Last year I took part in Veganuary and other than a bit of illness towards the end of the month (I am not sure if it was Veganuary related) I very much enjoyed the experience and as I have Victoria living with me this year I thought why not try it again and see what happens. Will I be able to stick to it and will I be able to go through it living the way I plan to? Lot’s of questions, but let’s set it all out for what to expect.
Cutting out those treats
I know there are lots of vegan treats. Hell, I have made loads of them myself for Victoria and I, but I want this to be the start of really trying to cut down on the treats and although I will have loads leftover from Christmas, I at least know I cannot touch them over the January period and that I will try and just eat those slowly over the coming months and if I have treats in the house I won’t need to buy any over the following months. January just needs to be a kick start into breaking that sweet habit and I think I can get there with it.
Meal prepping
With Victoria working for the same company as me we have come to an agreement that it will be a lot easier to meal prep together on what we want to have each day, so after our weekly shop on Sunday 29th December, we will have a lot of food that we can select from and all the veg to go with it. I will try and get the portions right, as sometimes I go a tad much with them and hopefully with healthy snacks for throughout the day, our meals should be nice and orderly, well that is the hope anyway!
Being creative
I try to make Victoria meals that I would have myself, just veganised. So I hope to be a bit more experimental with that with the meals and hopefully, we can expand on our usual 10 or so types of dinner. I have a few ideas of what I can make and throughout the month I will share them throughout the weeks, maybe they will interest you, maybe not. As long as they are tasty then I am happy!
Try not to be frustrated
I know one thing that really frustrated me last year was when we would go out and try and enjoy a meal out in a restaurant and I would be really pissed off at the vegan options that they would present to us. Just the same things, again and again, curry, risotto, etc. Just really standard fare from this lot. From my own cooking, I found that it wasn’t that hard or cheap to make food that was different from those options, so to see professionals get away with putting in the least amount of effort is a little disheartening. However, from our experiences in restaurants over the past year, the options have definitely been improving. Have they improved enough though?
What about my energy levels?
Last year as I got towards the back end of the month, I really found my energy levels start to go down. It was quite alarming to see how little energy I would have for normal things throughout the week. Exercises became harder as the month got on. Now whether this is connected to me getting sick over the month is a question that I do ask myself. I feel that possibly there were linked as I usually have quite a good immune system. To counter this, I do plan on taking some B12 and other vitamin tablets to help replace any possible lost energy I had. I should be grand and last year was just a rare occurrence, but it always pays to be careful just in case.
Well, that is all from me today, I hope you keep popping by to see how the month goes and if you would like to read my other posts on Veganuary and other vegan posts, feel free down below. Until next time.
For other vegan based posts, have a look below!
Veganism: My first encounter with cooking a vegan meal.
Dating a vegan/only eats plant based foods
Things I have learned from dating a (lovely) vegan for a year
Scott H Gilliland 