I missed posting yesterday, my 28th day and the last day of my challenge. I couldn't really squeeze in the time to post, but I'll have you know it wasn't all that exciting any way. I have this nasty cold which I thought was gone but came roaring back yesterday afternoon, and by the time the kids were in bed I was ready to crash out on the couch and watch The Biggest Loser and then retire to bed.
So I'll do the final summary here.
Hardest part of the vegan challenge: getting used to asking for what I need. Especially in restaurants- I was a waitress in college and I remember how irritated I used to get with the people who had special demands. Granted, it was a greasy spoon breakfast restaurant, but I can still picture the surfer guy who insisted that I put his milk in the freezer for five minutes before serving it to him (with his pancakes, please) and the other guy who wanted his bacon extra crispy and his toast burnt. I don't want to be that customer. The surfer guy was always really polite about his food needs, but still- I'd rather not stand out in someone's mind as a high needs customer. But being vegan makes me pretty high needs in restaurants, and I still need to learn that that isn't a bad thing.
I didn't deliberately eat anything non-vegan (excepting honey, about which I'm still on the fence), although I was sorely tempted at the tapas restaurant for my uncle's birthday. I also had decided to have a non-vegan meal at one of the pueblo feast days last weekend, but I ended up not going so I didn't have to make that choice after all. Going to feast day and then not eating would have been inappropriate, just as it will be inappropriate not to eat the boiled meat they serve us in Oklahoma for our tribal holidays.
Things that were easier than I expected: meal planning, saying no to dairy (especially cheese!), saying no to non-vegan foods in general. I had the benefit of two great cookbooks, which really helped me get excited about new foods.
Things that were harder than expected: weight loss. It's funny, I just bought Veganomicon, and there's a short passage in there about how just becoming vegan doesn't trigger some magical instant weight loss. I've been keeping track of my calories on sparkpeople (username: Legume_lover), and I'm always surprised when I zoom out of my weight loss zone, because there's some weird brainwashing in me that makes me believe that healthy=skinny. But it's not meat and dairy that made me chubby, it just calories. And vegan chocolate peanut butter cups still have plenty of calories.
So the total weight loss tally for the month: 3.8 pounds. I was pretty discourage by that throughout the month, but when I actually examine that number I see that I lost nearly a pound a week, which is fairly sustainable weight loss. I would have been a lot happier with two pounds a week, but for someone who wasn't really trying all that hard, that's a pretty good loss.
So here is where I renew my commitment to vegan living. I like this, and I'm going to keep it for the time being. And I'll keep blogging about it, because I like you too. And I'll be sharing what it's like to slowly convert my family to vegan. Not that I plan on doing that entirely, but I'll be sure to let you know when the kids actually like something vegan, so you can share that with your family.
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