Student struggling to stay vegan
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 12:58 pm
Hey everyone!
First of all, I've been transitioning to veganism for about 1 year, I've been however vegetarian for 2 years.
I'm struggling on maintaining a vegan diet as I often struggle in keeping myself away from dairy products. I've decided to join in this community to try to get some help. So my vegan journey, so far:
1. I started as a fast-food vegan (eating all of those delicious processed vegan goodies yum) and with the philosophy that “I could eat whatever I wanted”. Until I noticed that my IBM was slightly obese (yay)
2. So I started to be raw vegan during summer, which made me miserable, cause smoothies and fruit is great but during the evening I would just crack and feel like a zombie.
3. So then I tried the raw till 4 thing, which didn't work as well, because first I'm a student and buying fresh food is not exactly ideal (yes I did buy frozen as well) and also I started to restrict myself, partly due to the pseudo-science around the vegan YouTube community. (I needed to get meal plans somewhere). So I removed my caffeine intake, stop eating processed vegan food including soya (this little guy introduced me to vegetarianism), tofu, tempeh, non-dairy milk, etc.
I've been maintaining this diet until I start to have these massive headaches, which I was convinced for a long time by the YouTube community that was caused by my addiction to dairy and that if I eat enough for a long time I would get better. But I haven't and as a 3rd year student I don’t really have the time to have headaches, I need to be 100% brain functional.
I should also include that I've been recovering from emotional eating that started in beginning of uni as a way to deal with anxiety, stress, sadness. (Back then I would eat animal products and mainly fast food)
I support the vegan idea completely and having these headaches really annoy me because I know it results from lack of nutrients and makes it difficult for me to believe that I could be a healthy happy vegan.
And I also want to lose weight, it’s the first time in my life that I’m oversized by BMI. Most websites etc advice to eat a 1500 calories diet or eat a 2000 calories diet and burn 500 calories every day. So far I’ve been trying to eat the 1500 diet which has made me miserable as I hate to restrict eat and also made me have those headaches. Please let me know how much calories I should eat per day and what I’m doing wrong.
Here is an example of what I would eat in a day:
- Oatmeal with almond milk, chia and some mix seeds, cinnamon (sometimes I add a red apple)
- (Usually eat at uni) a delicious tomato and red pepper / carrot/ curry soup with a bread roll
- Drink a cup of green tea, 4 wholemeal toasts with hummus and peppers
Snacks: apples, rice cakes
Please be patient with me, I've been changing my food habits for the last 4 years and I'm trying to improve every single day.
Thank you so much for your help
Love, Ana x
First of all, I've been transitioning to veganism for about 1 year, I've been however vegetarian for 2 years.
I'm struggling on maintaining a vegan diet as I often struggle in keeping myself away from dairy products. I've decided to join in this community to try to get some help. So my vegan journey, so far:
1. I started as a fast-food vegan (eating all of those delicious processed vegan goodies yum) and with the philosophy that “I could eat whatever I wanted”. Until I noticed that my IBM was slightly obese (yay)
2. So I started to be raw vegan during summer, which made me miserable, cause smoothies and fruit is great but during the evening I would just crack and feel like a zombie.
3. So then I tried the raw till 4 thing, which didn't work as well, because first I'm a student and buying fresh food is not exactly ideal (yes I did buy frozen as well) and also I started to restrict myself, partly due to the pseudo-science around the vegan YouTube community. (I needed to get meal plans somewhere). So I removed my caffeine intake, stop eating processed vegan food including soya (this little guy introduced me to vegetarianism), tofu, tempeh, non-dairy milk, etc.
I've been maintaining this diet until I start to have these massive headaches, which I was convinced for a long time by the YouTube community that was caused by my addiction to dairy and that if I eat enough for a long time I would get better. But I haven't and as a 3rd year student I don’t really have the time to have headaches, I need to be 100% brain functional.
I should also include that I've been recovering from emotional eating that started in beginning of uni as a way to deal with anxiety, stress, sadness. (Back then I would eat animal products and mainly fast food)
I support the vegan idea completely and having these headaches really annoy me because I know it results from lack of nutrients and makes it difficult for me to believe that I could be a healthy happy vegan.
And I also want to lose weight, it’s the first time in my life that I’m oversized by BMI. Most websites etc advice to eat a 1500 calories diet or eat a 2000 calories diet and burn 500 calories every day. So far I’ve been trying to eat the 1500 diet which has made me miserable as I hate to restrict eat and also made me have those headaches. Please let me know how much calories I should eat per day and what I’m doing wrong.
Here is an example of what I would eat in a day:
- Oatmeal with almond milk, chia and some mix seeds, cinnamon (sometimes I add a red apple)
- (Usually eat at uni) a delicious tomato and red pepper / carrot/ curry soup with a bread roll
- Drink a cup of green tea, 4 wholemeal toasts with hummus and peppers
Snacks: apples, rice cakes
Please be patient with me, I've been changing my food habits for the last 4 years and I'm trying to improve every single day.
Thank you so much for your help
Love, Ana x