It’s been two weeks… Last, last Wednesday I started a little thing called the Vegan diet. Mine came with a little more of a twist though. I decided to exclude caffeine as well, and so I survived my first two weeks. It wasn’t the vegan part that was killing me though, it was the no caffeine that really got to me. You see I’m a girl who loves her steak, but loves her morning coffee, MORE! The caffeine is really helping me block out the whole meat part. So this is me sharing all the gritty details of the Caffeine Free Vegan Diet!
First you have to decide what your reasons are for doing the diet. Then you can move on to step two and move on from there…
FIRST STEP (Reason for dieting):: Weight loss, health issues, or Animal rights?
Weight Loss :: Use a BMI (Body mass index) calculator. Here a few : Click HERE, HERE, HERE and for kids HERE. Figure out how much you need to loose to be normal weight and set a goal to loose that much. If you are normal weight but feel like you still want to loose a few pounds, figure out how much you can loose before being underweight. Remember being underweight is just as unhealthy as being overweight if not worse.
Health Issues :: This is the biggest reason for me. For about two years now I’ve been feeling dizzy, constantly complaining about stomach pains, and always feeling exhausted without doing the slightest of work. I couldn’t figure out why exactly. I was in great shape, swimming, jogging, exercising constantly and felt like I was the weakest person alive. I thought I ate healthy, let me rephrase that… I tried to eat healthy. Little did I know there’s a fine line between healthy and unhealthy.
Animal Rights :: ”And there came a voice to him: ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat’.” Acts 10:13; A wonderful article I found HERE… If someone does feel this way, I advise you to speak to your Pastor.
NEXT STEP :: According to your reason for dieting, the next step you should take is deciding how vegan you’re going to be. The true vegans go all out! No fish, no meat, no cheese, milk, honey, gelatin, eggs, butter, etc. In short terms nothing that once moved/was alive and nothing that came for something that once moved/was alive. My diet is as vegan as it gets. So if you decide to just go with no meat, milk, and eggs… Than that’s your thing and I have no doubt you’ll make it work.
THIRD STEP :: After you’ve decided what you can and cannot eat, it’s time to go through that fridge and cabinets. You know, the ones filled with all that stuff you can’t eat now? If its a box of dry food that won’t go bad in three months than you can put it in a box and store all those foods for three months in a closet. Away from temptations. If you’re the only one in a household of two, three, four, so on, then you might as well convince everyone to diet with you, or deal with your temptations. After you’ve gone through all the foods you can’t eat… Find something you can and eat, while you write yourself a list of all the ingredients you’ll need to buy the next day.
FOURTH STEP :: Writing the list of all the recipes, foods, or ingredients you’ll need is probably the toughest part about this diet. It’s really easy to forget what you can’t have. I use FOODGAWKER to constantly update my menu… At the bottom of the website you’ll notice categories. Find the Vegan category and stay up as late as you want looking up your vegan desserts, lunch snacks, dinners, and breakfasts. Trust me it’s easy to get carried away with all the yummy recopies you’ll see, so you’ll need to establish a budget. I’m no person to give financial advice, so I’ll leave that part up to you guys.
LAST STEP :: My Caffeine Free Vegan Diet only lasts for three months once a year. Yes, I decided to make this a part of my life, not just once a lifetime and forget all about it. You see, the first week of my diet, I’ve noticed my dizziness going away. My stomach pains forgot about bothering me and I was less exhausted. So it works, I’ve tested it out on myself, and I lost five pounds IN ONE WEEK! CFV is a healthy way to loose weight! So in this last step, you need to ask yourself how long you’re going to do the diet for… Not how long you can last, but more of a determined goal. A year? Once every year? A lifetime? Each answer will be different.
MY DIETING and SUGGESTIONS :: I suggest you add to this diet whole wheat grains. No white bread, no white pasta, only whole wheat. Preferably less sweets if none at all. Stay away from hard candy as well, most of them have caffeine. Drink at least two smoothies every day and drink plenty of water, ALWAYS. Find a schedule that works best around your job, extra curricular activities, bed-time… For example :: You wake up at 7. Breakfast strictly at 7:30. You leave to work. Lunch break at work is at 12pm. You eat lunch strictly at 12pm. You come home at 5pm. So you grab a snack at work at exactly 3pm. When you come home at 5pm, you start dinner. You eat dinner at exactly 6pm. You go to bed at 10pm. So you grab a light snack at exactly 9pm. By snacks I mean five celery’s, or an apple, you get the point. Snack is not a bag of chips! That’s unhealthy!
MAKING IT WORK :: I’ve designed two different looks of the calendar. The calendar will help you to make plans in advance, what you’ll have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first calendar has a wide header. That’s for any notes, such as your hourly plan, your goals, and of course the month you’re on. The second one is a square, so you can print is as a 5×5 or a 3×3 and have it on the go with you…
A FEW EXAMPLES OF BREAKFAST :: Oatmeal with frozen blue berries, strawberries, and raspberries, topped with 100% pure Maple Syrup. And to finish off breakfast a berry smoothie.
The Vegan pancakes, Sided with frozen berries… And a warm cup of caffeine free herbal tea.
I found the vegan pancakes on foodgawker ;)
Happy Wednesday! Hope to hear what you think of all this….
