My thoughts on a Whole Food Plant Based Diet

To make a change in my eating habits or not… This is the question I have been contemplating lately and doing A LOT of research on.

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on the possible benefits from eating a whole food plant based diet. This includes everything from feeling more energized, building muscle faster, a healthier gut microbiome, and lower likelihood of getting certain cancers and diseases. As mentioned in my July post, I have already been trying to get away from eating processed foods and turn to plant based options instead.

Although I have been trying to stick to a clean eating diet by avoiding processed foods, I have the urge to push myself further and try cutting out meat and dairy as well. I think some of this push stems from being content with my workouts and my body. I feel like I am starting to achieve my goals related to my physical strength and how I envisioned my body to look from working out. To say the least I feel confident in my body! This is something I didn’t realize I was missing, but once I found this confidence I didn’t want to stop improving it, hence the urge to change my diet.

What I thought was called a vegan diet actually turns out to be a whole food plant based diet. I order a couple cook books of Amazon and am excited to try this new eating style. The main difference, to my understanding, between the two is as follows as well as outlining my reason for going plant based vs. vegan.

Plant Based Whole Foods Diet	Vegan Diet
– Food from plants, avoiding processed foods	– Not necessarily focused on cutting out processed foods
– Animal products are not off limits, but often not a huge part of the diet	– No animal products, avoid anything to do with them. This includes food, clothes, accessories, etc.
– My purpose: To get away from processed foods and improve what I put in my body to fuel it.	– Not my choice: I personally am not interested in cutting out meat to protect animals, but to better my own personal health.

I officially started this new way of eating on Monday June 29th, 2020. This included creating a week long meal plan and some grocery shopping. I am not foreign to shopping in the produce section, but I can admit I spent way more time here as most of my list revolved around fruits and veggies!

I am excited to start this journey and reflect on both the positive changes as well as the challenges I face with this new eating style!