Most writing about changing your diet stops at the beginning. There is a great deal about the first month and almost nothing about what it settles into once it is no longer new.
We changed how we ate in February 2017, so we can at least describe the far end of it honestly. The short version is that it becomes uninteresting, and that turns out to be the best thing about it.
What happened to us
Andy had been overweight for as long as he could remember.
There was a pollen allergy diagnosed at seven, and stomach problems for most of his life. None of that was expected to change.
He lost about forty pounds in that first year and has stayed there ever since, eating as much as he wants. We did not expect that part to hold and it has.
The allergy was the genuine surprise.
That spring there were almost no symptoms, after twenty years of Aprils spent indoors, and it has stayed that way.
Venny has an autoimmune thyroid condition and her antibodies came down substantially.
Her MAT fell by more than four times and her TAT came back into the normal range.
Her iron and haemoglobin, both of which had been low, normalised as well.
We are not going to tell you any of this is guaranteed for anybody else. We do not know that, and neither does anybody.
The part we did not expect
The wanting goes away.
We did not give up animal foods by continuing to want them and refusing to have them.
After a few years they stopped being appealing, in the way a food you have not eaten since childhood stops being appealing.
There is no daily act of restraint involved.
That took considerably longer than the practical side did.
We had the kitchen sorted out in a couple of months and the appetite took years.
Nobody tells you the second timeline, which is a shame, because knowing it would spare people a great deal of worry in month three.
What our week actually looks like
There is no plan on the fridge and there never has been. We cook a pot of something most days, we cook more than we need, and the rest becomes tomorrow’s lunch.
Breakfast is oats most mornings, and dinner is a grain, a legume and vegetables in some arrangement.
We shop at ordinary supermarkets and we go to a health food store once a month at most.
It is far more repetitive than the internet suggests it should be, and that repetition is what makes it survivable!
What we would say to somebody starting
Do not try to get it right.
Get the hunger sorted first. Nothing else works while you are hungry, and everything else becomes manageable once you are not.
After that, most of the difficulty is social rather than practical. Most of that fades once the people around you have eaten your food a few times.
We would tell you to expect the appetite to change slowly, and not to read the delay as failure.
Above all, the aim is not to become someone with an impressive diet.
The aim is for the healthy version of dinner to be the easiest one to reach.
When that happens you stop thinking about any of this, which is where we have ended up, and it is a considerably better place than we expected.
I thought this piece about living a plant-based lifestyle was fantastic. Instead of seeming overwhelming, the useful advice and mental adjustments make it seem more attainable and long-lasting. https://www.logodesigncanada.ca/graphic-design – as a Canadian graphic design firm, we also recognize the impact that well-organized text and captivating images can have on readers considering healthier lifestyle choices.