My last day.

Today marks the last day of my month long challenge.  So I decided to come here and detail out the good the bad and the often hilarious.

The best part about being vegan is also the worst part.  I have not been truly "full" in a month now.  Everyone else will get up from the table and say things like I won't be able to eat again for a week and I just look around and think well I could eat that amount again and still not be full.  I kind of miss the full feeling but then again it has been extremely nice to not feel so weighed down.  I have found a lot of creative ways to make dinners that my whole family can eat.  Two nights ago I made personal pan pizzas but used portabella mushrooms as the pizza crust and skipped the cheese and meat on mine, but added just a ton of veggies like artichoke hearts, onions and peppers.  Joe said one of the best compliments by saying Wow even normal people would think this was good. :-)  Last night I made coconut Thai shrimp over rice, so I just skipped the shrimp, and again with just a ton of veggies in it.

I've never really had greasy skin but I have noticed that I don't have grease on my face at all now, even when I sweat. I can only attribute that to not eating fat, specifically animal fat.

I don't really get the shakes when I haven't eaten like I used to.  In fact there have been numerous times in my life that I have had to excuse myself and go throw up before a meal because my head is spinning so bad from the lack of sugar in my blood.  I have to give this credit to not eating processed sugars, although I am sure this is one that I accidentally cheat on more than I realize with condiments and such.

I do have to say that I have tried a ton of diets/life styles and this one has to be the hardest to follow.  Sometimes it feels like there is nothing on the menu I can even eat, and when I do find something and just absolutely butcher it down to nothing...no cheese....no meat....no mayo....no ranch and so on, it feels foolish to even order anything.  Luckily my Mom and I's favorite place to eat lunch is Souper Salad which (since it is a salad bar) is great because I can find a ton of things to eat. This also happens to be the life style that I have been made the most fun of for but also had the most amount of people saying that they would try it...truly an odd combination.

As far as the what the future holds.  I am going to continue with several meals a week for the whole family that are vegetarian, simply for heart health I think it is a good idea to give up some of that meat.  I don't believe that I will be going back to eating the way that I was, although I am just about ready to pass out at the thought of eating a buffalo wing for the Super Bowl.  I will continue to eat less meat and dairy although I won't be as strict as I was this month.  Of course we will have to see how my body responds to this and whether or not it becomes apparent that it would be better to eat vegan most of the time.

I love feeling light and clean which this diet definitely does for you, so there will be huge parts of it that I keep up with to feel better over all.  Hopefully my body will respond slightly better with the weight loss part.  To date I have lost probably 12 pounds which isn't that great considering I had gained 7 of that in Indiana for Christmas.  Eating amazingly well for a month and losing 5 pounds is not great but I am sure some of this has to do with house hunting, the wedding and what not.  The added stress that these things have brought on has undoubtedly added some additional hurdles for this poor diet.