Years of Meat-Eating & Then Plant-Based
There came a day when I knew that if I had to eat another bland chicken & rice meal I was going to hurl. I sat down for lunch, looked down at my 20,000th chicken meal, and immediately became nauseous. This was the day I knew my hankering for meat was severely depleted. What I did not know, is that it would also be the reason why I went plant-based.
After years of meal prepping chicken, steak, turkey, etc. my body was screaming for a change. Up till now, I was a pretty avid meat eater. Roughly 6 years ago, I started taking weight training much more seriously. I was focused on ditching my lean swimmer’s body for something robust and stronger.
I did what most guys in their early 20’s did, I started following diet advice from pretty much any guy online who had the body I so desperately wanted. If someone I aspired to look like recommended something, I tried it.
Not the best of habits to form. To put it simply, I was clueless. Not to mention, I was too shy and intimidated to really ask anyone for help. This is what makes social media both a curse and a blessing. I didn’t have to ask anyone. In reality, I should have.
Following this habit only lead me to years of cycling different variations of the same diet. It was mundane and flavorless, to say the least. Not only did I not learn anything, but I got nowhere with my body goals.
Injury, Recovery & Learning to Walk Again
It’s hard to be thankful, or even optimistic when we have devastating accidents or injuries that happen to us. For myself, it took quite some time before I saw any silver lining from my brain injury.
In the beginning, I couldn’t walk or stand. It made the easiest of tasks nearly impossible. It even took weeks before I could get comfortable to fall asleep in my own bed. Overall, it’s been disruptive to my life.
Not being able to walk certainly posed some issues when it came to cooking again. I could barely manage to make a bowl of cereal without being exhausted afterward. The ole chicken and rice combo were certainly out of the question.
A couple of months pass and as my recovery had strengthened, so did my optimism and gratitude. However, cooking was still an all-day event that drained on my energy and left me feeling a bit defeated and unaccomplished. I wanted to continue making progress in the gym as well as the kitchen, but the struggle was certainly real.
This brings us up to the fateful day when I lost my desire to eat my chicken meal at lunch.
With my increasing hope of a 100% recovery and a surplus amount of free time, I took to the books. I needed to work on a way to not only make the cooking process easier but also more beneficial to me as I heal. Since I could no longer walk, much less, work out like I used to, I was relying heavily on a good clean diet to keep my body in tip-top shape. After researching options to save time and energy while cooking, all while maintaining high nutritional value for healing, we made the decision to go plant-based.
Less Than One Week and I Felt Amazing
Neither of us knew how to go plant-based. We certainly had no experience with the foods commonly found in a plant-based diet either. Thankfully the recipes seemed easy enough and my partner and I were both excited to try something new. I slowly began integrating plant-based foods into our diet as our meat supply dropped.
I was in awe at just how quickly my body adapted to this new diet. Within the first week of going plant-based, I could notice positive changes happening. I never felt that sense of heaviness or bloating that came after our old diet. It’s not like this one was significantly lighter either. I still ate fairly large portions, but how it evenly filled my stomach and was digested in my GI tract was a huge improvement.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels
My energy level is consistently higher throughout the day. I No longer feel extreme hunger or cravings rush over me. I even started sleeping better, getting much deeper sleep for a full 8 hours. The first time in years I’ve been able to do that consistently.
New Diet, New Me
My body felt stronger and more equipped to recover from longer workouts and therapy sessions. I could notice I had also leaned up a bit because of how much I cleaned up my diet. I lost about 10lbs of unhealthy water and fat weight. It not only jumpstarted my metabolism but it was a nice jolt of sexual energy too. You can read more about that experience here.
Along with the changes I personally saw, these are some of the other common changes people see, or can’t see, when switching to a plant-based diet.
- Improvement in digesting
- Better sinuses
- Decreased cravings for junk food
- Lower risks for diseases like heart, liver, and Diabetes
- Lower risks for some cancers like prostate and colorectal
- A decrease in joint inflammation
- A decrease in pain, joint or back, etc.
- Improvement with cognitive function
- Better mood
Plant-based benefits on finances and time
Like most people, I was skeptical that a vegan diet could be beneficial to my health, let alone my wallet and schedule. My first concern wasn’t how to make it taste good, but how would I be able to go plant-based on a budget. For years, I associated vegan diets with fancy expensive food from places like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Is this going to break the budget, I questioned.
Turns out, you most definitely can go plant-based on a budget. In fact, once we had switched our grocery shopping to entirely plant-based we began saving money! For the number of meals I could prepare versus the number I could when we were meat-eaters, the difference in the price of groceries was astounding. We started cutting back anywhere from a $50-100/grocery trip. (Roughly $225/month or $2,700/year!)
Saving money was a huge perk. Saving time was definitely another. The time it took to meal prep went from an all-day affair down to 1.5 hours. What used to take me 6-8 hours, was now less than 2, that’s huge! This freed up my Sundays a lot and allowed me more time to relax than cook.
Oh, and the cleanup process? A piece of cake. From shopping, cooking, and cleaning going plant-based has helped to save me money, time, and energy. This is why I went plant-based and how I did it and all on a budget.
If you’re looking for resources to make your plant-based dieting easier, check out my resources page, under physical health, for a list of my favorite products to use when cooking plant-based as well as a few recipes that include my favorite vegan supplement. Perfect for any smoothie!
Want to Know More?
Are you looking for new and healthy alternatives to recharge your mood, enhance your workouts, and boost your sex drive?
Have you tried pills, drinks, or other supplements that you can’t even pronounce the ingredients of?
Photo by YesManProductions
A plant-based diet is not only safe but will also leave you feeling recharged physically and sexually.
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noah.bernard
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