Hello!
Today I'm going to talk about my year of not eating meat and also touch on how I got here...
I first gave up
eating meat in the fall of 2009. I had
just finished reading The Kind Diet and it hugely inspired me to give it up cold
turkey. That lasted until the spring of
2011. My husband and I were marathon
training and I got sick a month before the marathon. But really it was just exhaustion that seemed
to be plaguing me. I just felt really
off and in all honesty I was worried that it was because I went vegan a year
and a half ago. The one difficulty I had
faced when I embraced a vegan diet was the criticism of others. Not that they were being mean – just that
they didn’t understand my decision. It
was really easy for me to read The Kind Diet and find all the reasons for going
vegan to be so inspiring. I wanted to
feel that good, I wanted to help the planet, and I loved (still, of course) my
dogs and eating meat just didn’t correlate with loving the wonderful
furry creature that was part of my family.
So my point is that when I started to feel lethargic and just rundown for
more than a month, I got worried. And my
diet was the first thing I looked at.
My husband and I
were both vegan at that time so together we made the decision in the spring of
2011 to incorporate some meat back into our diet. I started with once a week because it was
really hard for me to go without eating meat for that long and then eat it
again. I remember the first time I ate
chicken for the first time since giving it up and it was so strange. I hadn’t missed it, but I was eating it
because I wanted to feel my best. I know
some may criticize me for my decision to eat meat again at this time, but for
me, it was something I had to test out to see if it really made a difference. Maybe I had too many people tell me that I
needed to eat meat to be healthy and I hadn’t found this wonderful blogging community yet, so I didn’t have nearly as much knowledge as I do now.
From the spring of
2011 until December 2012, I ate meat.
Not lots – probably chicken once a week and a burger once a month. Emotionally I didn’t feel right about it, but
during that time my husband and I moved twice, started two new jobs, and
planned a wedding. So I guess I can just
say that I was very preoccupied with other areas of my life and it wasn’t my
focus. And I was feeling
better. But I do not think it was from
eating meat.
However, by fall of
2012, I was feeling bad. My sinuses were
a mess to the point where I felt loopy and I just felt so tired. I didn’t have the energy to run and I just
didn’t feel like me. Also, I had been
researching Macrobiotics for a while at this point and I jumped right in. Along with sticking to a Macrobiotic diet, I
used my vegan base. Starting January 1,
2013, I gave up meat (for the second time).
It’s been a year without eating meat now and I haven’t missed it a
bit. This last year has really pushed me
away from it and I can’t envision ever eating it again. It just wouldn’t feel right. Also, I trained for a marathon spring/summer of 2013 and it was wonderful.
I ran the best 20 miler of my life all on a beautiful meat-free
diet. There’s no saying why I felt so
tired that spring of 2011 when I was marathon training. Maybe my body was just exhausted from training. I’ll never know.
Eating a meat-free diet is really easy. I grew up eating meat almost every night of the week as a kid so I know it might sound like a crazy concept to someone you has meat as the basis of each meal. My husband still eats meat here and there when we go out to a restaurant or if we go to someone’s house and they are serving meat. But in our house, there is rarely meat because we tend to make meals we can both eat. We eat a lot of beans, tofu, and whole grains. The transition can be made and it’s a fantastic one. Try tacos with textured vegetable protein or just rice and black beans! Add some daiya, salsa, and guacamole and you’ll never miss the meat in a burrito. It’s an adjustment, but the benefits for me way outweigh the downsides.
Good old veggie sub |
Tell me your thoughts!
Have you read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer? If not, it is WONDERFUL.
ReplyDeleteFirst off - congrats on your anniversary! Don't let anyone tell you you shouldn't be doing this!
ReplyDeleteOne thing - the statement "Eating a meat-free diet is really easy. " For you it is easy, and for ME it is easy ... but since a vegan diet depends on beans, nuts and plants ... if you have someone who has a sensitivity to beans, allergies to every nut type out there, and difficulty with tree-based and some other plants ..well, then in order to get a balanced diet it is much more of a challenge. Just a thought! Something I have struggled with in cooking these last couple of years, and am going to write about soon.
Congrats on a meat free year :) I agree that it can be pretty easy to go meat free -- at this point, I don't even see it as food. It's not something I want or crave, it might as well be a chunk of wood or wax to me, ya know?
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on a your meat free year and thanks for sharing your story! I'm experimenting with eating meat again after a few years vegetarian. While I do feel healthier with some of my food choices, I'm not convinced that adding meat back in has made me a healthier person. I think I'll keep experimenting like you did until I find what works best for me :)
ReplyDeleteThis is great and I'm glad you had a great meat-free year. Here's to many more. Your fave meal looks SO good. I totally need to try me some sesame tofu. I definitely couldn't even imagine eating meat ever again - and I really can say that confidently! Tyler only eats seafood the odd time, but it's usually only when we're down in Florida, so it's fresh, but even then, he wants to cut it out and be solely vegan.
ReplyDeleteWe eat a lot of tofu, black beans, tempeh, rice, and lentils. I want to expand my horizons and start using more (like mung beans, and such!). I just love that I DON'T feel limited on a vegan diet, even though that is the impression that a lot of people assume (or perhaps are just limiting themselves in their minds). The possibilities (and combos!) are limitless on a vegan diet. In my opinion ;).