(中文)
I categorized this post in the chit-chat section instead of fitness because I didn't try this diet for a fitness reason.
Here's why I started this journey. I participated a 30-day yoga training and there are some restrictions of diet: vegetarian, no caffeine, no alcohol, and some additional ingredients. I thought I might just go vegan so I didn't have to check only for certain things when I buy food; I was also curious if vegan diet would work for me and it's only 30 days. So there I went, no eggs, no milk, no yogurt, and no butter. The requirement for zero caffeine only referred to no tea and coffee, but I wanted to take it further hence no chocolate and no cocoa products, either. This is the frame of this 30-day special diet. The thing that scared me the most was definitely no caffeine because I am a huge coffee addict and I was really afraid I couldn't make it through day 1.
So, I tried vegan for 30 days and 30 days only. I was purely curious of how vegan diet feels like and if it's inconvenient.
(Disclaimer: all the restrictions of diet and requests for fasting were all recommendations. No students were forced to do any of these, but everyone was trying their best to participate as much as possible. We all have done as much as we could have within our capacities.)
First of all, let me show you how my daily meals looked like around that time:
I usually cook my own lunch. It all depends on what I meal prep for that week. I rarely eat out; it happens probably once every week. I try to maintain one cheat day per week where I can eat whatever I want. However, I do have snacks too often and when I do, I forget what a cheat day and my plan is. Haha.
The dinner looks light, but I didn't do it for weight control. It's because I often forgot to eat fruits and when I thought of it there was usually no room for more food. That's why I made fruits a part of my main meals, and with yogurt I also eliminated the issue of me not taking enough probiotics in my diet. Yes, I am lazy like that. However, I tended to add too much granola for its crunchy texture and it is something to keep in mind that may store-bought granolas contain too much sugar. Definitely pay attention when making your purchase.
Following I will share my diet and how my body felt week by week.
Week 1
The first few days I was really affected by zero-caffeine intake. I started dozing off between 3 and 4pm and could barely keep my eyes open at 8 or 9pm. It's a huge impact for a coffee addict like me, haha.
The first breakfast without caffeine and eggs: Banana and peanut butter spread on toast and herbal tea (I stopped having any cocoa products after this meal).
First vegan lunch: Tofu braised in tomato sauce, rice and roasted potatoes (clearing my fridge)
I had dairy-free almond yogurt, fruits and granola for dinner. Almond yogurt tastes like normal yogurt with a hint of almond and the texture is slightly thicker. It doesn't taste bad but I'm just not used to it and because of this, normally I am able to finish a container of yogurt within a week, but this one lasted me for probably more than 2 weeks, Lol. (There were a few days I couldn't have it due to fasting)
We started to reduce the amount food we ate from the 5th and 6th day for our first water fasting on the 7th day. On the 5th day we cut off added sugar, on the 6th day we cut off carbs and on the 7th day we could have only water. These are approximately what I had on the 5th and 6th day:
On the 7th day it was the very first time in my life that I tried water fasting. I felt extremely sick. I had no energy, was constantly napping, had cold sweat and could barely walk in my apartment. Some of our students had the same issues. I think most of these were caused by just my brain panicking because I've never had a day when there was absolutely no food but only water. My brain was sending me warnings to eat and that's why I had zero energy and all I wanted to was sleep. Later in the evening I really had to go to the grocery store and as I started to move my body everything slowly went back to normal. At the end of the day I was still tired but all the cold sweat and the majority of the discomfort were gone.
I lost 2 kilos in the first week. (I started at 50kg which with my height it's normally not considered as "thin" in the popular body image culture in east Asia.)
You may be wondering if it made me really hungry during fasting. The answer is not too much because we started to reduce the portion of our meals and the stomach has shrunken a lot on the day of fasting. If we were still feeling hungry just drank more water. For me, I was feeling more sickness and discomfort than hunger.
Some students and I cut down (almost to zero) added sugar after the water fasting. I realized there wasn't any specific effect of not having extra sweetness and I became so used to it that I couldn't even tell the differences of no added sugar in my diet.
Week 2
This week I was hit by inspirations and had much fun in my kitchen creating vegan food:
(Let me know if you are interested in any of the food and I'll share the recipe if I still remember it!)
One of the important things of the week was that I made my own loaf of bread. Because I didn't know if there are any animal products in store-bought toast/bread (milk or butter); I decided to make my own. It took me some time to find a bread recipe that doesn't contain butter or milk, seriously!
This bread called for vegetable oil (not margarine). It looks pretty dense because in the recipe it called for whole wheat flour but I used bread flour hehe.
This week I ate pretty well and felt energetic. I was able to do my usual workouts after yoga training.
I weighted in the middle of this week: 48.5kg.
Week 3
This week my ideas for cooking has tamed a little bit and my meals were simple. The lentil soup was one of the main meals because I made too much of it the previous week. Mostly I had chia pudding or oatmeal porridge/bars with homemade bread.
I had snacks these couple of weeks; I can't say I ate very clean and healthy, but I always made sure the snacks I purchased were vegan. I was lazy to go out and buy more snacks after running out this week, I made these super crunchy snacks form pasta:
In the last couple of days in this week we started again to reduce meal portions in preparation to the dry fasting next week and that's why I've lost some weight:
Week 4
We have done another fasting on the 2nd day of this week. It was a dry fasting which means we couldn't have anything including water. Really emptied out our stomach. We started preparing our body for this practice a couple of days ahead.
I didn't feel any discomfort during the dry fasting and I really believed that the sickness I got last time was really caused by my brain. One of our students even went skiing! I chose to stay home just in case I would started to feel sick again.
Interestingly, we weren't really thirsty, we were hungry in the last few hours and everyone was talking about what to eat after completing 24 hours of dry fasting. Lol.
I was full after having a big glass of water after the dry fasting was done. I decided to add 2 days of water fasting after the dry fasting since I didn't feel any discomfort. I wanted to see how my body would detoxify during these 3 days and I also decided to stop fasting once I feel any sickness.
In the 2-day water fasting I didn't feel hungry (magically) and I sometimes even forgot to drink water. I guess this is why I didn't experience too much detoxing going on in my body. I even thought about extending a few more days and see how long my body could handle it. (There were a student having done fasting for more than 10 days. I truly admire her!) On day 3 of the fasting I could obviously felt that my body was weaker and I got a sense of dizziness when I stood up from a low position. I then decided that 3 days were my limit.
My lowest weight in over 20 years after 3-day fasting.
It is very important what you eat after fasting. Take a small amount and light food to allow the digestive system to slowly get back to work. I had lemon water and fruits:
The thing I loved the most after 3 days without food was my super flat stomach; so flat that I couldn't tell the difference whether I flexed or not. I supposed this shouldn't be a surprise since there was NOTHING in my stomach so of course it is flat af. Haha!
I made a decision to eat very clean over the coming days until this vegan journey ends and try to keep the results after a deep detoxification (if there really was any) for as long as possible. There were the stuff I had during the last few days (almost everyday I ate the same) and I ate as much as I needed:
Coconut bean stew: Recipe
In the last 9 days I didn't work out much aside from yoga practice. I could really see how my body was affected after eating less and doing fasting. Sometimes our yoga training was pretty tiring and also my body just wasn't as strong as before that I could keep up with my workout routine after yoga practice. There was a significant difference.
This is my body weight after the last yoga practice 30 full days later:
Once I started eating my weight increased. I seriously DO NOT RECOMMEND anybody do any fasting to lose weight because the magic/result disappears immediately after you start putting food in your body. The result shown in the picture above was after eating very clean and cautious. I started to eat like I normally do and my body weight went back to normal weight within a month.
Even though I finished the last training session in the morning on the last day, I still wanted to complete full 30 days of vegan so I had a vegan Chinese New Year's Eve dinner (it happened to be on the same day as I finished my course):
My stomach was about to explode after all the food!
This is my 30-day vegan journey. The first thing I did after 30 days without any caffeine was...
Conclusion
Mindset
To be honest I didn't have to go vegan, but due to my curiosity I tried and completed 30 days of vegan diet, zero caffeine and non-alcohol. It has been very interesting and I'm so happy I have accomplished it.
It wasn't easy to go vegan; many vegan products are more expensive, haha! I also had to postpone my plan to bake croissants because for me, a croissant without butter isn't a croissant. Nor margarine or vegan butter can be considered butter; they are just not interchangable.
Besides vegan diet, there are a few extra things we were not supposed to have and that's why I haven't eaten out for 30 days. I cook all my meals (look at my loaf bread!). Having no experience in vegan has inspired me to be creative in my cooking and read the ingredients and nutrition on the labels because it's even crucial to pay close attention when practicing vegan diet.
I also had the chance to look deeper into my eating habits when I practiced fasting: if I had too much sugar? too much carbs? Do I eat only the sweetest fruits? Do I eat only what I am familiar with instead of trying new things (i.e. chia pudding)? If I overeat because I hate being hungry? The list goes on.
After the observations on myself, I love food even more! Lol. not in a binge-eating way but from a more guilt-free perspective. Food is the source of the fuel that our bodies need. In order for our body to function well and to move freely, food is where the support comes from. So eat when you have to eat, there is no need to feel guilty if you eat a little more occasionally. That's what the body need! However, make sure you know it's what your body truly needs instead of what your brain or emotion wants. What you eat is also important.
You probably wouldn't guess this. Before we started the training, the most asked questions aren't about the courses or equipment. It's mostly about food! Everyone was trying to find some space for cheating and it's surprising to see how people are obsessed with food.
About 2 weeks since we have started the course, a member asked one of the trainers: How do you face our diet after 30 days? We are asked to be vegetarian for this training, but plants are also lives. How should we see this?
Don't roll your eyes just yet.
The answer from the trainer: You are right that plants are lives. The diet restrictions of this training is to help us enhance our experience. We should be grateful for everything we put in our bodies; be grateful for mother nature for providing foods. After this training we should listening to our bodies and eat what the body needs. Afterall the first important thing in life is survival.
Physical
I felt my strength has decreased after 30 days especially the 3-day fasting and super clean and low carbs diet (probably not enough calories as well). It took me a couple of weeks training from body weight workout to re-build my strength.
As to the zero caffeine part, after the first week I became totally used to it. I couldn't tell the difference except that every time I saw my coffee maker I could feel its loneliness.
Again, please don't go vegan or extreme fasting for weight loss. I did it according to the training and out of curiosity. I went back to my normal eating habit right after finishing this course. Except for introducing slowly eggs and dairy back to my diet, I pretty much ate everything. My weight started to go up once I started eating like I normally do and the extreme 5kgs I had lost in this journey has completely taken over in 2 months. I got surprised, too! However, I love getting stronger rather than getting skinnier.
Going vegan doesn't mean that you are going to lose weight. It all comes down to what and how much you eat. If you have lots of produced foods and high-calorie items you still gain weight. Eating extremely less or fasting puts your body into survival state which slows down the metabolism and makes it easy to gain more weight afterwards and weakens your body. It's not sustainable.
Let me share with you how my fridge looks like when I prepared for Chinese New Year after the 30 days:
The super clean diet of the last week was definitely difficult in the last couple of days and that has encouraged me to prepare A LOT of food to treat myself. Lol. I just showed you that any extreme diet won't help you in the long run.
I currently have no plan for changing my diet nor going vegetarian. I am not a big meat eater and I don't feel the need to add restrictions. Food is amazing and I don't want to waste my life not trying.
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