Got my blood test recently. Thinking about transitioning to a vegan diet

[aliensalmon]

Basically, my blood test showed that they detected high amount of cholesterol and creatine, which suggests a high fat and protein diet. This is true because I ate a lot of meat and other animal products. I have another physical in 3 months and now I felt pressure to eat better.

While I suppose it would be sufficient to just cut down on the meat, I had an idea about transitioning to cutting out all animal products from my diet altogether. I told this to my mom but she thinks I'm being too extreme. I think she's probably right, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. I know I may not be successful, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

It will probably be very difficult for me, because I'm so used to eating animal products, but transitioning to vegetarianism and then veganism will be good for my health, animals, and the environment....

 

[Sid]

I would start with cutting back half of the meat consumption.
No more butter but margarine and olive oil. And see what happens. If you can stick with that, you can cut back some more, when you got the hang of it.
It is not an addiction like tobacco or alcohol, it is more changing a habit.

A healthier lifestyle is always worth trying I guess.

 

[aliensalmon]

I would start with cutting back half of the meat consumption.
No more butter but margarine and olive oil. And see what happens. If you can stick with that, you can cut back some more, when you got the hang of it.
It is not an addiction like tobacco or alcohol, it is more changing a habit.

A healthier lifestyle is always worth trying I guess.

Thanks for the reply. I'll try that.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I'm in a vaguely similar boat... my recent blood test showed mostly normal things except for 2 important metrics. My sugar was a tad high and my liver enzyme was a bit high. I was/am pretty upset since I used to be such a health nut. I think the issue is I've not been working out as much for various reasons but still eat like a young person who works out a lot, lol. Going to try to slice total calories by like 25-30% and also get back to working out!

 

[Noodles]

I am not on a vegan diet or anything but I like trying quite a few vegan style foods and I just want to throw in that Impossible makes the best "not meat". The burger is tasty, I ind grinding some fresh pepper on it makes it MORE tasty and I like their Spicy Breakfast sausage, though Spicy may have been discontinued.

 

[Rose Karuna]

We're doing something similar to what Sid mentioned. I cut back to mostly eating fish, chicken or turkey and only about once or twice a week. On rare occasions like holidays or when we have company I will make either BBQ beef or pork. Since I have a high blood sugar and have to lose some weight, I have resorted to soups. Every night, I have a light soup or broth of some kind before I have dinner. I have lost 47 lbs since June. Note though, COVID probably accounts for 10 of that. Losing weight, cutting back on meat, fat and sugar will all help bring your cholesterol, creatine, blood sugar and blood pressure down.

The other thing I'd recommend is walking a mile or two every day. It really helps you digest your food and helps with blood sugar and blood pressure. It's relaxing and helps you sleep too.

Edited to say that some of the new vegan meat (like Beyond Meat) really make good Bolognese for pasta and also make good tacos and burritos when seasoned appropriately.

 

[Soen Eber]

I've transitioned from mostly meat to meat + eggs + dairy; the trick I figured out was to combine low fat cottage cheese with fruit and raisin bran and sometimes cornbread - it's a super filling and delicious breakfast Hard boiled eggs, low fat cheese sticks, carrots, etc make good snacks keeping me away from, um, worse stuff. The others above have put a lot more thought into their diets, but I'm finding these easy steps to be a pain-free starting point.

It was learning about the relationship between COVID and the meat packing industry, and their blatant apathy about workers health (not just COVID but repetitive motions causing carpal tunnel, lysteria, how their workers are so "disposable", etc...) that drove me reduce my meat consumption.