Veggie Trails, adventures of a Plant-Powered Ultrarunner: How Do You Start Eating a Plant Based Diet?

Steve on the way down the La Luz trail, Sandia mountains above Albuquerque

Steve has been vegetarian off and on for the last couple of years. But after seeing what a great year I had last year, being strictly vegan, he has decided to jump on the plant based bandwagon with both feet, and see how it will impact his training and recovery So, leading up to our big race of the year in July, he is going to commit to a plant based diet.. We will keep you posted on how he feels things are going. It is good to have a real partner in this, especially since I don't have to cook two different kinds of meals! He is also going to vastly reduce the amount of wheat in his diet, ( I am wheat free) since we both think that wheat, even if you are not gluten sensitive, causes many other health problems, and has even been shown to have an addictive quality - more on that in another post!

Being over 60, recovery times are a real issue. We believe that eating plant based will reduce recovery time, which means we can train harder, and increase energy.

In fact, this morning, I intended to simply mop the kitchen floor, but ended up scrubbing it with a scrub brush on my hands and knees to get it "really" clean. Steve commented, "Maybe you ought to lay off the vegan diet, hon".

Well, eating this way DOES make you feel like you can accomplish anything.

Maybe you're reading this, but you think "I could never go totally vegan, because I couldn't give up (insert your favorite food here). Maybe it seems too overwhelming, and too hard, and inconvenient, or just weird. Maybe you think you will be reduced to eating carrot sticks and lettuce. You just know you're going to starve to death.

Let me clarify something here. We are about whole foods, natural foods, unprocessed and unadulterated foods. I suppose you could call yourself "vegan" and still eat Doritos and Twinkies. (although, didn't they just quit making those?) We are less about not eating meat, and more about eating REAL food.

"Real food", by the way, is something your great grandmother would recognize. That generation did not have McDonalds, or fast food, or pink marshmallow snowballs coated in sweetened coconut (what ARE those things anyway?). Real food looks what it is, and probably only has one ingredient. Real food is how it comes out of the ground. Real food hasn't been hydrolized, sterilized, colorized, or any other adulteration. Real food is not frozen low carb dinners or low fat salad dressing, or basically anything that comes in a package.

So, whatever your diet plan, if you start adding in some good, wholesome healthy foods.. you are going to kick up your health a notch, and that just might get you buzzed about doing even more. Baby steps!

So, start by doing this. Rather than focusing on what you're NOT going to eat, how about just ADDING one good, wholesome, plant based food to your daily food plan.

ADD:

A big green salad topped with crunchy vegetables - have one every day!

a piece of fruit as a snack... maybe you wont want that cookie after all.

Some colorful veggie to your dinner plate. Focus on fresh, rather than canned, and it's especially great to get some dark leafy greens, either raw or cooked, into your diet daily. Kale, swiss chard, turnip greens (really!), bok choy - give 'em a try!

Little by little, replace an entire meal with good, whole plant based foods. Rather than your cocoa puffs for breakfast, have some oatmeal, or homemade granola, or some.wholegrain pancakes (recipes coming!) You may be surprised how good it makes you feel.

On the other hand, maybe you're the type A personality that has to do everything "all or nothing". I have to admit, that's what I did. I decided this was what I needed to do, and I just dove right in. If that's you, then I suggest you do some reading and research, and get some really good recipes.

Here are three great resources. They are all fabulous references.