This winter I adhered to a strictly vegan diet. It lasted six months. And then I got tired. Bone tired. Weary. I thought it must be my diet . My solution: eat more meat and dairy.
Over the next two months, I had a couple buffalo burgers. I ate a chicken dish. A few cans of tuna, two tilapia filets. And, the day after my wedding, a slab of sausage at brunch.
Plus–ahem–several servings of cheese.
And in those six weeks, I grew out of my vegan-sized clothing.
It was a weird weight gain: settling in odd places on my body. I looked thicker. My muscles felt chunky. I felt like a linebacker (which, at exactly 60 inches, isn’t such an endearing image.) So I stopped eating meat and dairy again. Two weeks later, everything fits. Which is particularly odd, since now I’m snacking my face off while I’m writing!
Now, I’m still not going to rule out hormone-free meat forever. To get those Omega-3’s, I may very well decide to indulge once or twice a month. But my recent experience has pushed me solidly into the casein-free camp.
I can’t believe what a difference a couple dairy-free weeks made!
From here on, I’m going to have to be extra careful to eat enough protein at every meal. That doesn’t mean veggie burgers, it means tempeh. Raw tofu. Beans. For iron, it means spinach instead of mixed greens. I’m lucky that I like soy products. Lucky, too, that I am in tune with my body enough to know when it’s reacting badly to certain foods. For whatever reason: allergy or otherwise, dairy just doesn’t work for me.
Now if only I could get the fatty cheesy yummy signals to shut off in my brain….
