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Back in March and April, I decided to challenge myself and eat plant-based for over a month. In the past, I’ve given up carbs, dairy, but I haven’t had enough willpower to cut out all animal products completely. I come from a meat-loving family, so being exposed to a plant-based diet was very foreign to me. It’s a diet that a lot of actresses swear by and I see a lot of fitness bloggers rave about its results. They all looked lean and fit so I finally bit the bullet and decided to go cold turkey for 40 days.
Here’s what happened:
PROS
I initially lost weight
The first two weeks were awesome – I lost about 8 pounds pretty quickly and I felt great!
My food creativity juices flowed
After discovering the world of Asian vegan food, it inspired me to find ways to vegan-ize a lot of my favorite recipes. Astig Vegan, Cheap Lazy Vegan, and The Viet Vegan are a few vegan Asian bloggers that are worth checking out!
It limited my sugar intake
On the plus side, aside from carbs, I wasn’t eating that many sweets. The cookies, pastries, and chocolate that I’d normally snack on had butter or dairy in it, so I had no choice but to avoid those.
I didn’t feel bloated
After eating meat and dairy, there is a heaviness I always feel in my stomach for the rest of the day. Have any of you noticed that too? As soon as I started eating plant-based, I didn’t feel bloated or “heavy” at all. It helped with my digestion and I felt lighter and more regular.
Asian food kept me sane
I knew I couldn’t live off of salad for the next month, so I discovered a few Asian vegan YouTubers where I got inspiration from. I felt more satisfied eating different types of plant-based Asian food and because I was satisfied, I didn’t binge on any supplemental snacks throughout the day.
I had to rethink eating Filipino food
Meat is almost in every Filipino recipe. In fact, pork is THE meat of choice to a lot of Filipinos. I basically couldn’t eat anything since a lot of ingredients included animal products.
Thank god I found Astig Vegan, a vegan Filipino blog based in SF, where she vegan-ized a lot of Filipino recipes. So whenever I was at home, my mom would make a separate plant-based Filipino dish for me. So if she cooked chicken adobo, I’d get tofu adobo so that I could enjoy eating Filipino food with my family. To this day, I still crave tofu adobo!
CONS
People won’t understand your new diet
Coming from a culture that’s very meat-centric, it was very hard explaining my new diet to my parents. I tried to break it down and told them I was no longer eating meat for over a month. My dad replied, “okay, you can eat fish!” I replied, “No, Dad. Seafood is considered meat too.” To this day, he still disagrees — ha!
I found that a lot of people didn’t understand eating plant-based and because of that I felt, like an outsider.
It was socially hard
In addition to explaining my new diet to my parents, it was hard explaining it to my friends. Whenever we’d eat a meal together, I’d have to make sure there’d be options for me. I especially felt bad at dinner parties when my friends cooked and I wasn’t able to eat non-vegan items that they worked so hard to make.
Luckily, my boyfriend was a good sport about the whole thing. Like my mom, I’d make a vegan and non-vegan version whenever I’d cook dinner for him. He was also open to eating completely plant-based for a few meals and he did tell me he felt really good afterward!
I carb loaded to feel satisfied
After two weeks, my weight plateaued and I started to gain weight again. I noticed that every time I ate, I relied on having some sort of carb (most of the time it was white rice) in my meal to feel satisfied.
Eating out was an adjustment
If I did go out to a non-vegan restaurant, I had to check their menu ahead of time for plant-based options. If not, I had to remind myself (which was hard) to tell the waitress to make specific arrangements for me. It did, however, open up a new world of restaurants in SF!
No changes in my skin or energy
For many people, dairy triggers acne, so I was hoping to see fewer breakouts. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any changes — I still broke out at the same time of the month (my period). I didn’t see that vegan skin glow that everyone talks about nor did I feel my energy increase.
Will I do it again? Yes, when I’m mentally ready again! I think I went into it wrongly thinking that eating plant-based automatically meant weight loss. Looking back on it, I definitely needed to add exercise into the mix and cut down on my carbs. Or maybe I need to be on the diet longer than 30 days.
