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Last year my wife and I made the switch to a (mostly) vegan diet. We let ourselves eat meat at Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc but did not even have butter or honey at home. Between eating healthy and exercising regularly, we were doing really well. I was not quite the skinniest I've ever been, but probably in the best shape I've ever been overall.

Then we got pregnant. My wife's cravings and her odour sensitivities made a vegan diet a no-go.

Since our wedding in February and the baby in July, I've quit my second job to have more time with my wife and our baby, which has me a lot less active. My wife is still healing and is generally exhausted from taking care of the baby while I'm at work. We have eaten bbq and pizza all summer, and had three thanksgiving dinners this year.

We had a wedding to go to on Saturday and I found that couldn't fit into my suit anymore. Even my neck has gotten fatter and I couldn't even fit into the shirt I wore to our wedding.

I weighed myself Sunday morning and checked my body fat percentage and both are the highest they've ever been.

But. I recently started doing Zombies, Run! 5K training again (hadn't done it in almost two years, basically since I had completed it).

I've been trying to get us both back on a mostly vegan diet for a while now (since the baby was born we've still eating vegan about 3-4 times a week) and now we've agreed is the time to really get back into it and start cooking with TVP and Nutritional Yeast and whatnot instead of meat and cheese again.

And my wife and I bought eachother new fitbits as our early Christmas presents to one another.

So anyway, I'm updating my instagram with every morning run, which is basically every other day, and I'll update here once a week with weight and body fat updates.

Sunday, October 21,2018

212lbs
27% body fat

Good luck!

Seconded! It was really hard to remember to find time to take care of myself when Li'l Z was an infant. It took over a year to lose the baby weight. I think you guys can do it once you find a way to balance your time with her development, and support each other.

I’m-a say right now, if your goal is to improve health/reduce weight/have more energy, etc., then going Vegan will NOT accomplish these goals by itself. Even eating a strictly Vegetarian diet (reallowing yourself the use of leather/silk goods, makeup, i.e. only doing “the food parts” of Veganism) will not be enough on its own.

That said, if you’re comfortable with the Vegan lifestyle and are willing (and able) to put in the money and effort required to overcome the relevant dietary shortcomings (proteins, B12, etc), it CAN be done, it just requires that extra attention to make sure you compensate for the deficiencies.

Just please, PLEASE remember to also put at least as much effort into doing things like reducing stress, shrinking your sedentary time, getting enough sleep, and spending family time together. These are things which frequently get neglected, but which can have just as much impact on your health as would diet and exercise.

—Patrick

PatrThom said:

I’m-a say right now, if your goal is to improve health/reduce weight/have more energy, etc., then going Vegan will NOT accomplish these goals by itself. Even eating a strictly Vegetarian diet (reallowing yourself the use of leather/silk goods, makeup, i.e. only doing “the food parts” of Veganism) will not be enough on its own.

That said, if you’re comfortable with the Vegan lifestyle and are willing (and able) to put in the money and effort required to overcome the relevant dietary shortcomings (proteins, B12, etc), it CAN be done, it just requires that extra attention to make sure you compensate for the deficiencies.

Just please, PLEASE remember to also put at least as much effort into doing things like reducing stress, shrinking your sedentary time, getting enough sleep, and spending family time together. These are things which frequently get neglected, but which can have just as much impact on your health as would diet and exercise.

—Patrick

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Yeah, we are aware of what we need to do to be healthy vegans, which is why we buy B12 enriched soy milk and nutritional yeast, and eat lots of lentils, chickpeas, and TVP. But like I said, it's a MOSTLY vegan diet. My wife makes more concessions than I do.

We've already done this once before, we just fell off the wagon for a while. During pregnancy, the nutritional yeast, B12 supplements, and a good number of vegetables we rely on with a vegan diet, all made my wife vomit from the smell.

When we first made the switch last year, we both noticed a new abundance of energy after just a couple weeks. I have a milk allergy and my wife is lactose intolerant, so cutting out dairy is good for us either way. I found I had to take my allergy pills a lot less frequently and I went from 7 cups of coffee a day to 2 and didn't even suffer from caffeine headaches. My wife similarly found she had a lot less stomach issues. Only heavy cream ever gives her a noticeable reaction, but cutting out cheese and butter and milk proteins made her realize that even those were having an effect, just a much more subtle one.

You said you were living the lifestyle before, so I assume you knew what you were about, but there are Vegans, and then there are Vegans, y’know? And I wasn’t sure where you fall on that scale.

That stuff about not neglecting your mood, sleep, and family time, though? I mean that. It’s like mental health treatment, where you might think, “I feel fine, why should I still have to watch my mood/sleep/etc?” and be tempted to go off your “meds.” Well...don’t.

—Patrick

PatrThom said:

You said you were living the lifestyle before, so I assume you knew what you were about, but there are Vegans, and then there are Vegans, y’know? And I wasn’t sure where you fall on that scale.

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No I didn't. I said "a mostly vegan diet." which is how I always word it, because we are most definitely not living the vegan lifestyle. Hell, my shoes, bag, belt and wallet are all leather.

Is that why you lost your vegan powers?

checkeredhat said:

No I didn't. I said "a mostly vegan diet." which is how I always word it, because we are most definitely not living the vegan lifestyle. Hell, my shoes, bag, belt and wallet are all leather.

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I've known people that prefer to say a "plant-based diet" because it avoids all the other stuff that goes with vegan

Dave said:

Is that why you lost your vegan powers?

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It was all that chicken parm and gelato.

Gelatoooo

Ravenpoe said:

I've known people that prefer to say a "plant-based diet" because it avoids all the other stuff that goes with vegan

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Yeah. If you use the word “Vegan” to describe yourself instead of any of those “-arian” words, there’s the automatic connotation of a deeper than usual devotion to the practice, like saying “Trekker” instead of “Trekkie,” or “Cyclist” instead of “Biker.”

—Patrick

Oct 28, 2018
206.8lbs
25.5% body fat

Ate mostly vegan this week with a couple hiccups :
1) wife thought she bought vegan mayonnaise but it's not vegan. It's made with canola but still uses egg.

2) we had dinner at wife's parents' on Saturday night and ate what her mother calls "cowboy beans" (brown beans, chorizo, potato, and egg)

Other than that. It was soy yogurt, salads with chickpeas, vegan Mexican, and tonight I made us cauliflower bites with a vegan dipping sauce, which is just vegan pub food.

Nov 4, 2018

205lbs
25.5% body fat
My wedding ring fits a lot more easily now.
Didn't get to jog as much this week. Was busy with Halloween and job interviews.

As far as keeping vegan- I ate one Halloween sized Coffee Crisp, and I've continued to eat eggo waffles in the morning cause I'd rather we finish off our non vegan food than let it go to waste

Nov. 11, 2018

202.6lbs
24.5% body fat

Zombies, Run! 5k training is kicking into high gear now. Week 3 is where a lot of the walking becomes running. It's also starting to get cold out. Yesterday was the first run of the year I had to do in snow, and the first run of the week didn't get recorded because my phone battery died

I did good with not eating meat or dairy until the weekend. I had eggs benedict for breakfast on Friday and poached eggs today. Other than that I was good. Even when my wife and I went out to celebrate me landing a new job, I opted for vegan "chicken" tacos.

Nov 18, 2018
202.8lbs
24.5% body fat.
Slight increase in weight buts negligible and I weighed myself at a different time than usual too so that makes a difference.
I was reeeeeeally good last week and didn't consume any dairy or meat.

This week is gonna be different. Had friends over for D&D yesterday and now there's a butt load of Chinese food and some pizza in the fridge my wife and I gotta finish off. No one wanted to take any home. And like I said before, I'd rather eat the meat than waste it.

Haven't weighed myself in this week and only went for one run.

Didn't have any free time this week, like, at all.

And was the opposite of vegan due to the leftover Chinese food and busy schedule. This was a bad week for sure.

Flying to LA for the next couple days and I plan to use the hotel gym while I'm there.

Gonna let you in on a secret, your scale is accurate to +/- 2.2 lbs. Don't worry about fractional variations, the scale can't perceive them.

HCGLNS said:

Gonna let you in on a secret, your scale is accurate to +/- 2.2 lbs. Don't worry about fractional variations, the scale can't perceive them.

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Yeah I take anything under 5lbs to be pretty negligible. Not only is there a variance in the scale, but weight will change throughout the day depending on how much and how recently I've eaten and used the washroom.

I try to keep time of day consistent for my weight measurement and I always weigh myself multiple times, until I get to weights in a row that are identical. But yeah. Anything under 5lbs is totally negligible.

Dec 2nd, 2018

205.4lbs
?? %body fat

Little bit of weight gain this past week. It was not a good week for eating healthy. I was active though. Went for a jog Monday morning, LOTS of walking on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a concert on Saturday that my phone recorded as a bike ride and a run.
The problem is I was in Santa Monica Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon and I thought it would be a lot easier to find healthy options there than it was.

It was a vegetarian week, but not a Vegan one.

I haven't been running for a while because two weeks ago I went and got Bender's face tattooed on my ass and it's still healing so I'm trying to not cause it friction and sweat.

Been eating healthy though. But I think I've packed on some of that weight again. Hoping to get some outdoor running gear for Christmas (only thing I asked for) and then once my ass is healed up I'll be out there every other day again.

The baby Wales up at 5:30 now instead of 6:30, so if I just stay up after her feed, I have time for a jog each morning before work.

But again, I have a still healing tattoo of Bender on my ass and in not running until that's no longer scabbed.

checkeredhat said:

I have a still healing tattoo of Bender on my ass and in not running until that's no longer scabbed.

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Sounds more like...


—Patrick