Day 4

So far so good!  I am feeling highly energetic and optimistic!  I had enough energy to exercise and make it through the day today (which is saying a lot since my daughter woke us up around 5 AM).  I even got through some yard work, played tennis with my 10-year old, and went out for some socializing this morning. So I didn't sit around eating vegan bon bons!  

Today I thought I would expand a little on the thought process I went through to get to this point. Since I went through my reasons to try "go for it" yesterday, I wanted to touch on all the fears swimming in my head that almost prevented me from even thinking about it. 

Here were my reasons for NOT going vegan:

1. I have "high protein" needs.  I will get way too hungry. Especially since I am a nursing mom...Okay, in school I saw a speaker who was a 200 lb ex-rancher who was vegan and talking about it's health benefits. I have also read some professional athletes are vegan...if they can work it, I can work it with my "high protein" needs.  I did decide to wait until baby girl was pretty close to weaning so a dramatic shift in eating wouldn't affect my milk supply.  We are close enough, so far no issues.. And, surprise, I am not that hungry...and when I do get hungry...I eat more!  Imagine that.
2. There won't be enough for me to eat.  So, I do not think I am alone in this fear of being vegan.  But in addition, I am allergic to some nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, macadamia, black walnuts).  To further reduce my pool of foods to eat, I also don't believe in eating soy dressed in meat clothing.  Soy bacon?  Tofurkey?  Soy cheese? Doesn't really interest me, and I see them as processed foods, which I seek to avoid.  I don't mind a properly fermented soy product like tofu or tempeh, miso, soy sauce, tamari, etc., but I don't think soy milk is all that natural.  So...in some ways I truly am limited.  I recognize this and question the long term prospects of being vegan for this reason. However, I can do it for 30 days to start!
3. I love baking too much.  Thanks to my friend Alexis, I have some really fun recipes to try! Two books worth!  Turns out this is going to be a fun challenge!  I made some vegan chocolate cupcakes this week that rivaled my normal recipe!  Sweet!
4. Eggs.  Yeah, I have a thing for farm fresh eggs.  For some people it is cheese. I like eggs. Daily.  Long term this may or may not be a problem.  But, it may turn out that I stick to some things and not others. Time will tell.
5. Seafood.  I like seafood even more than I love eggs.  But I eat it less often as a daily routine.  So this may not be a big deal since I won't miss on a daily basis.  
6. Ice cream.  I love it.  I think I got the gene from my Grammy Shirley.  Luckily there are a bunch of other things to try...we'll see!  I can make some sorbets in my ice cream maker in the meantime.  Summer fruit is coming!
7. It isn't natural to have to supplement a whole nutrient that basically only comes from animal products. (vitamin B12).  Turns out my multi-vitamin (that I was taking on/off while nursing) has plenty of it.  So I will continue to take it until done the challenge.  I have issues with supplementing anyway... that I could write a whole post about...but I am not going to hijack this one.
8. I have heard of people being vegan for long periods of time and becoming unhealthy and malnutritioned.   There I said it.  I have personally talked to these people.  They are highly educated, so I do not believe they "weren't doing it right".  But you know...30 days won't do that and I will cross that bridge if I ever get there. I am doing my best to read information on balancing my needs and I think I will be safe...a lot safer than the guy who ate McDonalds for a month that's for sure.
9. What if I hate it?  Um...then I can stop.  Haha, this one was pretty dumb.
10. What if I love it?  Then I will have to change.  Change is hard.  I am still almost scared of this one.
11. My family may criticize me.  Some of them will. Some of them won't.  Put on your big girl pants, Nicole, and ignore the nay-sayers!
12. Going out to eat is not going to be fun anymore.  This may be true, but I rarely go out since I have little ones.  I am also going to admit that I am not including May 24th in the "challenge" and I will further explain in my next post entitled "The RULES".

So those are most of the things I was scared of when I started thinking about this...I am sure there are more, but that covers a lot of ground.  So, if you have being thinking about the prospect of trying vegan and you have some of the same fears/roadblocks/reasons, know that you are not alone.  And, while most of them (as you can see) are unresolved for me.  I am going for it anyway.  Why not?

In health and reasoning,

Nicole