Five things I learned in my first vegan year

Published 3:38 pm Wednesday, February 18, 2015

As of Feb. 9, I have been vegan for one full year. I have learned a lot in the past 12 months, both about myself and food. Some things, though, I wish someone would have told me when I was making the switch to this lifestyle. But I also believe these opportunities to learn on my own are now a part of my story.

Here are a few of the things I have learned over the last year.

1. Eating fat will not make you fat

Contrary to popular belief, eating fat-contained foods won’t make you overweight. The only reason why a high-fat diet would result in weight gain is because each gram of fat is nine calories, whereas carbohydrate and protein grams are four calories each.

If you’re eating a high-fat diet and trying to lose weight, you’ll end up eating less volume than someone who is eating a more balanced diet of say 45-30-25 (carbs-protein-fat), because you’ll reach your caloric cap faster. Despite their extra calories, diets higher in fat (polyunsaturated fatty acids to be exact) showed an improvement in health and the prevention of disease. A 2009 study found that a diet high in polyunsaturated fat improved insulin sensitivity and helped in the prevention of Type 2 diabetes.

2. There’s nothing wrong with soy

Soy sometimes gets a bad reputation, especially in the vegan community. Some vegans swear by it, while others swear it’ll give you cancer (not true). First, there is absolutely nothing wrong with soy unless you’re allergic to it. Women, especially, can benefit from eating soy. A study found that women eating soy had a decreased risk of developing breast cancer because of the decrease in ovarian hormone levels. And guys, unless you consume tons and tons of soy, your hormone levels will stay just fine. From Vegan Health, “At moderate amounts, soy does not cause feminine characteristics in men. At high amounts, as in twelve servings a day or more, a small percentage of men who are particularly sensitive to soy might develop tender, enlarged breast tissue.”

Also, whatever your stance is on genetically modified foods, just remember that while a lot of soy is considered a GMO, most of what is sold in the grocery store is not. A pretty large majority of the GMO soy in this country is fed to livestock.

3. You can’t survive on fruit alone

There’s a popular vegan diet called 80-10-10, where you eat 80 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, 10 percent from protein and 10 percent from fat. Not only does this diet not provide the body with enough protein, there also isn’t enough fat included for optimal health. I don’t have anything against fruit, in fact I love it. However, the 80-10-10 diet that is promoted – predominately on YouTube – was doing me absolutely no favors. I have an endocrine condition that makes me far more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes if I don’t watch which carbs I eat. So, I have to stick with low-glycemic carbs (whole wheat, berries, legumes, carrots, steel-cut oats, etc.) and pair everything with a protein. Eating a five-banana smoothie was not only spiking my blood glucose, it was also causing me to pack on the pounds. Despite what everyone thinks (vegans always lose weight), I gained about 20 pounds in my first year as a vegan.

4. Diets don’t work

This doesn’t really have much to do with being vegan, but it’s true nonetheless. When I say “diets” I mean the get-fit-in-30-days gimmick that is sold on infomercials. I also mean the skinny-pill diets that people try to sell you with their “shocking” before and after photos. In terms of health and fitness, if you’re taking it off fast, chances are you’re not just losing body fat. You know that commercial for a diet pill that says, “the weight they lost was 78 percent fat!” Is that supposed to make me feel better? That means I’m probably losing at least a good (bad?) percentage of muscle (the rest being water) at the same time which will inevitably reduce my basal metabolic rate (BMR) and slow my metabolism. That does not sound like a solution to my problem.

Diet pills and these meal plan things that make you change something temporarily won’t work in the long term unless you keep forking out money to them. That’s how this is a billion dollar industry. There’s a quote (don’t know who said it originally) that says, “If you eat what you’ve always eaten, you’ll weight what you’ve always weighed.” Google it, there are plenty of memes and inspirational posters at your disposal.

It’s true, though. If the changes you make to your diet and exercise aren’t permanent, then your weight loss won’t be either. It has to be a lifestyle change.

5. Nobody is perfect

You may slip from your path, but as long as you own it and get back up from the fall, you’re fine! Some say I’m not a “perfect” vegan because I go to Taco Bell (and order vegan food). “You’re supporting the slaughter industry,” they say. Well, so is anyone that buys anything from any major grocery store chain. The truth is, the world isn’t perfect and neither is anyone living in it. The sooner that you accept this about yourself and other people, the happier you’ll be. Trust me.

These studies and more about food and nutrition can be found in this database: https://delicious.com/veganbbn.