Well, it
was an interesting 31 days being a full-blown vegetarian. I accomplished my goal of thriving during my
new eating routine. I even got to finish
off my last weekend of being a vegetarian by winning a CrossFit competition, Battleat the Barracks. Now I know it is
hard for some of you meat eating, meatheads to believe that a person could eat
vegetarian and be good at CrossFit; but I’m here to tell you, it can be
done. It’s not about the source of the protein going into your body that counts, it is that there is protein going
in. When you get down to basic amino
acids it doesn’t matter if it was from beans or bovine. There were three takeaways from my month
that I’ll continue to pursue in my effort to “eat to perform”. I would recommend this basic approach to
anyone looking to change his or her eating habits or commit to any goal for
that matter.
Plan:
I think this was one of the more important factors for
completing this in the right spirit. I
made a conscious effort each day to think through about what I would be eating
for each meal and where I would be getting the food for that meal, if it was
not already prepared. As I have
mentioned in previous posts, eating out was a struggle for me during this past
month. However, when I knew we were
eating out I started running through my head what I would be able to eat and
how I could combine those foods to create a well rounded meal.
Portion (or Percentage):
I have alluded to this several times. I am now an even bigger believer in the
utility of the Zone diet. For those not
familiar with the Zone, check out Barry Sear’s webpage. I turned to a few different websites so I
didn’t have to start the food combinations for creating complete proteins from scratch. I’m a creature of habit, so once I had a few
combinations of foods I enjoyed, I would just stick with that. Another interesting thing I realized over
the past month was that I really didn’t get super full at any meal. I ways always at the point of being
satisfied, but never a food-coma type state.
Promise:
For me, this was the whole reason I ventured into eating
vegetarian. I was challenged to take
this journey and I promised that I would complete it. I had a couple extra layers of accountability
by letting people at my gym and office know of what I was doing. I’d like to think of myself as a fairly
self-disciplined person, but it never hurts to have others keeping you
accountable. For those looking to take
any sort of challenge or set a goal, ensure you surround yourself with people
who will be supportive when you need a little pick-me-up
So, that’s
it. My endeavor came to an end with a
piece of bacon crumbled up on my salad. [See the pic below, couldn't help myself] A fairly anti-climactic way for it to end, but it’s over. Although I have finished the challenge, I
still see myself eating predominately vegetarian for a while. I was amazed at how well my body felt and the
ease at which my body processed the food.
I hope you enjoyed the posts and can take some tidbits away from them.
Cheers,
Dan