado.

I’m currently debating on what snack to have before bedtime… Maybe I’ll just have a chai vanilla tea which I’ve been drinking instead of Ovaltine (which I admittedly miss somewhat).

Anyway, it feels like it’s been a long and busy day (because it has been a long and busy day lol) so I’ll sign off for now.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Carly

Eek, apologies for slacking after only 3 days of starting to write this blog. Clearly this might not end up being a daily blog, but a whenever-I-get-around-to-it blog.

I’m happy to report that I am not, however, slacking on my vegan diet.

Foods consumed over the last 3 days include:

• Overnight oats with soy milk, chia seeds, LSA (ground linseeds, sunflower seeds & almond seeds), a variety of fruits & cinnamon
• Nuts (perfect snack food)
• Fresh fruit for on-the-go (apples, grapes, mandarins)
• Hot chips fried in vegetable oil (eek, not super healthy but hey, we had friends over!)
• Baked sweet potato topped with fresh kale & spinach as well as fried mushrooms, tomatoes & onions (that was REAL good)
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• Tonight we had coconut curry with chickpeas, beans, onions, capsicum, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower on rice – it was very nice but lacking something! Not quite sure what, I clearly need to expand on my palette AND spice options.
• 

I’ve been feeling good too – minimal brain fog and generally more energetic and less lethargic. I don’t seem to have those lunchtime or afternoon “dips” anymore where I hit a bit of a low and crave ‘bad stuff’. I do not miss those dips either!

Another update: My daughter has now watched ‘The Game Changers’ documentary too which kick started this whole journey for me. She gets it which is awesome! She wants to ‘veganise’ her life in her week with me. In her week with her dad she’ll continue to eat minimal meat and likely some dairy products, but that’s okay. It’s a journey and she is only 11!

I must admit that I need to work on my recent sleeping habits, I haven’t been getting enough of that. Post tummy bug and 3 day isolation my sleeping was a bit all over the show. I need to make an effort to improve on that as I’ve been feeling rather tired!

Always something to work on, right? Speaking of which, I thought I’d show you which supplement I started using to make sure I get Vitamin B12 into my system:

It also FEELS really good to eat a plant-based diet as you know you’re putting good, nutritious food into your body! I was at a workshop today and took a salad with me although the preschool did provide lunch. I just didn’t want to put anyone out by saying that I can eat this or that.

This life style requires some planning (which I didn’t too much of to be honest) but in a pinch, stick to your basics of fruit & veg and you can’t go wrong.

I’m going to trial some vegan pancakes on Sun morning and some vegan baking this weekend – watch this space!

Schoenes Wochenende,

Carly

Day 3! It’s going fast.

So, today I felt a lot better than yesterday. I had a little bit of brain fog a couple of times throughout the day but I mostly felt great, yay! I find that getting food (or juice) into me in those moments definitely makes a difference. Hedging a guess that my blood sugars are potentially a tad low when brain fog sets in.

As mentioned before, people often don’t get enough calories when switching to a vegan diet so I think that’s the case with me at the moment.

I’ll be eating more fresh fruit and dried fruit through the day. A lot of dried fruit has added sugar so I tend to steer clear of those – in NZ, dates and raisins are good buys as they’re at least 99% dried fruit.

Today I did my first vegan shop! It was an interesting endeavour…

I must say my fridge hasn’t looked this colourful in a long time!

There are still some dairy products lurking in there, but I’ll keep some for my child and some will get a new, loving home.

I had leftover chickpeas, veges & rice for lunch at work today which was actually very very nice. Nicer than when I had it on the day. I added a dash of soy milk to it after heating it which added a lovely, creamy texture.

Throughout the day I had my go-to food (mixed nuts), an apple and a piece of dark chocolate.

For our shared morning tea at work today I made my life easy and bought grapes and strawberries! A few other colleagues grabbed some grapes (muahaha) too so we had somewhat of an overabundance of grapes, though I’m sure they will get eaten. I also noticed that I really wasn’t very hungry nor was I remotely tempted by the food on the table which included home baking and other sweet treats.

I had a big salad for dinner tonight – I couldn’t be bothered to cook for myself again. Plus I had my left-over dinner at lunch so I felt vindicated in my decision. Feast your eyes on this lovely, colourful salad full of goodness (kale, spinach, carrots, cherry tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, bamboo shoots (ugh), beans, pumpkin & sunflower seeds topped with balsamic vinaigrette.

I have noticed that I crave food less. I also felt bloody amazing looking at my shopping trolley today (I knew I should have taken a photo!). It was pure beauty and goodness.

I’ve also invested in some quality items such as actual maple syrup & vanilla extract. Keen to try some vegan baking recipes to warm my daughter’s heart to it! I don’t think she’s too excited about her mother making this decision lol. As her dad & I share her care, I haven’t yet been able to actually talk to her about it so that conversation is yet to come!

However being the proactive parent that I am (well, when I remember to be that is) I emailed her dad to give him a heads up and recommended he watch the documentaries too. I’ll definitely show them to my daughter if she wants to see them. See how things go but I most surely do not expect her to become vegan too.

Looking over my day, I’ve had 10 veg & fruit today:

1. Kale
2. Spinach
3. Carrots
4. Tomatoes
5. Cucumbers
6. Green beans
7. Apple
8. Mixed Berries
9. Snow peas
10. Capsicum (or peppers)

Pretty decent effort I reckon! Even though I was trying to eat well previously, I still didn’t eat this amount of fruit & veg.

I’ll leave you on that note as it’s almost bedtime for me.

Gute Nacht,

Carly

I’m quickly learning that veganism is quite different for people. For some, it’s about health (like myself). For others, it’s about taking a stand against animal cruelty and killing (me too, to an extent). Many abstain from using any products with animal-derived substances in it. Some vegans are passionate about reducing their carbon footprint, wanting to make a positive impact and thus help save the planet (I do like the idea of that one too).

I’m currently still debating my feelings on honey. Should or shouldn’t I? For now, I’m going with I will. I’ll debate the pros and cons of that one at a later stage.

I have to admit I’ve felt a bit “brain foggy” today – not a very pleasant experience. Could be a hang-over from my tummy bug, who knows. Of course I consulted Google to find out if there’s a correlation between being newly vegan and being “brain foggy”. Apparently, there can be!

Some people don’t tend to eat enough when switching to a vegan diet. Interesting, this is generally not a problem I seem to have. However this could explain my symptoms.

I’m allowing myself to leave the house tomorrow after 48 hours of post tummy bug contagion-induced isolation, so I’m looking forward to grabbing some vegan goodies! Check out my shopping list:

Probably won’t buy ALL of this, but it’s a start! 

In hindsight I should have planned my meals for the next few days. Now THAT would have been smart. Oh well, guess I’ll just keep winging it for now.

My meals today (excluding breakfast – forgot to take a pic of the gooey mess of overnight oats):

LUNCH – rye bread, toasted; one with peanut butter and one with avocado, pumpkin seeds & salt (salt works very well on avocados I might add!)

DINNER – wholemeal spaghetti topped with a tomato, onion, garlic, carrot, pea, kale & spinach mixture (it was allllright but honestly not amazing)

I felt a bit peckish earlier so I munched a few dates – I love dates. Other than that I had a an apple and overnight oats today. I top it with 2 tbsp of chia seeds for Omega 3 fatty acids, fiber, antioxidants, iron, calcium & protein.

I’ve also been taking liquid, plant-based iron supplements for about a week now as I’d been feeling tired for a while and I have been anemic in the past. Other than I’ll just be buying a B12 supplement soon which will hopefully help with the brain fog too.

I must say I feel fuller more quickly and I have less cravings for sweet stuff which is unusual for me. I should probably weigh myself though I really can’t be bothered. I can usually tell anyway by the way my clothes fit. Some have been getting a bit tight so hoping that may change!

I also got an email from the Vegan Society NZ today congratulating me on doing the 21 day Vegan challenge. It entailed them sending me some recipe ideas & links to more info which is always handy to have. Now I just need to think of a way to compile all of the information I’ve been learning about.

Tomorrow we’re having a shared morning tea at work for a new colleague. I was quite keen to have a go at some vegan baking but clearly I’ll need to stock up on some basics in that area. It’s nice to know that in New Zealand, at least, white refined sugar is not bleached using animal bone char, compared to other countries.

However I’ll still aim to keep refined and processed products to a minimum in order to not defeat the purpose of the idea of eating a wholefood and plant-based diet!

Right, I’m going to make myself some overnight oats now (2tpbs chia seeds, 1 cup of frozen mixed berries, 1/2 cup of oats, 3/4 cup of soy milk, cinnamon and maybe some dates). Last night I also added some processed BUT vegan sugar-free chocolate powder into it – that was rather nice.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Carly