Transitioning to a Plant-Based Diet: 3 Month Update

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It has been about 3 months of eating a solid plant-based diet, so I figured it’s time for an update. I don’t have a specific start date because I slowly started adding plant-based meals to my diet, but I’m glad I changed my diet so casually. I feel like if I had a date where I “started to be vegan” it would be more stressful to stay vegan. Here is a quick update about how it’s going.

It turns out it is very easy to do, but I’m convinced that it is because I can’t really socialize in a pandemic. I would say the hardest part is the social aspect, and the dreaded question, “why are you vegan?” I don’t have a clear answer to that yet that is quick and to the point and won’t start an argument. I want to say, “it’s just how I am eating that’s all”. However, this usually sparks the follow-up question, “HOW do you do it I could never stop eating meat and dairy!” Well, I hate to say it but I felt the same before I did some research and tried it out for a few months.

I will first give an update about how I’m feeling after eating plant-based for roughly 3 months, then explain why I’m eating this way and how I’m doing it successfully.

Overall, I feel pretty darn good! I still need to work on eating enough calories as it’s hard to get used to replacing all the calories that meat and dairy can give you. I definitely feel less sluggish and my meals don’t weigh me down for the rest of the day. I am also VERY regular it’s truly amazing. Every 12 hours I’m cleaned right out (TMI, sorry). I also feel good in general that I haven’t harmed any animals, and I’m finding the more I’m avoiding meat, the more I’m grossed out by it. Not like an insane amount, I still love the smell and could easily eat it, but the other night I had a dream that someone shoved a raw chicken breast in my mouth and it made me sick to my stomach (probably because it was raw and you should never eat it raw…) but it’s weird that there’s no food in the plant world that I would feel the same disgust. I just found that kind of interesting.

Moving on to why I am still eating plant-based. At this point, it is kind of a challenge I want to show the world. My plan is to find a way to make it easy to cook flavourful food, easy to eat this way around friends and family, and easy to be strong and healthy. I think that if I am not an anorexic twig like most people view vegans as, then it would change people’s perspective on it. If it is truly a sustainable and easy way of eating, and provides enough nutrients, then I think it would be pretty cool to show people we actually don’t need animals at all, they can just be adorable frolicking creatures in nature.

And finally, how I am still eating plant-based. Meal prep is key. At least for some meals throughout the day to make your life a bit easier. For me, I have basically the same breakfast every day (overnight oats/oatmeal with a variety of seeds, nuts, berries) and the same rotation of snacks (nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruits and veggies). Then, I keep a stock pile of beans, lentils and tofu for easy protein, and always have rice and/or quinoa on hand. Garlic and onions are key for flavour, and yams and potatoes are great starchy vegetables. From there, I go to town on all other vegetables, both fresh and frozen, and make all sorts of dishes. I have a wide variety of spices and sauces to make everything taste delicious. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy to only eat whole foods, and to cook all the time – we are human after all. So I allow myself to get a few fun snacks and drinks, order in, and for special occasions I’ll try some “fake” meat and cheese.

I think the only annoying part, especially once the pandemic is over, is to constantly ask if there’s meat or dairy in the food I’m eating. Right now I’m making 90% of the food I’m eating so I know what’s going in it. It’s uncomfortable to ask at restaurants, but even more so when you’re asking friends and family who might’ve cooked for you – especially since this was such a sudden change for me. In the summer I was eating BBQ ribs and chicken thighs, and now I’m not.

It’s going really well so far, and I’m curious to see what the future holds. Once we are allowed to go to events, see our friends and travel, I wonder if I will have a hard time eating plant-based. Things are looking up though, as I found out that DAIRY Queen has a NON-DAIRY dilly bar. Can you believe that?! It’s blasphemy. Perhaps it will continue to gain popularity so it won’t be so difficult to eat however you want wherever you are. If you are thinking about going plant-based, I highly recommend starting out slow and finding some recipes that you love. Once you have enough variety and easy go-to meals, it’ll be much easier to cut out meat and dairy!

The Power of Body Awareness

I’ve reached the age where aches and pains start to become more noticeable and last longer. I remember playing with my friends as a child and always hearing the adults say how jealous they were that we were so flexible, able to run all day, and could wake up without being stiff and groggy. I never truly understood what they meant until now. I’ll be turning 26 this year which I’ve heard is the time “everything starts to go downhill” with your body. I’ve decided I don’t want to accept this, because I’m still very young and there’s a whole lot more life to live.

Perhaps it’s because I have a Degree in Kinesiology under my belt, but I tend to pay close attention to how my body is feeling and think of how I could fix it. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely ignore the dull pains and stiffness a lot of the time as we all do, but I’m becoming more and more aware throughout the day about what I am feeling and what my body needs.

Taking a short amount of time out of your day to meditate or even just to exercise is a great way to notice what’s going on in your body. Then, taking the time to stretch, or take care of muscles in whatever way they need it will keep your joints nice and flexible which will benefit your whole body. One tight or weak muscle can cause a ripple effect and lead to pain in other areas of the body. It’s truly amazing how our bodies work like a machine and if one part isn’t functioning correctly, it can mess up the entire system.

The more we stay in the habit of ignoring what is going on and what our body needs, the more dysfunctional the whole system will become. This is where it can lead to more severe issues in the future and the rest of our lives. There is a lot of room for injury in our lifetime, but if we stay on top of our physical fitness the chances of this happening will decrease and the severity of the injury can also decrease too.

I’ll use shoulders as an example. Let’s say we kept our rotator cuffs flexible and strong. If we got in an accident that would likely cause a dislocated shoulder, we might have more luck since our strong muscles will keep our shoulder joint in tact and have more range of motion before tearing could occur. Avoiding the dislocated shoulder altogether would avoid months of physiotherapy, pain management, and potential for getting a dislocated shoulder in the future. So perhaps paying attention to what seems like an insignificant part of our bodies could make a huge difference for our future.

Then when I think of old age, there are a lot of women that have osteoporosis and break bones often from falls. As we get older, it gets a little more difficult to build and maintain muscle. This is why it’s so important for us to pay attention to our bodies and give it what it needs in order to reduce the amount of pain and suffering we might endure as we get older.

So, the power that body awareness can provide is preventing a lifetime of aches and pains – by simply paying attention to what isn’t feeling right and making the choice to attend to it.

Healthy Eating: The Everyday Decision

We need to eat to survive, but sometimes the choices of food we eat are detrimental to our health. It seems obvious to say we need to make a decision every day for what we eat, but sometimes our own rationale isn’t helpful to us.

This concept of making a choice every single day for what we eat clicked with me when I was making the breakfast above. It’s not an ordinary breakfast that I would make, but I had the time so I went for it. While I was making this, I already was faced with multiple decisions. I could’ve cooked with butter, used white bread, and processed peanut butter. I could’ve sprinkled brown sugar on my apples and cheese on my eggs, but that day, I didn’t do any of that. Each of these choices seem very small and insignificant when you’re talking about one meal, but it can add up if you’re letting it happen for every meal.

Another thing that opened up my eyes was late night eating. This is a choice to make every day, and it’s up to you to decide whether you’re eating out of boredom, if you’re genuinely hungry and if so, which snack you will choose whether it’s healthy or not. It’s incredible how easy our will power can disappear when we try to justify our choices even though deep down inside, we know it’s the wrong choice.

As I started thinking deeply about this, it kind of reminded me of the KonMari method of tidying up. Where Marie Kondo says to keep things in our environment that “spark joy,” why don’t we eat things that spark joy? I know that eating junk food tastes wonderful while you’re eating it, but I’ve started to pay very close attention to how it actually affects me. Most of the time, I very much regret eating junk food. When I look at the picture above, that was something that sparked joy for me. I took the time to cook a meal for myself with several different food groups and even used my home grown fresh herbs. I felt good about all the decisions I made, and strangely enough, this doesn’t happen every meal.

Of course, this is all subjective. Some people could care less about eating healthy and just do what makes them happy in the moment. For myself, I started to imagine what it would feel like if I thought about all the food decisions I made before caving in to eat whatever is convenient. I think this applies to treating myself to junk food sometimes too. For example, if I feel like I’ve been eating really well and it’s a hot summer day, I couldn’t say no to having ice cream with my friends. Perhaps I could choose to get a small cup, or choose to go all in and accept the consequences.

I think this becomes a problem if we justify every junk food choice, because then we go down a slippery slope. “I had an apple this week, so therefore I can order pizza, eat ice cream, drink a bunch of beer and have hot dogs every day.”

With all of the choices we have to make every day in general, making appropriate food choices can seem like the last thing on our list. I can totally see how there are people who suffer from food disorders because there is just so much psychological effort to balancing what you eat, why you are eating it, what your body looks and feels like, and how it can control your emotions.

If we decide to make more choices that make us feel good despite the little devil inside trying to justify why we should choose differently, I think our psychological well-being would be just fine. I find the more I justify “bad” choices, the worse I feel about what I eat. So why don’t I just make healthy choices more often so I feel really good about what’s going in my body?

I’m going to pay more attention to what my thoughts are for the food choices I make and if I truly feel good about choosing them. I’m thinking that this will cause me to make more healthy food choices than if I stay in the habit of not thinking before I eat.

Every time we are hungry, there is a decision to make. If we take a second to think about eating things that truly make us feel good about ourselves, whether it’s healthy or not, I think it will help our psychological well-being in the long run.

The First Run – Training for a 10k

Oh god. My friend asked me to do a 10k run with her at the end of June. They have made it a virtual race, meaning the warm up will be done on Facebook live, the free merchandise will be mailed to us, and they will post the route prior to the day of the race… then I suppose we will just record our time? It’s cool to see how everyone is trying to adapt to COVID-19.

Anyways, I am not a runner. I enjoy strength training and can sprint while I’m playing sports, but long distance running is not my thing. I told my friend I could maybe handle a 5k run, which is an option, but I kind of want to challenge myself because I pretty much don’t have an excuse. I have a running buddy, I have all the time in the world, the weather is beautiful, and I have an end goal.

I immediately got my inhaler prescription renewed (which was expired for two years… what can I say, I hate cardio so therefore I tend to avoid it). I dusted off my old runners and planned the flattest route I could think of around my neighbourhood. My friend is planning a running schedule for us starting on Monday, but I had to test out just how bad my cardio was.

This morning I woke up, didn’t even look at my phone, warmed up a bit then began walking towards my path. I didn’t bring my phone or music or water or anything because I didn’t want to complicate the process – this will need to be fine-tuned later on. And so, I began a light jog.

I felt like I weighed 500 lbs. I could feel every part of my body dragging me down, confused that it wasn’t sitting on a couch. My muscles didn’t know how to wake up, and my spine just wanted to crumple into a terrible posture. I had lead feet and my knees were weak. How have I let my cardio go so far downhill?!

After a very, very short amount of time, I began to walk. I continued this method of running a little, then walking a lot, the whole way. It was quite painful in all sorts of ways. I was thinking back to when I played soccer and volleyball in high school, and how good my cardio was. However, back then I wasn’t very strong. So now I am somewhat strong but have terrible cardio. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I was both strong AND had good cardio?! Hmm… perhaps that could be a reality.

By the end I was completely out of breath and it had only been about half an hour. I did some long stretches when I got home, feeling good that I gave it a whirl. Not to mention, it was a gorgeous morning so I’m also glad I went outside.

I looked up “best breakfast to have after a run” for further motivation and excitement, even though I already know what my body needs. I chose the oatmeal and peanut butter option, topped with vanilla greek yogurt, cinnamon, and sliced banana. This happens every time I’ve tried to get into running. I get all excited and motivated for a couple of days until I realize it’s super not fun. I even made green tea… which is probably the last thing I would choose to drink in the morning, but I know it’s good for me.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to seeing my proper running schedule that I’ll do with my friend. She will be the person I need to keep me motivated and we can push each other to reach our goal. This just may be my chance to actually run a 10k.

Getting Past the Discomfort of Exercise

No matter what fitness level you are, your mind will always try to resist exercising in one way or another. However, it’s much more difficult when you are getting started after a long period of not exercising. The excuses come flowing in, in all sorts of ways.

For me, it’s difficult to get the same feeling after a home workout as I do after a sports game. Whether I’m playing basketball or soccer, I don’t have time to think about how awful the cardio is feeling. When I go for a run, I am ONLY thinking about how awful the cardio is feeling. This is why I need to make exercise more fun and exciting especially during quarantine, rather than dragging myself into something and half-assing it. Here are some things I have come up with that might also help you distract yourself from the discomfort of exercise:

1. Wear your favourite exercise clothes

This might seem unimportant, but it makes a huge difference at least for home workouts. I’ve noticed that when I try to exercise in the morning wearing my pj’s and in bare feet, I just don’t try as hard because it feels like I should still be lounging around. If you have a hard time making the move to find exercise clothes, try taking them out the night before so you don’t even have to think about what you’re going to wear. Go as far as wearing your favourite socks and sports bra… Whatever will make you feel 10/10.

2. Create an awesome playlist

If you tell me that you don’t have any songs that give you an abundance of energy, I absolutely wouldn’t believe you. Take the extra 5-10 minutes to create a playlist for yourself with songs that you know will get you in a good mood. When you hear a good beat or start to sing along, I guarantee your energy will change instantly.

3. Choose your environment wisely

Doing a home workout can be hard when you are used to relaxing or cleaning the area that you are in. That’s why I think it’s worth taking a minute to set up your exercise space as best as you can. If you own an exercise mat, put it down on the floor even if you might not use it. Put away all distractions and give yourself the space to be able to move around freely. Alternatively, exercising outdoors is a great way to get fresh air and some nice scenery to look at.

4. Start simple

Being fit and healthy doesn’t happen over night, but any small steps you take will contribute to your health. Sometimes, I overwhelm myself with everything I should be doing when really I should just focus on something that will get me moving. Some days I will just put music on and dance… by myself… whether I’m cleaning or just feeling down. Other days I will just choose 3 exercises and only do them one time through. Even going for a walk has benefits – although it might be low-intensity, it still helps lift my mood and clear my head.

5. Pay more attention to how you feel afterwards

It’s easy to finish exercising and immediately go and get something to eat, or start doing tasks you want to accomplish for the day, or sit down to watch TV. I often forget how good I feel after exercising because I am focusing so much on what I should be doing for my workouts, or feeling guilty if I haven’t exercised in a while or my workouts haven’t been as hardcore as I thought they should be. I think it’s important to take a moment after you exercise to notice how your thoughts have changed, how good your joints and muscles feel, what food you want to eat (I am usually more likely to eat healthy after exercising), and how proud you feel about what you just accomplished.

All in all, I believe it’s possible to minimize the initial discomfort of exercising by using these strategies. Once you get past this discomfort and become more fit, the discomfort won’t seem so bad.

The Struggle of Staying Fit

It seems like it takes a fair amount of effort to stay fit in our society. Obviously more so if you have a rather sedentary job that requires little to no physical labour. It’s a fact that the more active you are, the more energy you have to be more active. In my opinion, having a sedentary job is a pretty big determining factor if you have the energy to workout after work. That being said, it sounds like the best solution is to workout before work to get it out of the way, but then you have to wake up earlier to have enough time to do a workout and shower… after a terrible sleep from being stressed and inactive. It’s easy to be stuck in a cycle of excuses and negative thinking. Not to mention, not having a strong reason as to why you need to stay physically active makes it even harder to stick to a routine.

Know your “why”

If you don’t have a very convincing and good reason as to why you want to keep up with your physical health, I guarantee that you will not do anything. Think of the reason why we go to work. We must have a pretty convincing “why” since we do our best to go in every day of the week. Maybe it’s because you need to make money to survive, or you don’t want to get fired, or you are working with a coworker on a project – these are just a few reasons why we go to work.

I have struggled with having a solid “why” for staying physically active. I genuinely enjoy sports for the social and competitive aspects, but as an adult I have to go out of my way to find and pay for a sports league. I have paid for gym memberships, yoga classes, other fitness classes, recreational sports etc because I know that if I don’t have all of these obligations, I will not stay active. I used to be a personal trainer for a few years so I would workout between clients because I was already there and had nothing better to do. Now that I’m in quarantine, it has become very apparent that I don’t have a strong enough “why” to stay active.

I am not overweight, I don’t have any health issues, I am fairly strong (which may slowly diminish if I don’t do anything about it) and there is no need for me to have good cardio as I don’t have physical labour to do. However, there is still a little fire inside of me that thinks that if I don’t create good habits now, I will not be healthy when I am older. The small little voice I have in the back of my head will whisper the “why” to me every now and then to get me back on track. Ashley, you do not want osteoporosis, heart disease, or to be confined to a wheelchair when you are older.

Make it a habit

Somehow, I manage to brush my teeth every morning and every night. I have been doing this my whole life and thus, it has become a habit. So why didn’t physical activity stay as a habit? Well, in high school you sit in desks all day, then plan to drink with your friends on the weekends, and only some people stay in organized sports. When I was in school, there were only a few people that consistently went to the gym, and I was not one of them. I stuck to sports which is good, but I didn’t do it for the reason of being fit. I just liked the game and hanging out with friends.

In university, you sit in class all day then plan to drink with your friends on the weekends… or weekdays. It’s strange to me that growing up, we never really cared about each other’s physical health. I’m not sure what it’s like now, but it would be amazing if it was “cool” to go to a Zumba class on Friday night with your friends, or to ask your peers what they have been doing to stay physically active.

I think in order to make a habit out of physical activity it’s important to make it a part of your routine at the same time every day, but I think it’s MORE important to surround yourself with supportive people. I have a few friends that I can rely on who enjoy being active or who count on me to do something active. If you currently don’t have a support system with the same desires as you, maybe find people online who constantly support each other in their weight loss journey, or who just generally want to stay fit and healthy.

Do whatever it takes

When I find myself in a sedentary rut, the first thing I do is reach out to my fit and healthy friends, and ask them what they’ve been eating, what they’re doing to stay active, or even just ask them to go on a hike to get started. I will look at healthy recipes, google some workouts, or watch some inspiring YouTube videos on how to stay fit and healthy. Once I am fully convinced as to why I should continue to work on my physical health, I am a lot more likely to get up and do something to get back on track.

The other day, a good friend of mine who I often turn to for fitness advice said to me “just do something simple for 10 minutes – squats, lunges, push ups – as soon as you wake up.” This sounds really simple to do, but I needed her to say that to me because of how I overthink things sometimes. In my head, I need to eat beforehand to fuel my body, do a proper 30-60 minute workout, have something to eat after my workout, shower, and eat healthy for the rest of the day otherwise it wasn’t worth it. That is A LOT of pressure to put on myself every single day, which is why I get into these inactive ruts. The most important thing for your physical health is literally to just move. It’s not a big deal if you don’t eat before, or if it doesn’t make you sweat, or if it’s not a proper workout regimen with sets and reps… just do whatever it takes to move every day.

Support each other

I think that anything is possible with the support of others. I would love to read your comments about how you are staying physically active, especially during quarantine, and any other tips you may have to maintain a consistent routine.

Intermittent Fasting

My boyfriend and I had been doing a lot of research on this concept, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a bandwagon everyone was hopping on. It wasn’t until I attended a Personal Training conference until I fully understood what this meant.

We had a doctor (I wish I remember her name, but I can’t at the moment – this was years ago) speak about the importance of limiting your eating hours to at least below 12 hours per day. I think the name of it can sound a little intimidating and misleading, but all you do is work on fasting an appropriate amount of time to help balance out your metabolism.

Before I looked into this research, there would be days that I would eat as soon as I woke up, say at 7:30am, then I would be eating throughout the day until about 11:00pm before I went to bed. That’s 15.5 hours of letting your insulin go all over the place. I can’t even imagine how messed up it would’ve been in university… binge drinking all night then having pizza at 4:00am? Yikes. Insulin is meant to come in and do its job by lowering your blood sugar levels, then leave and carry on with its day. It is similar to when we think of the hormone, cortisol – the stress hormone – where it is supposed to enter the body when you are stressed (being chased by a tiger) and then leave as soon as you are safe. But with our lives that we live, it’s quite often that cortisol stays in our bodies in small doses all of the time.

Anyways, back to insulin. What I learned from this keynote speaker, is that your metabolism works like your circadian rhythm, our biological clock letting us know when it is time to sleep or wake up. Eating for long periods of time completely throws off your metabolism and doesn’t do what it’s supposed to while you are sleeping. You want to make sure there is a set period of time when insulin enters the body and has time to lower for at least 12 hours.

An interesting study that she told us about was when they tested this on rats. They gave the same amount of calories, same food, to two different groups of rats. One group ate within 9 hours, and the other group ate within 15 hours. The first group who ate in a shorter amount of time actually gained lean muscle mass and lost fat mass, whereas the other group lost lean muscle mass and gained fat mass. She said eating in a shorter time interval is MORE IMPORTANT that WHAT you are eating. There have been studies showing that eating in short time intervals has incredible benefits on the body and can even help add years to your life.

My experience with intermittent fasting

I have always been someone who eats breakfast immediately in the morning. I couldn’t think of a good time period to choose in the day because I also like snacking after dinner. They say that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, but after learning more about this concept, it’s more so that “your first meal is the most important meal of the day” which is also technically a ‘breakfast’ because you are breaking your fast. So I decided to try and keep my eating hours between 12:30pm and 8:30pm.

The first day was tough just because I had always thought I would pass out if I didn’t eat immediately after I woke up. I was definitely feeling hungry, but thankfully I was at work and could focus on that while I was secretly starving. My first meal was my lunch at 12:30pm and from there, I packed more snacks than normal because I thought I was going to die or something. I found I was more hungry because I was missing about 300 or so calories that I would normally have in the morning. I also found it difficult to stop eating at 8:30pm, so a couple of times I would eat a bit later and felt okay about it. As long as I at least stayed with eating in less than 12 hours, I knew it would benefit me.

The next few days became easier, but I was struggling to remember to eat snacks throughout the day. I was only eating lunch and then dinner, so I would be hungry for the rest of the evening. I think a big part here is to still consume enough calories, but just in a shorter amount of time. I watched a few YouTube videos on people who are into this, and I found the big body builders who would eat 4000 calories in 2-4 hours… That was not very motivating and seemed terrible. So I did my best to make bigger meals and add more snacks in between.

The end result

What I noticed is I actually felt more focused in the mornings. I read up on this and apparently this is because your body enters “survival mode” from the long period of fasting, so it’s as if I’m on high alert to find food. I thought that was pretty cool. The first meal also always tasted so amazing, so I enjoyed my lunches a lot more. I lost about 10 lbs doing this and found that I was sleeping better. I feel liberated knowing that I won’t pass out if I don’t have breakfast immediately after waking up. I remember being at friends’ houses after staying the night and no one would even think about breakfast for 1-2 hours after waking up. I felt pressure to not complain, yet all I wanted to say is “so what are we having for breakfast?”

I still to this day make sure I am eating within 12 hours. I know that it is a better idea to start eating early and finish early so you aren’t consuming calories right before bed, but that just hasn’t worked for me. Ideally I would eat at 8:30am and finish eating at 4:30pm, but I find this difficult because it’s hard to eat snacks sometimes while I’m working… it can get very busy. So on most days, I will just have a black coffee, head to work and have my first meal at lunch. On days that I have off, I still enjoy making a nice breakfast, but it’s usually a bit later in the day around 10:00am.

I would recommend that everyone try to at least keep their eating to below 12 hours per day, and if you are already doing this – good job and keep it up!