I have been giving it some thoughts about slimming down on my weight and just overall wanting to feel healthy. I have tried all the diets that you can think of, but never fully committed to one as I always see no results and eventually give up. I have been doing some research and looking into video ideas of what it would be like and the timeline and the result that could be achieved using a vegan or vegetarian option diet. Changing your diet can have positive and negative feedback because our environment is what codes our DNA. Epigenetics is the idea that we are the ones that are in control of what happens to our health, whatever we put into our bodies can create the outcome. There have been studies done around epigenetics and how chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases are caused because of our environment, our dietary and lifestyle choices are what cause those certain diseases to occur.
The idea of going vegan has recently skyrocketed with acceptance, but the majority of the audience was the younger generation. Going vegan isn’t just about changing your diet, it also includes changing your belief systems and your lifestyle. Vegan diets are usually higher in fiber, magnesium, and vitamin C. But it can be difficult to intake the number of calories needed to sustain life. It also lacks many nutrients such as vitamin D, calcium, and vitamin B-12. A vegan diet appears to be important in taking in the correct vitamins of choice for a healthy body and avoiding any negative chemicals that could cause harm to your body. There are also some downfalls to going vegan, in a study that was done indicated that meat eaters had a higher level of BMI and were less active. It also showed that vegans had a lower percentage of BMI, but a higher indication of movement. However, the main difference was the intake of calcium, that indicated meat had a great amount of calcium and vegans had a lower amount of calcium intake, which resulted in a 30% higher fracture rate compared to all other diet groups, including meat eaters, vegetarian, and pescatarians. But the positives outweigh the negatives depending on why you choose to go vegan, as yes you will be healthier if you are intaking the right amount, and you are also can have a change on the environment, because the environment is also part of our life.
There is a range of motivations behind going vegetarian and it is closely tied to going vegan. Both diets were compared and had the same amount of caloric intake, the main health difference was that the amount of B12 and calcium was much higher in a vegetarian diet. Referring back to the study on bone fracture, it was indicated that vegetarians had roughly the same result of bone fracture as meat eaters.
Having a minor in Biology has opened my eyes to food and GMOs, which are genetically modified foods. I have been learning about GMOs and the effect they have on our bodies. This goes back through this cycle that whatever we intake in our bodies will result in what we put in. Organic food is the concept of growing food without the use of artificial fertilizers, chemicals, or any growth hormones. The simple answer if organic foods are better is complex, it isn’t as simple as it is. There are many factors to answer that question but the short answer is that studies have indicated that organic food appears to contain less harmful chemicals that could cause chronic illnesses, it also indicated a low percentage of risk of poisoning. The downfall of purchasing organic food is that it can be very expensive, especially if you are a college student living off a part-time job and your scholarships. I feel that personally that it can be difficult to go full organic only as I don’t have the money or resources to support myself.
Another idea that I also gave some thought was cutting down my meat, I feel like that could be the balance that I’m looking forward to. I also want faster results and also have realized that I’m not the biggest meat eater to begin with as I tend to only intake white meat and I keep it a minimum amount.
The reason why I have been giving some thought to changing my diet was that I have been wanting to lower my body weight. I have always been on a larger size of scale, my heaviest was around 254 lbs. But slowly I have been progressively slimming down but also at the same time I have been gaining muscle. Also, another motivation behind why I want to slim down in such a short period of time is that I’m planning to run a half marathon at the end of April, so I have a date set when I want to see the results.
I have been giving several thoughts about what perspective I should take. Looking at the positive and negative consequences of each diet. I roughly have around 2 months until the marathon. I’m currently sitting at 218 lbs and have a 23.6 BMI. What I want is to slim down to around 200 and lowering my body fat percentage to 16-19 body fat percentage. I need results quickly because of the time frame that I have, I was thinking about starting with the vegan diet straight away. Taking into account three things. One is my current body weight at the beginning of the diet and at the end. I also want to take my BMI into consideration. And third, I would like to find a system where I can rank myself on how ‘healthy’ I feel, and this could be considered into small goals, for example, how many minutes does it take me currently to run a mile and compare that at the end of the 1 months. I also was going to take how many push-ups and pull-ups I can do currently and also compare those at the end of the time frame. Then the second month I want to go vegetarian and take the same data and then by the time the marathons roll through I want to compare and contrast the data from each month.
I also have been giving a thought about what could go wrong. First, I feel like it will be easier to give up on the diet so I would need to commit, so one way to do that is that I’m going to write a journal every day and keeping myself in check. I also have many friends who follow vegan and vegetarian diets, so I want them to keep me on track. Another thing that I needed to consider is that I have to make sure I don’t get sick because of the sudden change in my body, so I need to make sure I’m intaking all the essential vitamins and nutrients in my body, so I need to do my research on what needs to go in my body.
After the 2-month time frame, I want to be able to take into consideration the results that I get and think about if this is sustainable for me, and do I feel better compared to my current body. I also was thinking about going organic only, but I don’t think I can fully commit due to the fact that I don’t currently have the resources to do so. I was hoping that I can start small and pick certain things vegan, such as the cheaper fruits that I can afford. Start slow and build my way through.
I will measure my success with how much weight I lose and take my BMI into consideration, but I also want to take my mental state into account and figure out if I feel healthier and happier compared to before. I also want to take my body image into consideration because I always had a low self-esteem problem, so I want to see if I look better and if I’m not just actually losing my muscle mass because that could be a huge problem for me. I’m excited to challenge myself and see how far I can take my physical, but most importantly, my mental state.
References
Appleby, P., Roddam, A., Allen, N., & Key, T. (2007, February 7). Comparative Fracture Risk in Vegetarians and Nonvegetarians in EPIC-Oxford. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/1602659/
Health Effects of Vegan Diets. (2009, March 11). Psychology of Health. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/89/5/1627S/4596952