Meat lover goes vegan: here's what my week looked like 🥦
Firstly, let's start with why I decided to go vegan for a week. I was scrolling through Netflix for the millionth time during Covid lockdown and decided to watch The Game Changers. This documentary takes on the quest to find out the truth behind meat, protein and strength as they reveal success stories of plant-based diets that elite athletes, visionary scientists and high ranking soldiers have taken on. In this documentary, we see the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lewis Hamilton and even The Notorious Connor McGregor have quite a few words to say about this. 💪
A blood sample taken from an athlete who ate a plant-based diet one day; and an animal protein diet another day.
The trigger point of this documentary, that really got me thinking about this change, was inspired by the scene above. The image shows a blood sample taken from the same athlete just one day apart - the only difference is that on one of the days he had an animal-based diet whereas the other day he switched to plant-based.
An animal-based diet thickens the blood. This slows down the flow of oxygen and nutrients in blood which is transported to the areas that need it most, such as your muscles. You can understand why this part of the documentary was picked as my trigger point as it got me saying to myself, “I've been eating meat for a long time so maybe it's time to give it a break.”
The antioxidant content found in plant-based diets vs animal-based diets.
Here's how my week went...
Day 1 : New Beginnings
I thought I was ready but I wasn't. I decided to make guacamole on toast for breakfast which came very good, however I forgot to calculate how long it would take me to make it compared to the classic cereal and milk. The guacamole alone took me about 15 minutes just to prepare which led to me being late for a yet another conference call. Classic Justin. 🤦♂️
Then came lunchtime, and I decided to order a plant-based burger from Foam and Fork. I ordered the Famous FFC Burger which is made with their homemade FFC Chicken, garlic mayo, pickled onions, and slaw. Surprisingly enough, it was pretty good and I could barely realise that there was no chicken in this meal. But the most surprising thing was that I didn't feel tired after finishing the dish. I generally feel sluggish after a typical beef or chicken burger! 🍔
Day 3 : Slight Regrets
Oat Pancake was on the agenda and again I thought I was ready cause I had all the ingredients prepared to rock it out... but this took me about 30 minutes to make and eat. Besides the fact that it's costly going vegan as you need to buy many ingredients, it also takes up some time to prep each and every meal.
Even though I was coping without meat I must admit until that day I hadn't craved meat or junk food which felt different, but in a good way. With regards to training, I felt like I was able to complete what I would usually do but it was all that little bit easier so I added a few more reps when I could. As this was still Day 3 I wasn't sure if it was a mental thing that was pushing me to do more or the food itself. 🤔
Day 5: End of the Road
OK, I'm fully vegan, don't talk down to vegans - I was ready to pounce on anyone that hated on them. As Day 5 came I was in a great mood, and still wasn't craving any sort of meat. Training was in full swing so I decided to continue this quest until I really felt the need to eat meat again.
This lasted till the following Monday as we were struggling to get good content due to all the restaurants closing and me going vegan. Basically, duty called so I had to return to eating pasta, burgers, meat and junk food, I know - poor me 😜
With all that being said if you ever do go vegan you need to plan every single meal from beforehand. Would I ever go fully vegan? Sorry to all the vegan lovers but it's a no from me. I did however, start to introduce more healthy eating into my diet due to that week, and The Game Changers of course.
My take-away point from all this:
Everything in moderation
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