Ryan and I were not two people likely to give up animal products. Everyone who makes the decision to cut animal products out of their diet has a different reason and journey of how they got there. Even as a couple, we arrived at the same whole food plant based destination from two differing paths. Here’s our journey of giving up animal products and becoming whole food plant based.
KATY’S JOURNEY
I was like every person who grew up being taught what the Standard American Diet was. If there wasn’t protein in the meal — it wasn’t a meal. And protein came from animal products. I’d eat eggs for breakfast, turkey sandwich for lunch, chicken or beef or fish for dinner… How could I possibly become vegan when all of my meals revolved around those foods?
In an effort to eat healthier and less processed foods, I tried the Paleo Diet. It was my first time ever really cooking for myself and I found that I truly loved knowing what was actually in my food. I found recipes that I loved and made them over and over. There was nothing necessarily bad about the diet at the time, but I didn’t keep up with it. One thing that stuck was trying to avoid overly-processed foods wherever I could.
Years later, I met Ryan and we created goals to travel the world together, and our priorities shifted. For me, that resulted in wanting to own less, be a better consumer, and save more so that we could achieve those goals. I started exploring minimalistic lifestyles and throwing out items of clothing or just anything I could get rid of. I even sold my car.
Oddly enough, so many things go hand-in-hand. In exploring minimalism, I found that I also wanted to reduce my waste. We found eco-friendly options for plastic bags and food storage. I started taking public transportation and carpooling since I no longer had a car. I wanted to make healthier choices for my mind, my body, and my environment.
RYAN’S JOURNEY
If you’d ever asked me what my two favorite things were, I’d answer Ranch dressing and cheese. I used them at any and every opportunity that I could; the more the better. Katy used to tease that I loved Ranch dressing more than I loved her. But for anyone else who loves Ranch and cheese, I don’t need to tell you that my weight was always an issue.
Throughout the year, I’d manage to get down to what I thought was a “happy” weight, but come the holiday season I was back up 20-30lbs. Every. Single. Year. I’d train for half marathons, go to the gym, cut out sugar … nothing kept the pounds from coming back. It was incredibly frustrating to think that I had no control over my weight and I just had to live with it.
I began noticing on Instagram the super-fit travel couples (namely @mariefeandjakesnow) and they’d regularly post about a whole food plant based diet. You can read their journey here. At first, it didn’t occur to me to look into it. Posts about recipes and photos of mouth-watering meals started appearing in my feed and those words kept popping up: whole food plant based.
TURNING POINT
We had finally come across plant based diets enough to dig a little deeper. We read blogs and articles and frankly were still skeptical. They all repeatedly recommended watching documentaries that were free and available on Netflix. After reading Marie and Jakes journey and seeing their recommendations, we decided to sit down and give one of these documentaries a go. In one night we watched two: Eating Yourself to Death and Forks Over Knives. At the end of the second documentary we looked at one-another and literally said “I guess we are vegans now.” It was crystal clear that this was worth exploring further.
We still had so many questions. What’s the difference between vegan and whole food plant based? How do we know if this is truly healthy? Will eating only vegetables cause vitamin or nutrient deficiencies? Is whole food plant based going to be sustainable when we are traveling to other countries, or even within the U.S.? Will we even LIKE vegan food??
But, from that moment on, we reconsidered EVERY food item that we purchased and ate. We didn’t want to be wasteful (see above on eco-friendly) so we decided to use up all of the animal products we already had (milk, butter, bread, etc.) and replace them with alternatives as we ran out, or try to remove them entirely from our diets. We started researching whole food plant based recipes, blogs, Instagram accounts, and other resources to help our transition.
Katy even read two books written by Michael Pollan that discussed differing perspectives on what a healthy diet consists of and where your food is truly coming from. Even though they were not vegan / whole food plant based literature, they explained so many details about pesticides, hormones, the industrialization of agriculture and how that translates into what’s on our plates.
What started out as exploration and curiosity morphed into something much deeper. We realized that by eating animal products we were doing harm to ourselves, the animals, and the planet. Once we had this information, we knew we had to be better with our choices and that we could make an impact with our decisions.
WHAT IS WHOLE FOOD PLANT BASED?
Assuming you haven’t stopped reading this and immediately started watching Forks over Knives, let’s cover the big question. What is whole food plant based (WFPB)? The basic premise of WFPB, is that all of the food you eat, is made strictly from whole raw ingredients. Vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, nuts and seasonings. No meat, dairy, refined or processed ingredients. This means no refined or added sugars, which is a very tough thing to ditch, but will make a HUGE difference.
One misconception when it comes to vegetarian, vegan or WFPB lifestyles, is that the food isn’t that good and that it’s mostly just salads and lettuce. Well lettuce tell you how false that is… See what we did there? We couldn’t pass up the opportunity. But seriously, go check out our 10 Foolproof Vegan Recipes, give a few a try and you let us know if the food doesn’t taste good. Some of the best meals we’ve ever had, have been within the last year of living a WFPB lifestyle.
WE FEEL BETTER THAN WE’VE FELT IN YEARS
A few months in we knew we were on the right path for ourselves. There were benefits that we hadn’t even considered. Grocery shopping was simpler and LESS expensive! We were going to Farmers Markets and buying products right from the farmers with little to no waste. There was no longer got that “oh my God, I’m going to die” full feeling after we ate a meal, no matter how much we ate. We stopped having so many digestion issues.
And the weightloss! Ryan’s weight plummeted (50lbs!) without any additional exercise or calorie-counting. Simply cutting out all that extra processed food and animal products worked wonders for his health.
Most importantly, we felt GOOD about what we were eating. We were no longer contributing to the mistreatment of animals for food or the climate change caused but industrialized agriculture. And we knew what we were putting into our bodies and what that meant for our health. The meals we make for ourselves are incredible and no longer revolve around protein, and instead all nutrients and vitamins. We vary our vegetables and find new ways to incorporate greens into our lives.
Are we perfect? No, not even close. We feel that we have gained so much from learning about whole food plant based. And we’re are so proud of how far we’ve come from bacon-cheese-burger-loving-people to cauliflower-everything-people and knowing that we make much better decisions for our health every single day.
We’re just over one year into our journey and are now a wealth of resources on the whole food plant based diet, but still are continually learning. If you’re interested in hearing more about how we got here, need a nudge in the direction of more information, or want to share your journey, please comment below!
