Paleo-Veganesque Diet

I’ve begun my new eating plan. I unofficially started it about a week ago but I was cheating so badly I can’t really count those days. The new diet plan consists of the following:

1) Fruit
2) Vegetables
3) Grains
4) Legumes
5) Nuts
5) Seafood
6) Whey protein

Not on the list is: chicken, beef, cheese, ice cream, chocolate cake, cheese cake, or a 1lb box of See’s chocolates (all things I cheated with in the last week).

As you can see, this is not a true vegan diet since I’m eating both meat (seafood) and dairy products (whey). I believe a solely plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat, but I’m afraid of the consequences of not getting enough vitamin b-12 or heme iron, two things that no plant contains in high amounts. Hence the seafood aspect of my diet. As everyone knows, baby clams, oysters, and muscles are the three highest b-12 and heme iron-content foods that exist, far outpacing beef and chicken. I’m throwing in whey protein because I already have a huge bag of it, plus I don’t quite buy the whole “you can get plenty of protein from vegetables” schpeel. Maybe you can get the correct number of grams of protein, but the quality of it will be lower. The BCAA and other amino acids of plants are in much lower amounts than in meat or dairy, something I still believe the authors of the Paleolithic Diet for Athletes got right. Fish and whey are both very dense in BCAAs. But who knows? Maybe we don’t need as much protein as many sports nutritionists think. The Kenyan diet certainly doesn’t call for much protein, but then again that could just be a consequence of being poor, and not at all related to the performance aspect of their diet. They also drink a lot of full-fat milk, something vegans and modern American sports nutritionists both believe to hinder performance. Although, Kenyan cows grazing on grass are much healthier than ours in the industrial farms, so their milk is healthier. Nailing down the perfect diet is harder than you think. Or maybe just harder than I think.

My reason for switching to this high plant-content diet is to get more micro-nutrients in my system so I don’t get sick as often, while also lowering the acidity of my body and muscle inflammation, things that both meat and dairy products significantly raise. Increasing my PH and reducing inflammation should theoretically speed recovery.

I’ve tried going vegan before, but I constantly cheated. I’m hoping to hold strong this time around on my Veganesque diet and see if it actually does keep me healthier and reduce my recovery time in between workouts. As an added bonus, I’ll be significantly reducing my carbon footprint, since animal products are by far the worst thing to buy if you care about the environment.