The Vegan Experiment- Day 5- Over and Out

Ok, my 21 day experiment lasted 5 days.  Here's why.

Rob has a friend at work who is pretty healthy that suggested we should look into what will happen to our bodies after we come off a vegan diet.  His thought (he didn't know for sure) was that our body would store all the fats and everything from dairy and meat, since our body would think we had been starving it for several weeks.  Hmm.... that would ruin the progress, huh?

So I started googling things and found a lot of information about starting a vegan diet-- mostly that you should start it slowly.  Eliminate red meat one week, then chicken and fish the next week, then all meat, then some dairy, then all dairy.  Not just cold turkey like I did.  Also, turns out our bodies are smarter than I thought and I really could deplete my body of vitamins and nutrients in 3 weeks (or just one week!).  I wasn't planning on doing a whole lot of supplementing or looking into what types of things that I needed to be putting into my body in response to this kind of diet.  But last night I  got in bed at 8 and was completely content to stay there, which I think was directly related to a lack of vitamins and proteins.

Rob and I are still going to restrict what we eat for the next two weeks and watch everything really closely, but I think we are going to allow some dairy and some meat!

But I did learn some things from my vegan experiment:

1. It is way hard to shop vegan at a regular grocery store.  I went with a list (from google) of things like bread and pasta that were vegan, and HEB didn't have any of them.
2. Things you think WOULD be vegan are not, and things you thing WOULDN'T be vegan are.  For example, OJ with Vitamin D added is NOT vegan because the way they manufacture vitamin D involves animals somehow.  But Oreos? Vegan. I'm not really sure how you make a chocolate creme sandwich cookie without the use of dairy.  I'm pretty sure there is nothing in an Oreo that is actually food.  I still love 'em, but I'm going to remember that.  Poptarts are also vegan.
3. Those 14 letter words at the bottom of the list of ingredients on packaging?  Some of those are really gross.  I spent a lot of time googling "Is ______ vegan?".  One answer I got several times was no, it wasn't vegan because one of those things I can't pronounce is made with duck feathers and beaks.  Seriously.  How gross.

I did feel healthy and a lot lighter after doing this for 5 days, but I know I was missing some nutrients I sorely need (or at least needed to be replacing in my body).  I think I'll make a lot more concerted effort to eat vegetarian and non-dairy more often as well as eat a lot more fresh produce (no duck feathers!).  But I  might also indulge in the occasional Oreo.  So sue me.