What I Learned From Plant-Based Eating
Like many people, we watch Netflix from time to time in our household. My wife had been telling me about an interesting documentary called The Game Changers. I watched the preview of it and decided to check it out. I didn't know what to expect but it prompted me to try something different along with a better understanding of vegan dieting.
I took notes during the film to conduct my own research once it was over. One article that I found was posted on The National Center for Biotechnology Information/ U.S. National Library of Medicine's site linking their information to plant-based dieting. It talks about both the benefits and concerns with plant-based eating. I'm not going to go into facts or what it says about the diet, but you can check out the link which I highlighted above in yellow. You can find some decent information there. Don't worry... You won't wish you had those 5-10 minutes of your life back after reading it. 😃
I gave plant-based eating a shot several weeks ago. I didn't slowly take myself off animal-derived foods either. If you decide to switch to this type of dieting or any other type of diet, you can do a sudden switch or slowly switch over based on what works best for you. It wasn't that difficult for me to switch since I was already consuming a good amount of vegetables, nuts and seeds with very little chicken and ground turkey as my protein source. I did go with the veggie burger patties (grillers) by MorningStar Farms which are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G by the way! The only downside that I noticed is that they contain egg whites and have some soy listed in the ingredients.
After two weeks of what I thought would be torture from not eating any meat, I noticed some positive changes. There was a noticeable increase in energy that lasted throughout the day. Even on the days when I worked out in the afternoon, I didn't feel like I was dragging for the remainder of the day. The ability to maintain my focus on tasks did increase as well. There was no brain-fog whatsoever.
What about Macros? I was previously in a calorie deficit before cutting meats to get a headstart for my next powerlifting competition. After substituting the animal products for veggies, my weight began to go down a faster rate while maintaining my daily water intake of 1 gallon. The reason I mention the weight cut is this: Carbs have been deemed as the bad guy for a long time. Now, we can agree that many veggies contain higher amounts of carbs and even protein than fat. They're too often associated with weight gain, but that shouldn't always be the case and it wasn't for me. If you're considering the vegan route for weight loss, keep in mind that the calories in should still be less than calories out (expending or burning).
The cost of groceries did go down as expected too! Buying meats can get expensive especially when you have growing children to feed. What if you just don't like vegetables? Squeeze your nose and eat them as fast as possible! Okay, I'm kidding! I didn't eat very many veggies growing up nor did I like them, but I love them now. To get around the flavor or texture thing, you can add veggies that don't have too strong of a flavor to fruit smoothies. Kale and spinach are probably the easiest veggies to blend in fruit smoothies where you can actually enjoy the flavor of your favorite fruit.
Thinking about doing the plant-based thing? I encourage you to give it a shot unless you're allergic to every veggie from A to Z. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. I'm just not sure why I didn't switch over sooner! 😃