One Month of Going Vegan

On 1st November and after 31 days of vegan diet (I do it annually once), I ate an egg for breakfast along with a veggie sandwich. :) As mentioned in my last post, I have enjoyed this stint and hardly had any cravings. As a matter of fact, I still had my coffee with soy milk that I like quite a bit now so will continue with it. I am planning to eat eggs, chicken and seafood which are all relatively healthy and good sources of protein.

But I am definitely going to limit my dairy consumption. I will have dairy yogurt and ghee but the rest of the things will definitely be very limited. I had a good run when it came to feeling more energy, my persistent joint and body pain (courtesy perimenopause) vanished and I felt much more calm and anxiety free (again peri symptoms and COVID-19 does not help).

Going vegan worked in limiting a lot of junk food consumption in terms of chocolates, ice creams, cookies, desserts etc. as most of these use dairy. I am pretty disciplined in my diet even when I am not vegan but not having these junk foods for a month did not really trigger many cravings at all. So, I am going to keep them to a minimal.

For those of you who are wondering if going vegan is eating healthy, it is. But one has to be mindful of proteins and also certain vitamins that you will need to supplement for. Also taste could be a huge downer especially if you love your cheese, yogurt, paneer (etc.) because non-dairy options do fall short there.

Overall, eating healthy is a component of much more than following a certain diet but more about an overall approach to what you eat, how much you eat and what else is a part of your lifestyle.

Being a Ceritified Nutritionist and health coach, I love playing with these ideas. If you want to make eating healthy a lifestyle choice without eating bland, tasteless foods or following rigid, crazy diets, then reach out to me for a consultation. I promise that together we will come up with a sustainable nutrition plan for you.

So that was about it with vegan diet. As you have noticed, I will continue with a few vegan alternatives while going back to a few dairy items as well as meat choices. Of course, I am not lactose intolerant so giving up dairy is a choice for me not a compulsion.

Rachna Parmar is a Certified Nutritionist and Health Coach who is an award-winning Food and Health Blogger at Rachna cooks. Find her on Instagram.