I'm sure most of my Austrian and German readers won't need an explanation what Vegan for Fit is, but for all my lovely international readers a short intro.
Attila Hildmann is the author of four cook books, two made him known and the last one "Vegan For Fit" made him famous. This book is about a 30 days challenge with recipes in two categories, Step 1 and Step 2. You can eat breakfast and lunch from the step 2 meals and after 4 pm only step 1 meals are allowed. After 7 pm you're not supposed to eat anything anymore.
Attila is THE face of a new generation of Vegans. Successfully moving the image of the glum do-gooder to a mainstream who just wants to live healthy.
His new book, Vegan For Youth, which isn't even out yet, is already Number 1 on the Amazon cookbooks list! I read today that they currently translating Vegan For Fit and will launch it internationally next year.
So far, so good. I've been a mostly-strict Vegetarian for over a decade now. I don't really like meat, but I did occasionally eat a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets at McDonalds and I never had a problem eating pasta with sauce that originally contained meat. I just gave the meat to my husband.
Nevertheless, for quite a while now I wanted to change my nutrition. I wanted to become a vegan. Not just out of idealism or health reasons. The more I read about the background, from where and at what cost our (vegetarian) food comes from the more I felt the need to change.
I got the two books for christmas and was highly motivated. I bought all the basic ingredients one needs, most of which I never heard of and some cooking tools. I think I spent about 130€ just for that, books not included. Not the cheapest thing to do, but after all it's my health.
Two days and some Vegan For Fit meals and drinks later I was desperate. I didn't like the taste of soy milk, I found the high praised Matcha green tea powder disgusting and from the raw vegetables, especially the zucchini noodles which I was soooo excited about, I got horrible bellyache. I felt like a complete failure. Everyone was raving about the recipes and how awesome and easy it was and I just found it hard and annoying.
So I quit, a few months later I started Weight Watchers with my "normal" vegetarian nutrition and lost 15 kg. After two good months I left Weight Watchers, cause it was so expensive, I'm not a group therapy person and I thought I can continue the program on my own. Way off the mark! I fell back in my old habits and already gained 5 kg again, yay!....
The thoughts, the wish to become vegan never left my mind though. So, a couple of days ago I decided to try it again. So many people lost weight with it and of course the nutritional change was something I really wanted for myself.
Today was the first day of this new challenge and I already struggle again and I hate myself for it. The meals were good, but my body and mind are so addicted to my old habits and food I never felt truly full (in a good way, not the over-eating thing).
Here's what I ate. It never looked like the pictures in the book, so I made photos of it as well.
Banana pancakes with raspberry ice cream (Step 2), my favorite:
Attila Hildmann is the author of four cook books, two made him known and the last one "Vegan For Fit" made him famous. This book is about a 30 days challenge with recipes in two categories, Step 1 and Step 2. You can eat breakfast and lunch from the step 2 meals and after 4 pm only step 1 meals are allowed. After 7 pm you're not supposed to eat anything anymore.
Attila is THE face of a new generation of Vegans. Successfully moving the image of the glum do-gooder to a mainstream who just wants to live healthy.
His new book, Vegan For Youth, which isn't even out yet, is already Number 1 on the Amazon cookbooks list! I read today that they currently translating Vegan For Fit and will launch it internationally next year.
So far, so good. I've been a mostly-strict Vegetarian for over a decade now. I don't really like meat, but I did occasionally eat a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets at McDonalds and I never had a problem eating pasta with sauce that originally contained meat. I just gave the meat to my husband.
Nevertheless, for quite a while now I wanted to change my nutrition. I wanted to become a vegan. Not just out of idealism or health reasons. The more I read about the background, from where and at what cost our (vegetarian) food comes from the more I felt the need to change.
I got the two books for christmas and was highly motivated. I bought all the basic ingredients one needs, most of which I never heard of and some cooking tools. I think I spent about 130€ just for that, books not included. Not the cheapest thing to do, but after all it's my health.
Two days and some Vegan For Fit meals and drinks later I was desperate. I didn't like the taste of soy milk, I found the high praised Matcha green tea powder disgusting and from the raw vegetables, especially the zucchini noodles which I was soooo excited about, I got horrible bellyache. I felt like a complete failure. Everyone was raving about the recipes and how awesome and easy it was and I just found it hard and annoying.
So I quit, a few months later I started Weight Watchers with my "normal" vegetarian nutrition and lost 15 kg. After two good months I left Weight Watchers, cause it was so expensive, I'm not a group therapy person and I thought I can continue the program on my own. Way off the mark! I fell back in my old habits and already gained 5 kg again, yay!....
The thoughts, the wish to become vegan never left my mind though. So, a couple of days ago I decided to try it again. So many people lost weight with it and of course the nutritional change was something I really wanted for myself.
Today was the first day of this new challenge and I already struggle again and I hate myself for it. The meals were good, but my body and mind are so addicted to my old habits and food I never felt truly full (in a good way, not the over-eating thing).
Here's what I ate. It never looked like the pictures in the book, so I made photos of it as well.
Banana pancakes with raspberry ice cream (Step 2), my favorite:
For lunch I had a lentils vegetable thing without the pesto (Step 1), cause we forgot to buy some ingredients.
For dinner I made the pumpkin pepper curry tofu with peanut coconut flakes (Step 1). Mine got a little burned:
I also made some of the desserts, cause I was so desperate for something sweet..
Cashew Panna Cotta (Step 1):
left side: Peanut Chocolate Crunch (Step 2), right side: Cinnamon Bliss Kiss (Step 2)
The chocolates were good, but the cashew panna cotta wasn't my thing.
And here I am, I'm not hungry, but I'm not happy. I basically wanna quit, quite badly actually. The cooking took a long time and I wasn't particularly good at it.
I just want it to be over, I don't wanna fall back into my old habits, the unhealthy addiction to chocolate and the vegetarian junk food, but it's just so exhausting. I don't have the energy for all this. Do you know what I mean?
Guinevere
4 comments:
Hi,
i normally don't eat vegan or even vegetarian, but once a year, i eat vegan for a month, typically in october.
first thing i noticed: I'm never ill in these semi cold fall days, as others are.
but the first days are always a struggle. i like dairy and dairy based food very much, but some of the vegan supplements are very tasty. i normally don`t like soy things, but it's okay with vanilla or banana taste.
i don't like tofu either, but maybe "lupine" is an option - i need to try this. i discovered some vegan gyros wich was also very tasty. just try soem new things, some will be nasty...^^.
yesterday i had a couscous salad, which was absolutly lovley and later some stew which only took about 20 minutes to make (and you can always freeze something for later). today i will have a quick curry with rice or some chili sin carne.
oh...and i allow me some cheating. i really like milk in my coffee...don't be so harsh on yourself - it's just food and it should always be fun.
Thanks Diana, your comment was a real pick-me-up. :)
I decided to just slowly change to vegan, step by step. This might be best longterm-wise
hey :)
das ist ja super, was du da alles gekocht hast! wow! ich bin total begeistert :)
ja, leider dauert das kochen oft lange, vor allem, wenn man bedenkt wie schnell das essen gegessen ist... aber es zahlt sich aus! mit der zeit bekommst du auch die übung und dann gelingen dir die sachen besser und vor allem auch schneller! du kriegst mit was du alles gleichzeitig machen kannst, um dir damit auch zeit zu ersparen und am ende wirst du dich dann doch freuen, dass da jetzt ein gutes und gesundes essen am tisch steht! :)
durchhalten durchhalten durchhalten!
wenn du magst, können wir an den mittwoch-nachmittagen, wenn wir uns regelmäßig sehen wollen, ja gemeinsam kochen? einmal bei dir, einmal bei mir, abwechselnd?
viele bussis, eli
Your post is very interesting as I'm always interested in other people's experience of going vegan.
I like dairy products too much to take that step right now, plus non-dairy swaps are so much more expensive and I can't afford them.
I will look out for the books you mention though because I like trying new recipes!
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