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| Protoss Zealot Says, "I hunger for veggies!" |
It wasn't hard. Really. The excitement of trying something new with K easily overwhelmed any feelings of inertia. The only challenging part was going out to eat. I'm pretty sure I slipped up a few more times - once when egg was in a Vietnamese dish, once when I think there was cream in an Indian dish, and once when I got black beans, and I'm pretty sure they were cooked with lard, once when Parmesan came on our pasta even though we had requested no cheese. When I had control over what I was eating, though, it was easy to create tasty things that didn't have any animal products in them. Cookies, cakes, I made several. And I've adapted things to be vegan. Almost everything was good. The failures were a brownie mix that made the worst brownies I have ever had. Really, really not good. They were so bad, I don't even want to list the brand on this public blog, because I am embarrassed for that company. I couldn't even take them to work. Between myself and J, I think we did manage to eat them all. It was kind of like - "hmm, maybe they'll be better now that they are cool?"
"nope."
"Are they still really that bad?"
"yep, they are."
And trying to make chick pea coco puffs - meh. Don't bother. And actually, don't bother trying the spicy roasted chickpeas, either. Not worth it. Also I have decided that I do not like Martha Rose Schulman's recipes on the NY times. Her palate and mine do not agree on what a person should eat. The Indian lentil burgers were not tasty. They weren't yucky, but I didn't want the leftovers.
My issues of edema and cramping in my hands and feet never totally went away. Although the docs weren't sure, I think my 2 blood tests give a pretty good understanding of what was going on. Both symptoms were mild, and maybe others wouldn't have noticed the edema. But I did.
Here's what the blood tests showed:
Hematocrit - low (34, where ideal range is 36-48)
Hemoglobin - low (11.4 ideal range 12-16)
Albumin - low (3.3 ideal range 3.4-5.0) and the second test was lower.
Alkaline phosphate - low (21 ideal range 50-136)
So all those things I am borderline low in can be caused by inadequate protein intake and inadequate B12. Also potentially magnesium and calcium, although those tested in the normal range. Low albumin is known to affect oncotic pressure. Or, in the words of wiki, "In conditions where plasma proteins (like albumin) are reduced, e.g. from being lost in the urine or from malnutrition, there will be a reduction in oncotic pressure and an increase in filtration across the capillary, resulting in excess fluid buildup in the tissues (edema)." Hey, that sounds like a decent explanation for me. Slightly low albumin, (potentially lower oncotic pressure), get slight edema. Also, all of the things I am low in could signal anemia. Other studies linked the low numbers above to slight malnutrition, specifically proteins. (CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol. 41, No. 4, 1995, 515
Significance of Low Serum Alkaline Phosphatase Activity in a Predominantly Adult Male Population, Gifford)
I did try to take a multi-vitamin, and managed it about half the time. I also tried to take omega 3s, B12, calcium, and magnesium, and I think I managed that maybe 10 times over 11 weeks. (oops)
But most of all, I was not good about getting as much protein as I said I needed. I averaged, every day, about 45-60 g of protein. While that is more than the 44 g a day that a normal person my weight needs, it's only slightly more than half of what an athlete needs. In order to get enough protein, I had to eat 20 g of protein every meal, and get 10 g of protein in each of my 2 snacks a day. That was tough, and I only managed it twice.
Turns out, I just didn't make myself eat enough beans!
What I really wanted to know from this experiment, is whether my health would improve on this diet - both subjectively (how I felt) and objectively - by looking for a positive change in my cholesterol and triglyceride numbers, and no negative change in other blood work. Well, the other blood work (CBC - Complete Blood Count, CMP - comprehensive metabolic panel, Folate Serum, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, and Magnesium) had some low values as I noted above, that had never been low before. None of these caused the doc any concern, however.
But cholesterol - this is where dietary changes should be seen! After all, in Forks over Knives, the narrator had a spectacular drop in LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. So. I've had two Fasting Lipid Panels (cholesterol tests) in the last 3 weeks: Test 1 at 7.5 weeks, and Test 2 at 10.5 weeks.
Results: Last Fall Test 1 Test 2
Total cholesterol 205 221 197
LDL 105 109 98
HDL 80 102 83
Triglycerides 91 52 79
Glucose 76 94 85
I think these tests are within the noise of each other, there doesn't appear to be any trend. How anticlimactic! But, that is the first time I've seen a 3-digit HDL number for me. The ratio of LDL to HDL was lower in the last 2 tests than last fall, but even that is slight. I was pretty healthy before, and am pretty healthy now. Not terribly exciting.
Plans?
Because of the cramping and edema, I am going to add back in eggs and fish. There are some reasons for me to continue to eat in a "whole food plants-based" way most of the time:
1.) Minimization of allergies - I can't think of anything else that explains how minor my allergies were this year. I hate allergies, never had them until a few years ago, and would go to the ends of the earth to get rid of them... but maybe I only have to eat vegan. Sold.
2.) While the tests say I'm not at risk for heart disease or diabetes, two of the "western diseases" that this diet is supposed to prevent, I have a family history of cancer, the third western disease. I don't want it - if this might help (and since it isn't going to hurt), sold.
3.) I think I am recovering faster from hard workouts. I attribute the tiredness I've felt in the last week to being at the end of my build period - 3 weeks of 70 mpw running, and the beginning of the hot season. And I have been working on my house late into the night, so there's been less of the sleep thing than I'm used to.
4.) I like cooking this way. As it is, I cook maybe 4 times a week, and eat left overs or take out the rest of the time. Now that I have the spices I like, it's a little cheaper, too. Oh, and TASTY. I've been amazed at how good things are.
5.) It makes sense to me that the food I eat should be as close to the ground - as little processed - as possible. Science is awesome, and food science is great, but no Kraft/Nabisco/General Mills plant can create a food-stuff to match what comes from clean air, water, and soil. Foods are more than the grams of protein, fat and carbohydrates that we can measure.
Just because I CAN (being a chemist) pronounce all the items on a nutrition label, doesn't mean I should eat or buy it!
Thank you, Animaniacs.
G'night everybody!
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