It is now a year since I went vegan, and I wanted to blog about the experience. In some ways it has been incredibly easy, particularly when I've had the time to explore new foods and recipes. In fact that's been an exciting aspect of it - a great many foods and recipes that I have tried over the last year I may never have tried had I not gone vegan, so paradoxically, vegan eating has expanded my culinary experiences! On the other hand, when out and about, when time is short, or at some restaurants or other's houses, it can be quite tough in a 99% non-vegan world.1 Possibly the hardest thing is dealing with people thinking you've gone nuts, or maybe that's just me being paranoid! Fears for my sanity aside, one common reaction from others has been, and continues to be, concern for my health. Touching, but quite unnecessary! I think the issue is exacerbated by my slender build, which means that as I lost weight with the dietary change, I was told by others at times that I looked gaunt. However, I am extremely confident that my health has only improved since going whole-foods plant-based. In fact, there should have been more fears for my health if I had stayed with my former dietary habits, and I have data to "prove" it! :)
Pre-vegan
Early last year I was fed up with feeling unhealthy. Although I was not overtly overweight or ill, I was often lacking energy and always craving something - another coffee, some chocolate, etc - to "get energised". I didn't like the direction my health was heading, so I started reading various books on longevity, health and nutrition. In February, I changed my eating habits to cut down on high-GI starchy foods and eat more legumes and protein-rich foods, based on Tim Ferriss' book. This included lots of lentils, but also salad greens, plus chicken, kangaroo and tuna. I ate some pretty weird stuff during this period (just ask Tash!), especially at breakfast. Lentils, spinach and a couple of boiled eggs was a staple.. makes my stomach turn to think of it now. I also got into some fairly light exercise.
Before I started this, I took some baseline measurements, including weight, %body fat, circumferences and cholesterol levels. Below, I'll share how these things have changed since February last year.
I started feeling more energetic pretty quickly, and having some goals was good. I lost a couple of kilos and then got a bad case of the flu and unwillingly sweated off some more.
Vegan, whole-foods, plant-based eating
It wasn't until May that I read "The China Study" and decided to go vegan. I started playing around with new recipes, etc around mid-May and then had my last meat meal on 4 June. Since then I'd say I have knowingly been 99+% vegan. The < 1% are when I've been caught unprepared, particularly early on, by cheese or other dairy products. I'd guess I'm probably about 70-80% whole-foods, with sugar, oil and other processed foods hard to avoid.
Most importantly, I feel so much better than I did 16, even 12 months ago. I never feel lethargic even though I generally have been sleeping 1-2 hours less per night. I never have sugar/fat/salt cravings. I also feel a sort of spring in my step, although this quickly became the new norm. One of the most striking things is how much better I feel after meals. After a healthy, whole-food vegan meal, there isn't any of that sleepiness you get after a heavy animal-product heavy meal. I used to catch every cold being passed around but have caught one, maybe two at most and they have been very mild.
Now for the numbers... a lot of these haven't been updated for a while, but things have been pretty settled the last 6 months or so, so I don't think much would have changed.
Cholesterol
I had my total cholesterol measured at 5.1 mM on 11 Feb 2011. This doesn't alarm GPs and doesn't cross the 5.2 or so barrier that is the general warning level in Australia. Certainly, heart disease risk escalates appreciably from 5.2-6.2 and dramatically above 6.2, but people with levels of 5.1 still die from heart attacks. In fact, in the US, 35% of heart attack victims have cholesterol levels between 3.9 and 5.2 mM. Cholesterol levels also correlate with other chronic diseases, like strokes, type 2 diabetes and many cancers. During the China Study research in rural China (where heart disease was very rare at the time), the average cholesterol level was 3.3 mM and the range was 1.8-4.4 mM. Additionally, a trio and well-respected heart disease researchers and doctors (including Dr Bill Castelli of the famous Framingham Heart Study), say they have never seen a heart disease fatality in a patient with cholesterol below 3.9 mM.2 Surely that's where you want to be on the cholesterol scale?
I was very confident from the science I had read, that my cholesterol would drop to below 150, and I don't want to be an unnecessary drain on the medical system, so I've only had one subsequent cholesterol check-up this Feb. Unsurprisingly, it is now in the "heart-attack proof" zone, at 3.4 mM.
% Body Fat
Body fat percentage is a strong indicator of risk for a number of diseases. The American Council on Exercise has some guidelines on percentage body fat for men.3 Getting below essential body fat of 2-5% is dangerous. Body builders often encroach on this limit on competition day. Depending on sport, athletes typically are 6-13%, while "fit" men are commonly 14-17%. "Average" is 18-24% and obese is anything over 25%. In February last year, I started out at 23.8%, and by August this reached 17.9%. I'm actually a couple of kilos heavier now than last August, so I presume I would be at the lower end of the Average bracket.
More importantly from a health perspective, though, my abdominal fat (aka visceral fat) went from 20.6 to 9.9%. Abdominal fat is highly associated with negative health consequences, such as diabetes type 2, metabolic syndrome, cancer, heart disease etc. Some hypotheses relate to the proximity of fat in this region to the portal vein and thence the liver.
Waist circumference
Australian government guidelines warn against waist measurements above 94 cm for men. I was surprised I was a smidge above this last Feb, but I may not be measuring very well. Nevertheless, this is certainly in better territory now.
Well that's enough of my gory personal details for now.
- According to a 2009 survey of 1,202 Aussie adults, 5% identified as being vegetarian and 1% as vegan, although the numbers strictly adhering to those eating styles was significantly less.
- The China Study, p. 79.
- http://www.acefitness.org/blog/112/what-are-the-guidelines-for-percentage-of-body-fat/
