I've adopted a vegetarian diet. I do plan to work my way up to a vegan diet, but I plan to use up the non-vegan stuff in our house first.
A recap of the last 4.5 days?
For dinner, we've had...
taco salad - with beans and corn, and pureed and watered down salsa for dressing, I made ground beef for Justin
quesadillas - with spicy Mexican hummus and zucchini and it was delicious!
fried cauliflower and mashed potatoes - This was not filling enough. I was starving later in the night.
veggie pasta - With coconut milk, veggie broth, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli. Justin picked out the veggies but he still ate the pasta without cheese on it! And he fried up his own chicken to add to it too.
veggie burgers - (for dinner tonight, technically haven't eaten them yet) I made and froze homemade veggie burgers forever ago and I'm pretty sure I used a real egg instead of a flax egg in them. Gotta look into vegan cheese slice options. I do love me some pepper jack on a veggie burger. But tonight I plan to add a tomato slice to distract myself from the lack of cheese.
The instant mashed potatoes had milk product in it to begin with, plus I actually made it traditionally with milk and butter because my husband was going to be eating it for his meal (he just had a tooth pulled and it was the only thing he wanted to eat, so I thought I'd make it the normal way for him instead of pissing him off by using coconut milk and margarine).
I've had honey several times. But I did buy agave nectar and plan to use it after my honey is gone, which might be awhile because I literally just bought some local honey at the farmer's market the week before I did the challenge.
I'm pretty sure I had something else processed with milk in it too, but I cannot remember what.
But I'm very happy with how the week has gone. I used to have 1/2-1 cup of milk with breakfast, cheese on my salad at lunch, milk and egg in my dressing, cheese sticks and cottage cheese and yogurt for snacks, and meat and dairy for dinner.
I always feel proud after meals now. I really do view food more like fuel than just yummy stuff to pass the time.
My husband wants to go to Red Lobster for our anniversary at the end of the month and I'm very conflicted on whether I should have crab legs. I love crab legs. No doubt. And butter. Mmm. Not sure what I'm going to do there just yet...
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I am now a super fan of dairy free ice cream. So Delicious Cashewmilk Dark Chocolate Truffle is the best thing ever! Tastes just like ice cream. Seriously. I even fed it to Justin and he said it was good too!
I am avoiding cheese. I know it's addicting. I bought some vegan cheese and I'll just try to stick to that. My husband is in charge of eating all the real cheese that's in the freezer haha. I'm not sure what the plans will be once we go through all of that though. I haven't made Justin try any vegan cheese yet, so I'm unsure he'll like it. Even though he says "all cheese tastes the same," I'm thinking he'll be okay if we fully switch to vegan cheese one day in the distant future after we use up the pounds of regular cheese in our freezer! For real. there is so much cheese in the freezer. Yes, the vegan cheese is more expensive, but I'm not using it in every single thing like I would regular cheese, so I think it will all work out okay.
Justin usually prefers margarine to butter in the day-to-day, so I think the switch to vegan butter after we use up our regular butter isn't going to be too bad.
We have refrigerated cinnamon rolls and biscuits that are not vegan and need to be eaten soon.
We have cream cheese, Parmesan, cheese snack sticks, and yogurt that need to be given away. Like I said, I don't want to have any cheese for fear of going right back to eating it again.
I'm sure there are dressings and other sauces that are not vegan, but I think we'll just continue using those up until they're gone. Then find alternatives once we need to repurchase. Now, my favorite dressing ever in the whole wide world is not vegan, so I have begun the hunt to try vegan salad dressings.
A cool thing I've noticed about doing the dishes... Things are much easier to clean up. You don't have cooked on cheese or meat that needs to be scrubbed endlessly. It makes you think, if these things are making my pans look like this, what are they doing to my insides?
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Okay, now let's talk about some cool changes! I said I didn't feel any better after one week, well
two weeks is a different story, guys!
Let's first talk about my skin. I have oily skin. I have oily days and super oily days. I don't have normal skin days and I definitely don't have dry skin days. This has been the case ever since I can remember. This week, I've noticed my skin has been normal, maybe even dry. (maybe I just think it's dry because I'm so used to being covered in a layer of oil?) And it's the middle of summer. It's hot and humid and yucky and my skin has felt great!
Ever since my first pregnancy, I've had acne on my upper arms. Never had it before that in my life. It didn't go away between pregnancies, it's just always kind of been there for nearly three years now. Well, this week, I can see it is clearing up. It is not 100% gone, but it is totally clearing!
Now if these things are happening on the outside of my body, just imagine what good this diet is doing to the inside!
I get migraines, I get headaches, usually a couple times per week when I'm not pregnant. (Pregnancy is the best because I suffer from sooo many fewer headaches throughout!) I've had two headaches in the two weeks since I've changed my diet. Both came at the end of the day and I had to sleep to make them go away. For one I used a warm, damp washcloth, which is my go-to for migraines. So I'm not going to claim it is a reduction based on the diet just yet. If I can go a month without a major migraine, I might attribute it to the diet, but we'll just have to wait it out, I guess.
One downside? I feel like I could eat all day. I keep feeling like I'm starving. I know I need to up my calorie intake, but I'm just not sure what I want to snack on. I need to look into more healthy snack options (I used to snack on dairy a lot). And I know I could snack on any fruit or veggie, but I just haven't been good about packing stuff for work, in particular.
I have lost 2.5 pounds now and although that makes me happy, I know I need to find a balance for weight loss and not feeling like I'm starving all the time. I am breastfeeding and I need to make sure I have enough calories to keep making milk and taking care of myself.
Speaking of breastfeeding, I have a 2.5 month old son, Eren. Eren has been a fussier baby than his big brother Calvin was. I know babies grow out of these things with time and every baby is different, but I can't help but notice how much happier he's been just in the last week or so, primarily in the last few days, like Sunday onward. I really do wonder if my diet change has helped his little belly and made him feel better! Now if that's the case, that might be one of the coolest changes I've noticed in this very short amount of time.
So that's the update guys. I hope you enjoyed.
Love,
Alaina
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