Travelling with Snacks

I'm on my way home from my Christmas break. I'm travelling across the Uk with snacks to hand because I know getting hold of vegan food and drink is going to be tricky on my journey. I'm armed with all of my snack left overs:

- pretzels 

- cashews and raisins

- apples

- fruit bars

- liquorice 

Hopefully these will tide me over for my journey back to London where I can plan and prep properly for my veganuary challenge. I'm going to need to go shopping when I'm home for some food, and hope I'm not starving in addition to throwing out all pre Christmas snacks. 

Day Four

I'm starting to get into the swing of things now. Today I tried nothing new, but rather ate at what snacks and food I had left in the house as I am homeward bound in the morning. It is then that I will be able to gather my body stats. 

I had a mango, kale and orange juice smoothie. However after some bad green smelling gas, I looked up that it's not wise to eat too much kale raw therefore I will keep it to 2-3 green smoothies a week in order to get my super food vitamin fix. This is due to kale, especially raw kale, being very difficult to digest - and on one site likened to the equivalent of rubbing cactus on your skin. 

I've been trying to eat more vegetables and trying to avoid overloading on fruit because although healthy and 100% natural, fruit is high in fructose- a very fast releasing sugar. Therefore I have a lot of fruit to take on the train home with me tomorrow in the form of a fruit salad. 

I have been very much enjoying my cashew nuts although I always do and did. I love those little kernels but am looking forward to my big mix bag of nuts at home in my cupboard. When I get home I will start routing through my vegan cookbooks and meal planning properly as I have had to improvise quite a lot whilst away. One snack I also enjoyed very much was dark chocolate covered rice cakes by Kallo. They're so delicious and a good alternative to biscuits. 

There is also a vegan cafe down my new high street which I am looking forward to trying out. Bring it on, day four and I'm still going strong. I hope to run again tomorrow as well as part of my training once I am home for 5k. I will update on whether this happens or not tomorrow. 

Day Three

I started training again for the races I've signed up for this year. My diet is an important part of my training as I have to make sure I get enough energy and protein from my diet.

I've also started making smoothies again in order to try and come back from having to take supplements for my deficiencies. Therefore after my run I made a smoothie of:

- Orange juice

-  Mango

- Papaya

- Kale

I also had the treat of a soy latte in Costa - which is one of my favourite pasttimes at home. I love to go for coffee, and read or chat. Luckily I can exchange my normal latte for a soy latte and still have a tasty treat.

The Food Diary

Breakfast:

Muesli with banana and soy milk

Snack:

Smoothie (above)

Lunch:

Ratatoullie and pasta

Snack:

Soy latte. Fruit and nut mix.

Dinner:

Baked potatoe and beans

Nakd nibbles

Evening:

Raspberry gin and lemonade :)

Eating on the High Street

Yesterday I faced the challenge of trying to get something to eat whilst out. I knew this would be a challenge, especially out of the big cities away from vegan cafés and restaurants. I was in the METRO centre in Newcastle, which is full of high street shops for square meters upon square meters. It's massive. I went to Marks and Spencer expecting to be able to pick up a superfood salad or something. Unfortunately I was mistaken, by 1 or 2 ingredients. They would've been great options as well, alas they had honey and milk derivatives in them.

The crucial question is, what did I walk away with for my late afternoon snacks?

A bag of pretzels, a fruit salad and a mix bag of cashews and raisins. It wasn't quite the superfood salad I'd been hoping for but having said that, the only unhealthy thing I came away with was pretzels - which were quite tasty in the guilt ridden salty way that pretzels are tasty. Although, having said that I'm not 100% sure why Americans love them SO much. I'm not displeased that I can eat them, but I'm not raving about them either.

As you can see from my food diary below, I was in a very chocolatey mood yesterday. It's a good job there are so many delicious chocolate treats that are vegan - or is it??

 The Food Diary

Breakfast: Muesli, with soy milk and banana. Coffee.

Lunch: Pitta with Houmous and cucumber.

Snacks:

Alpro soya chocolate pudding

Roo Bar - Inca berry flavour (delicious!!!)

Moo chocolate

Moo chocolate with raisins and nuts

Alpro soya chocolate milk

Pretzels

Fruit salad

Cashews and raisins

Dinner: Ratatoullie and pasta

My Protein Replacement Journey

One thing I've been looking into is protein sources for the vegan diet, in addition to milk replacement products. I drink a lot of milk normally in tea, coffee and shakes so for me a quality milk replacement product is important. I also wanted a quality protein, that was a whpole protein to fit into my diet for my sports performance and recovery. Usually for this I use whey powder protein shakes, however whey is a derivative of milk proteins so for the vegan challenge is off limits.

Whilst looking for vegan protein shakes I found many however few provided complete amino acid chains, therefore I would've had to drink a combination of 2-3 different shakes in order to obtain my full amino acid chains for muscle growth and repair. The shake I found that is a complete plant protein powder is SCI-MX Nutrition PRO V-GAIN PROTIEN powder which contains 100% complete proteins by combining a blend of rice, soy and pea proteins. A taste test is yet to come when it arrives.

As for my milk substitute for a decent tasting coffee my immediate response was to go for soy products - so I went for a product I know well, Alpro. Soy milk is a substitute using soy beans and when fortified with calcium and vitamin D can be used similarly to cow's milk within the diet, in coffee, cereal and otherwise milk based drinks. I had always assumed soy was healthy as judging by the nutritional information chart on the back of the product it seems like a healthy dairy free alternative, but after doing some reading into the process of making soy and soy products it seems I was mistaken.

This I will write about in further details once I have done some more reading, however I conclude from my reading so far that the most likely outcome is that I will use soy milk products, and soy products in general for the sake of my vegan challenge but once I revert back to dairy I will be avoiding most soy products. Unless my reading provides further evidence in the favour of soy production and products.

Day One: Thoughts

Today is day one of the vegan challenge. It started well with a nice breakfast, a tasty lunch then some uhmm...questionable snacks and ahem...bad wind. I'm sorry but it needs to be mentioned seeing as I'm doing this as a nutritional experiment to see the nutritional effects on my body. I think however, and hope very much, that my body adapts my new diet my digestive system will hopefully improve to cope - otherwise I may just end up with no friends by the time it's over.

I haven't been able to measure my muscle and fat mass on the scales available to me at the moment, but my BMI is a sound 24. Although still healthy, it is a little too close to the overweight BMI of 25 for my liking. I'll re-weigh when I get home to get my fat and muscle masses, then again on the 1st february in order to see if the challenge has had any effects on my weight.

I think, due to the light nature of my meals I've been hungry for a lot of snacks. Although my list seems long, my portions were small-moderate. I think snacking is goign to be important with such bulky meals with low calories, however, this is fine as eating regularly suits me and my life style quite fine.

The Food Diary

Breakfast:

Dorset cereals fruit muesli with alpro soya milk

Banana

Coffee with alpro soya milk

Lunch:

Covent Garden slow roast tomato soup

Food Doctor multi-seed and cereal pittas

Dinner:

Ratatoullie with Baked Potatoe

Snacks:

Dark chocolate rice cakes

Alpro soya chocolate desert

Sesame sticks

Dried fruit bar

Apple

Moo Chocolate

The Days Are Inching Closer

The challenge is becoming more and more real as the day I start my experiment ease closer. I have mixed feelings about it, but mainly one of excitment of all the news foods I'm going to try, the new recipes I'm going to be exploring and the challenges I'll be facing along the way.

I did my first 100% vegan shop in Sainsburys and a specialist shop today. I bought a number of new food items such as:

 - Organica, Golden Coconut Delight
 - Roo'Bar in Inca Berry flavour
 - nakd fruit salad, fruit and nut nibbles
 - Frutina real fruit snack bars for sugar energy when I'm running

The thing is, one thing I'm not worried about is whether I'll like the food or not because everything I bought today I'm excited to eat and am looking forward to eliminating, hopefully, most crap and chemicals from my diet. I know going vegan mainly means cutting out aniumal products, but I'm also aiming to eat unprocessed foods with as few chemicals as I can. I once saw a meme that said:

Too many people are counting calories and not enough are counting chemicals.
I think this is true and in my journey to bettering my own nutritional intake via experimentation I hope to learn more about what is in my food, chemicals and all. In addition to hopefully making others more aware of what is in our food, and how our nutrients affect our bodyt functioning.

On the 6th January (when I'm home) I will take my stats of my body composition and BMI in order to seehow and if it naturally changes over time or not. I am not aiming to lose weight, however, this is more about how I am feeling within myself but it will be interesting to see if I gain or lose fat % whilst eating more natural foods.