An introduction of sorts...

Welcome to the first entry of From Meat to Veg, a blog about eating a healthy vegan diet.  Let me begin by discussing why I chose to eat a vegan diet, what it means to me, and where I've been over the last year.

My journey begins like many others before me: my doctor told me that I needed to change my diet or I was, unequivocally, going to die a rather unpleasant death.  This time last year I was 365 lbs, eating any and all crap I could find, and living a rather sedentary life style.  This wasn't the first time I heard this speech from my doctor, but this time it really resonated with me, and so my journey began.

I started by eating a high protein, low carb, low sodium, low fat diet.  I tried diets before, but the sudden fear of death had a way of really shaking me into sticking to it.  I essentially ate nothing but leafy greens and meat for a year, and I had great success.  To date I am 260 lbs, a full 105 lbs lighter than I was last year.  I feel better, get sick less frequently, and sleep better than I have most of my life.

Why change then?  To be honest with it came some rather unpleasant side effects as well, ones I won't get into too deeply here, in the spirit of politeness.  As of September I had stopped my diet altogether, and started eating all kinds of foods again.  Admittedly I missed a lot of things, most notably peanut butter and bananas (on their own or together).

I found myself slipping back into some bad, old habits, ones that I know had led to my weight gain in the first place.   So I found myself at a cross roads, go back to the high protein diet, or try something new.  I opted for something new.

I knew that I had to choose a diet that was highly restrictive, as the one thing, above all, that contributed to my consumption of high calorie foods is prepared meals at restaurants.  Choosing a diet that prevented me from eating at most chain restaurants was going to be key to my success.  I also knew that my love of dairy foods, such as cheese, and milk, was often leading me to make poor dietary choices as well.

I was introduced to the vegan diet by my girlfriend.  She seemed to have some success with it as far as weight loss was concerned, and so it seemed like a good thing to try.  Add to that my reported high levels of blood iron (presumably from eating nothing but meat for a year), and vegan seemed like the right fit for me.

I began by stopping my consumption of red meat for two weeks, after all, one doesn't become a vegan over night.  After that I moved to eliminating diary, and eggs, as well as poultry, but still eating the occasional fish.  Shortly thereafter I moved to not eating any kind of food that contains animal by-products.  Admittedly, I'm still on the fence about honey (in many vegan circles honey is also off limits).

I want to emphasize that I am not a vegan, I am eating a vegan diet.  The distinction, I feel, is important, as vegan often times implies a philosophical slant in regard to animal rights.  I still wear, and love, my leather shoes, and have no plans to break into any animal research laboratories to free the bunnies.  Don't get me wrong, I love animals, I'm just not as militaristic about it as the title "vegan" seems to imply.  As a matter of fact, I find the one thing irritates most people about vegans is how preachy and full of pointed criticism they can be.  I am not that kind of person, most of the time.

So here I am, I've been eating vegan for two whole weeks, and it's been fun so far.  I'll be sharing recipes, failures, successes, and other war stories from the vegan front as this blog goes on.

Join me next time when I will discuss vegan grocery shopping, and the dreaded vegan junk food.