And just like that, my three week vegan exploration is coming to a close. As a lot of you who have kept up with my blog may know, I have low-key struggled a lot with this journey. Between this class, an internship, and working a full time job as a camp counselor for five year olds, it was really difficult, and sometimes unhealthy to keep up with my exploration into the world of veganism.
Unhealthy??? But HOW COULD VEGANISM BE UNHEALTHY????
I'll tell you right now! Due to my inability to feed myself properly as a busy, broke, college student, I ate a lot of bad meals. As you have seen in my previous post, even with the vegan substitutions to standard menus items, my frequent trips to Taco Bell did not provide me with the proper nutrition. While I couldn't figure out the exact caloric value of my altered crunch wrap supreme because I failed math in high school, I do know a regular Crunchwrap is around 530 calories. While this sounds like a pretty decent meal, it failed to deliver in all the nutritional aspects recommended by doctors and nutritionists.
How does my meal compare?!?!
According to Livestrong.com, their ideal dinner should be around 650 calories. Although my Crunchwrap supreme is technically under the caloric goal recommended for a typical dinner, it fails all other criteria. According to livestrong.com, a healthy dinner should look like this, "Make half your plate non-starchy veggies, such as spinach, green beans or tomatoes. Two cups of raw spinach contributes 50 calories to your meal. Top it with a tablespoon of salad dressing and 4 walnut halves and you’ve added 90 calories of heart-healthy polyunsaturated fat. A quarter of your plate should come from whole grains, such as beans, brown rice or whole wheat pasta. A 2/3-cup serving of brown rice has 160 calories. Make another quarter of your plate the protein section. A 4-ounce portion of chicken, fish or lean beef has 100 calories. Prepare it with 2 teaspoons of canola oil for an additional 90 calories of healthy fat. Round out your dinner meal with a serving of fruit, such as 17 small grapes, for another 60 calories. A cup of fat-free milk brings your dinner total to 650 calories."
So as you can clearly see, that meal was WAYYY more balanced than my starch based, guacamole and mild sauce covered Crunchwrap Supreme (not to mention the fact that I literally ADD POTATOES!!!!). Not to mention the other weird meals I would eat during work like just carrots and hummus, or a literal whole bag of vegan bacon habanero chips. One of my favorite meals was Annie's brand vegan mac and cheese. This was one of my favorite meals because it was obviously delicious and I literally could not tell it was vegan, but also because it was so effortless to make. In fact....
I Only Had a Hard Time because I am Lazy
It's true. I had a really hard time with this because I am not the best at feeding myself or planning ahead. Not to mention that my mom left me unsupervised for a week and I was nervous that if I cooked I would burn the house down. All jokes aside, the only reason I had a rough time was because I was lazy and relied on quick meals like fast food or literal bags of vegan chips. I spent a lot of time reflecting on my own laziness and watching Youtuber Sam Ozkural, who is a vegan fitness model and vlogger. She posted the video below where she shared her three month update after going vegan.
My Overall Results and Thoughts
Although we had very different results overall, I could connect with her on a few key aspects. I too spent the first week being so exhausted as my body tried to adjust to the changes I was putting it through. I would crave meat and cheese often, but that did go away throughout the second week. I began the second week feeling really blah groggy, but after powering through (and modifying my Starbucks order) I felt really good the rest of my experience! Weirdly enough, I did end this experience six pounds heavier than I started. However, I attribute most of this to my frequent Taco Bell trips and the fact that I very recently turned 21 and have been indulging in my first few alcoholic beverages.
I noticed my acne got worse, and then better throughout the three weeks which was an unexpected surprise. I feel like my skin had a similar reaction as the rest of my body where it freaked out a little bit because of the sudden dietary change. But because I was eating so many veggies and drinking more water to help control food cravings, it has been extremely clear the last week.
Overall, I loved this experience. I learned a lot about the meat and dairy industry that I had been ignorantly unaware of for years, I bonded with my co workers by making them try and pose with all my vegan snacks, and I learned a lot about how simple it can be to stop or limit the consumption of animals and their by products can be. I can confidently say that after this experience I am going to continue lessening the amount of meat and dairy I consume, and hopefully I can be really good at this vegan thing one day. I'll leave you with this inspirational photo, and hope you feel inspired to limit you animal and animal product consumption as well.
