Ten days a vegan

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about switching to a whole food,plant-based diet – more easily written as a vegan diet. There is a difference, however. While both eschew (I feel so smart using that word!) any animal products, vegans can quiet easily eat a lot of processed junk food without violating the idea of being a vegan.

A whole food plant-based diet? That's one which primarily stays away from processed food. There's a lot of cooking, using seasonings and spices, fresh ingredients, not to mention a lot of salads and fruit.

Big change from a guy who can polish off a dozen tacos, or down a whole pizza, not to mention being able to pack away a couple of pounds of hot wings (or more) in a single sitting.

When I mentioned here I'd be doing this, I promised some updates, so here it is.

Week one was a disaster. Monday and Tuesday were great, but then we had some things going on at work, top guy from our regional production department in town, so my boss decided that would be a good day to buy lunch for the three of us while we met.

Lunch came from The Loaded Goat – yes, if you're an Andy Griffith fan, you know that phrase. The Loaded Goat has the best hamburgers around – big, thick, juicy, with the most incredible taste. (The restaurant also made the best catfish sandwich I've ever eaten, but that was a few years ago. I don't believe that's on their menu now).

I resisted going for a burger, or even a chicken sandwich, instead opting for a Beyond Burger. I don't know what they did, but man, that was the best Beyond Burger I've ever eaten. Whoever is cooking at The Loaded Goat has it going on.

But, the burger came on a slightly greasy bun, with a big mound of fries, and before all was said and done, I knew I'd messed up.

Still, I tried to stay on the straight and narrow the rest of the day and night, but the next day was even worse. Along with another meeting, we had some training with my newsroom staff, and my boss decided to get pizza for everyone. I appreciated the fact that one of the pizzas was spinach and mushroom, but still it had plenty of cheese and what I'm sure was a fat-filled, wholly unhealthy crust, and that was the final straw. I blew the rest of the week.

But the following Monday, ten days ago as I publish this blog, I made another run at it. Ten days later, I can say I've had no animal products, and I've eaten loads of salads, fruit, and some amazing food my wife and I have cooked from various plant-based recipes. The food is so good I almost don't miss meat or cheese at all.

After the first week, I'd dropped 13.6 pounds as well.

As I mentioned in that first blog, I've been down this road before, many times, so there's not a lot to get excited about just yet. But I'm definitely going the right direction with my eating, and I'm hitting the gym pretty regularly, too, so all is good in the land of veganism for now.

For my next blog, I'll go back to reviewing one of my recent reads – THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, AND OTHER TALES by Eric LaRocca. I'll leave this little tidbit – this book blew me away more than anything I've read in a long time.

More later.