A Vegan for 21 Days?

With the new year beginning, I’ve decided to try something new….veganism.  Now, I was a vegetarian for years as a high school & college student but I always continued to eat eggs and dairy.  I’ve been eating meat since my early 20’s but when I got an email about the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart, I started thinking about a change.

In true Jenifer fashion, I had to spend sometime thinking about it and researching it so I’m a few days late in starting the plan (I’m on day 1 but they are officially on day 4).  When I mentioned this to a few friends, they were interested in how I’ll do (my husband doesn’t think I’ll stick to it…I love a challenge! lol) so I thought it might be fun to post about my Vegan Adventure on the blog.

Today was day one and the day started off with my keys locked in my car so I was unable to get to the grocery store but thanks to the BMW Assist guy, I was off and running by noon.

So, today’s meals were:

Breakfast - Banana and two cups of coffee (1.3 grams protein)

Lunch - Vegetarian Burrito from Chipotle (This is my usual but I had them hold the cheese and sour cream this time) (about 22 grams of protein)

Dinner - Penne  w/ Marinara Sauce and Arabic Cabbage Salad  (16 grams of protein)

One of my concerns with the Vegan diet is keeping up my protein and iron so I’ll be tracking my protein each day, too.  I’m thinking that I need about 40 grams of protein a day so will be shooting for that as my goal.

Today I reached 39.3 grams of protein. Impressive, huh?  I’d say that’s reaching my protein goal?  One thing that helped is that for the last few years, I’ve been serving Barilla Plus Pasta so that my picky eating son would get some protein in his pasta w/ butter.  Now, it serves me well as each serving has 17 grams of protein!

I’m excited about my plan and can’t wait to see how I feel differently in 21 days.

(oh and in case you’re interested the Arabic Cabbage Salad is basically shredded/sliced fresh cabbage tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and some pressed garlic.)