The JanuVeggie Project

As I may have mentioned to some of you (hi, Mom!), Chris and I decided to go vegetarian for the month of January.  We're truly omnivores (we eat everything), and while we love our meats, we know they aren't the best for us, health-wise.  After eating and drinking whatever we wanted in whatever quantities we fancied from the time period of mid-October through New Year's Eve (and gaining the weight one would associate with that), we figured 31 days of plant-based meals would be good for us in more ways than one.  Thus, voila!  Here's my report on the recent month of JanuVeggie!

Hey, look!  Veggies!
Eggplant, to be specific.
I only ate a few small portions of
eggplant in JanuVeggie,
and none of them were made at home.
It's not exactly in season in the winter.

To keep things interesting on this blog, I decided to make this into an FAQ-style post, so here goes:

Why did we do this?

As mentioned above, we went a bit nutso on the food/drink wagon (or, off the food/drink wagon, depending on how you look at it) for a good two months or so.  With the typical fall/winter shenanigans plus both our birthdays, anniversary, Ragnar, and a few other trips (family weddings, holidays, etc), it was super easy to make excuses to eat fun food (read: almost always bad for you) and drink way too much.  Going veggie for the month was actually Chris' idea, and we figured it would give us a good jump-start into the new year, as we got back on the focus for pursuing fitness goals (a late-April marathon for me, potentially a 50K for Chris in later 2018) and slimmed down after the holidays.  I'll take this opportunity to point out that we did veggie - not vegan - rules, so we still ate eggs and dairy products (you may attempt to pry my cheese from my cold, dead hands, thankyouverymuch).

Did we have any hesitations going into this?

Yeah, a little bit.  I wasn't really worried about not eating meat; while I like it, it's rare that I crave a giant burger or BLT, although it does happen sometimes.  Neither of us have medical concerns that make animal-based protein a constant necessity (iron deficiencies or the like), so we'd be good on that account.  Honestly, my main concern was making sure we had good veggie recipes to make at home, so we didn't consistently resort to pasta with red/pesto sauce or salads (there's nothing wrong with salads, but you don't want them every day).  I was a little worried about being full from our home-cooked veggie meals - since I was starting to get into marathon training again, with 3 harder runs each week, I was concerned a lunch of veggies would leave me starving around 2pm, looking for anything to put in my face around the house.

What did our standard week look like?

As you all well know by now, I'm a total planner; I love to plan vacations, shorter trips, meals for the week - you name it, and I likely have a plan for it.  I've found meal planning to be an easy way for me to know exactly what to buy each week when I'm grocery shopping, and it reduces time and expense when I know what I'm there to get (my weekly grocery shop happens during my lunch hour on Friday, so I need to hit both Trader Joe's and Vons and be out and home in 60 minutes.  Normally, this works out okay).  It also calms me to know exactly what we're making for dinner each night and when we're going out.  For us, we found that making about 4 recipes at home each week (each makes 4-6 servings, depending on the recipe, so we almost always have leftovers) meets our needs; we also plan to go out each Wednesday night for dinner and have lunch or dinner out on Saturday or Sunday (Chris also normally eats one lunch out with his buddies at work per week).  For the recipes we made, I used a variety of sources - recipes I found when we belonged to the CSA and got all sorts of random veggies in our produce boxes; recipes from magazines like Cooking Light, Food and Wine, and Bon Appetit to which we subscribe; and other notes from online sources like foodnetwork.com, myrecipes.com, and allrecipes.com.

How did it work out?

Truly, things worked out really well.  LA Restaurant Week was running during the first part of the month, so we ate at some places we'd been wanting to try, making sure they had some sort of veggie option on their DineLA menus.  Once that ended, any place we ate, we scoped out ahead of time to ensure the same thing.  Chris would sometimes cheat when we ate out, particularly if there was only one veggie option on the menu, as I'd normally get that, and he could taste a few bites.  I'd always take a bite or two of whatever he ate as well, as I'm not going to let an opportunity to taste good food go by.

I will say that during our first week, we made a "Million Dollar Stew" recipe to celebrate New Year's Day, and it did contain pork; eating pork for the new year is a major tradition in my family (as it is for many folks), and I wasn't going to chance having crappy luck in 2018 due to JanuVeggie.  The stew leftovers ran for a good week or so, so technically, we cheated during this time period anytime we ate the stew (lunches, mainly).  However, it was relatively low calorie, so it worked out for our weight-loss goals.

During the month, we never made the same recipe at home twice, and we only reverted to pasta once; not too shabby!  Since the majority of the meals we made involved whole grains or legumes like beans, quinoa, or couscous, they were far more filling than a comparably sized meat dish for far fewer calories overall (some exceptions, but not many - veggies and grains are just lower-calorie than meat, period).  We found some clear winners we loved and a few losers we won't make again (we had a few days of really, really lame mushroom and broccoli soup for lunch), but we built a good base of veggie and grain-heavy options we can use in the future.

I was calorie counting during JanuVeggie, and I was easily able to meet my goal of dropping one pound a week throughout the month; most of our veggie and grain meals were so low in calories (we had a fair amount of veggie soups throughout the month, too), I still had enough calories for afternoon snacks (normally, an orange, a cheese stick, and a handful of tortilla chips) and a cup of hot cocoa after dinner as a dessert (I've learned I can't keep chocolate in the house while I'm dieting - I just can't).  For his part, Chris wasn't calorie counting per se, but he was watching his intake overall, and he dropped weight as well; I think it was at about the same rate as I was.  Of course, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, I was doing lengthy runs, so if I cheated a bit, calorie-wise, those were my days; I still stuck to the veggie plan, but I'd indulge in a pizza or something like that instead of being super healthy.

Because we treated ourselves to eating out on Wednesdays and one weekend day, and on those days, we indulged in higher calorie meals, I never felt overly hungry at the end of the day or deprived of anything.  Having dairy in the regular rotation of snacks also helped.

Was it hard to not eat meat?

Eh, not really, honestly.  The first Saturday of February, we went and had gigantic hamburgers for lunch after my long run, and while they were delicious (Hashtag Burger for the win, seriously), I never craved meat during our JanuVeggie project.  As mentioned above, I think it helped that we allowed ourselves a few heavier meals each week, including things like pizza.

If I craved anything at all during the month, it would be sushi, which is weird, since you guys know I don't eat regular, cooked fish (unless it's battered and deep fried and served with chips).  We eat sushi maybe once every two-three weeks, and I did miss that.  I also missed bacon and bacon-like products, such as pancetta and prosciutto, but only when I'd see them on a menu, as part of a pizza or wedge salad or something like that.

What were our biggest take-away's/surprises from the project?

This section will probably seem kind of disjointed, so here's some random brain droppings:

Although I didn't do any sort of actual analysis, I found that our shopping bill decreased dramatically when I didn't buy meat.  Even something like a pack of pancetta is $4 at Trader Joe's, and not throwing that in my cart, along with a big pack of chicken thighs/breasts or pound of ground meat really made a significant difference.  It also helped that our garden produced some of our meal items each week, which isn't something you can often claim when you're eating meat ("ah yes, the pancetta tree harvest is bountiful this year...").

It was easier than I expected to find good stuff to eat at "regular" restaurants - with one exception.  Okay, I know that we live in LA County, potential word capital of the "hippie dippie/foodie/diet/body-conscious" movements; I get that. However, at restaurants with cuisines as varied as French, Mexican (twice), Italian, Alsatian (so, German/French), we often found multiple delicious, filling vegetarian options.  At the Italian spot, Ellie's (a new favorite of ours in Long Beach), we picked off a tasting menu, found two amazing, different pasta options that were veggie, and the chef made us two different, amazing veggie appetizers.  Seriously - we were licking the plates clean - they were outstanding.  The one exception to this was at HopSaint, which is actually a brewery; they mainly feature BBQ, and my one option there was a single salad (okay, there was a broccoli side as well - even the soups were all meat based).  It was a darn good salad, other than that the goat cheese featured on it was spread on the plate like a hummus, below all the lettuce and other toppings.  It was weird, but it still tasted great (and my bite of Chris' pork belly sandwich showed that their BBQ was indeed, divine).  I'm certainly not expecting them to have a different menu, just reporting the facts.

JanuVeggie also got us out to some legit vegetarian spots in our area, and we wouldn't have bothered with them, had we not been on this project.  One, Seabirds, was absolutely outstanding, and we'll be back soon.  The other, The Spot Cafe, was also good, albeit far more casual.  It absolutely made me more aware of the offerings actual vegetarians have in Long Beach and nearby, and I think we'll push to try more spots like this moving forward.

During this project, I found myself eating all sorts of things I've never tried before, particularly when we'd head out to a restaurant.  Chris loves cauliflower (like, is obsessed with it), and I've never really cared about it; however, it's in the peak of its season right now, so we ate a fair amount of it during this project (at home and out), and I've started to understand its appeal.  When we ate out at a standard spot, I'd often be forced to pick between just one or two entrees, so I often got something I never would have tried on my own, and it was always outstanding.  At a French spot in downtown Long Beach where we've eaten many times previously (Bo-Beau), I tried the ratatouille - I know what it is, but have never tried it - and it was incredible - Chris had a few bites and may have even preferred it to his burger.  I did end up eating pastas out more than a few times, but since I wasn't eating them at home all the time, they were a nice, calorie- and butter-intensive treat.

I'll also be completely transparent and say that on an average day, I felt way better after not eating meat this month than I did on a standard day using my past meal plan (I'm not counting the holiday messiness, because that's an aberration from our normal eating plan as well).  As you all probably know by now, I have diverticulosis, which is a GI condition that can result in painful flare-ups and infections in the colon if you don't routinely get the proper amount of fiber to keep things moving along properly.  By consistently eating meals based on high-fiber, whole foods like natural grains, legumes, and veggies, my fiber content sails along, always where it should be, and I can reduce the amount of supplemental, manufactured fiber I need to take.  That means I don't have peaks and valleys in my GI system related to this, and I feel better overall, all the time.

This has benefited my running, too; I used to have to time my runs to ensure I had access to convenient bathrooms for emergencies, and even my GI doc told me to go on a low fiber diet starting a few days before each long run.  Since I have a long run each week, that means someone who should be ingesting fiber like a crazy person all the time was on a low-fiber diet half of each week, leading to all sorts of GI weirdness for the other half of the week, as my system would try to work things out and get in a normal rhythm again.  While I still do low fiber the morning of a long run (and will probably do so a few days before an important race), being fiber-regular (heh, regular.  See what I did there?) seems to be working out in this regard, as my system isn't having those super highs and super lows, leading to feeling actually normal the majority of the time.  I've had a long run each Saturday since January 6th, and I haven't had to make an emergency bathroom stop once; while I certainly don't think this is the solution to all of my woes in this area, it seems to be a step in the right direction for me.

Would we do it again?

Yes, absolutely!  Chris said he's happy to do this again next year and make it an annual tradition.  For my part, I'm thinking of making a more permanent change to being mostly a vegetarian, overall.  I'm not giving up meat completely - don't fret - but I think it will be a much more occasional treat than a staple of my diet, moving forward.  Since meat is expensive anyway, it seems like a better deal to buy it expertly prepared in a restaurant, where it comes with a wide variety of amazing side dishes and sauces, than to buy it just to put it into a recipe in our home cooking.  If we are craving a homemade steak or burger, then we can also afford to buy the good, organic, grass-raised, no-antibiotics stuff at the store, since we're only purchasing small quantities of it.

Since we moved to the coast, Chris has been pining for more seafood, which I don't eat (other than sushi!), so I don't prepare it (honestly, making seafood terrifies me - I'm afraid I won't cook it right and give him worms); what we're going to try in February is me planning veggie meals like last month, while he stops on the way home at Sprouts or something, buys a fresh fish fillet, and then cooks that to go along with his serving of whatever I'm making.  He has fish that he prepares, I have veggies, and presto!  Everyone is happy!

Okay, gang, I think that's it.  If anyone reads this and has questions or wants to know more, I'm happy to share our experiences, as long as you keep in mind that I'm certainly not an expert on this stuff.  We came late to the veggie movement, and we're not purists, but with that said, if anyone wants recipes, I'm happy to send links to you.

Later!

Amy

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