Veganuary is a new trend that has the health-conscious and the animal lovers going vegan for 30 days. With more and more people becoming interested in eating cleaner or more plant-based — or just thinking about the environmental impacts of how they eat — it's bound to be more popular than ever this January.
I went ahead and gave the experiment a try, and I'm so glad I did. For starters, there are tons of health benefits that come from not eating animal products. But I also just love a good food experiment that helps me embrace new habits or learn something about how my body and mind respond to a way of eating.
When I first kicked off my month of veganism, I was worried I'd have trouble sticking to it. But I did a lot of things to set myself up for ultimate vegan eating. And luckily, there's a vegan food service in my area that provided me with weekly vegan meals. That turned out to be a huge help.
I started off by making a pretty major grocery list that included vegan foods I had never bought before. I wanted to be sure I had a bunch of options so I'd be less likely to screw up and eat something with animal products. I bought vegan butter, vegan cream cheese, almond milk, and a couple of containers of fake eggs, and I did a whole lot of label reading.
But probably the best thing I did to set myself up was to sign up for weekly lunch box meals from a vegan food service in Baltimore. It's a one-woman operation called Tom Cat's Kitchen. The food made by Anna Kent of Tom Cat's is totally delicious, and I looked forward to heading to the farmers market to pick it up every week. Especially because, well, the first week I may or may not have eaten all of my lunch box meals by the second day. But that's neither here nor there! Having meals like Thai peanut rainbow noodles and Moroccan couscous made me feel like an expert veganer, kept me super satisfied, and made me actually enjoy my new habit.
One of the biggest surprises, aside from just being floored by the fact that I wasn't struggling a whole lot more to eat vegan, was how full I felt. By the end of the first week, I realized I hadn't been snacking as much as I usually do. It's likely because I was eating a lot of veggies, which are packed with fiber and fueled me in all the right ways. I was very into that aspect.
Truth be told, I did have a couple of slip-ups during the month, but I didn't feel bad about it. One night, I ate fish because a very cute boy made me dinner and it was the only thing I had really been craving that I couldn't have. I also definitely ate a bunch of sugar cookies with real butter before Christmas. But there really wasn't any shame in it because I was so proud of myself for how well I did for most of the month. It was just an experiment, after all. Not a jail sentence. I do what I want! Ya know?
I told myself that by Christmas Eve, I would say goodbye to my vegan ways so that I could eat what my family was having. That turned out to be a pretty good plan so that I wouldn't drive myself crazy. There were definitely things I wanted to eat on Christmas that make an appearance only once a year.
What I didn't really plan for was that after the holiday was over with, I would have a strong desire to get back to eating vegan, but I did! So now, while I'm not being as strict as I was, I'm definitely sticking to some of the habits I picked up during my month of avoiding animal products. I'm sticking to my vegan butter and my almond milk, and I'm not really eating meat.
The thing that really sticks out to me about the experiment is that I just felt overall better. I felt like I was eating cleaner than I had in a long time. That also pushed me to do other beneficial things like drink a little less wine in the evening, have one less cup of coffee, and go a little harder during my workouts.
Maybe it was just the knowledge that I was doing something positive for my body and for the planet that was motivating me. Or maybe it was something more, like that my body was responding to eating plant-based, and that I genuinely had more energy. Either way, I'm excited to be entering the new year with a lot of excellent habits that are good for me and definitely good for me and for humanity.
After my little Christmas break, I truly can't wait to snag some more vegan meals from Tom Cat's Kitchen, pour myself an almond milk latte, and start off 2022 with my healthiest vibe ever.
