The Differences

One of the biggest things I have noticed is that it is harder to eat out strictly vegan than it is just vegetarian.  Many of the vegetarian staples – like nachos, grilled cheese, quesadillas, and cheese subs – are not options anymore.  It definitely takes more effort to find vegan options.  While most restaurants have at least something to offer for vegetarians, I am finding more places just don’t have anything at all for vegan options.  Eating vegan has been eye-opening and I have figured out what I can and can’t eat, and places that are more friendly or have regular options or ways to order dishes to make them vegan.  I’ll do some future posts on how to order at typical places.

Best Effort

I coined the term “approximate vegan” to describe how I have been eating.  It is, simply put, making a best effort to eat vegan without sweating the small stuff.  When I can, I avoid dairy and eggs.  I no longer order dishes that are mostly cheese or have obvious eggs in them.  On the other hand, I will still take my kids out for sandwiches and for myself I get just veggies or hummus on bread or sub rolls that probably have dairy and eggs in them.  I do try to find places with vegan bread – Thundercloud Subs in my part of the world is a good one – but I don’t stress if it is a small amount.  Another example is we went to Disney World in August.  I ate mostly vegan, but some of the dishes and desserts sounded and looked too good to pass up.  Again, I didn’t eat anything majorly made out of cheese, but I did eat some dairy and probably some eggs in things.  One restaurant had a fabulous buffet with a dessert spread with tiny little individual desserts so I tried a tiny caramel cheese cake and a chocolate mousse with chocolate ears shaped like Mickey Mouse.  It enhanced my experience without diminishing my veganism by much.

Good Enough?

So is an approximate vegan a true vegan and is it good enough?  I’m not really concerned with being able to properly label myself, I am more concerned about trying my best to be healthy without adding a huge amount of stress to my life.  Eating with the kids is a bonding experience, and it already is restrictive being vegetarian.  I don’t want to expose them to a huge production of talking to the chef every time we go out and making a big deal out of getting a pure vegan meal.  So what is your opinion on this best effort vegan eating?

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Make Up Your Mind

The first thing you need to do is get your mind set.  Why do you want to be a vegetarian?  If you don’t have a reason behind it, you are already set up for failure.  Do you want to be healthier?  Do you want to lose weight?  Do you have ethical concerns about the treatment of animals?  Figure out why you want this and write down a personal “mission statement” on why you are going vegetarian.  This will help you if you are having a hard time so you have something to refer back to.  It can also help if you get resistance from friends or family around you.  If you can clearly explain why you are doing this, then they may be more understanding or at least less resistant.

Use Available Resources

There are plenty of resources out there especially on the web.  Follow these steps as just a beginning and you will get tons of help and reference material out of it.  Here is a very quick list of some places to start:

• The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)
• GoVeg.org (they have a great “vegetarian 101″ section)
• VegWeb.com – recipes and cooking tips
• Vegetarian recipes on Allrecipes.com
• PETA’s website – for animal cruelty information (watch a few of their videos!)

Create A Plan

Once you have done some research, come up with a plan on when you want to start and what your expectations are.  Will you switch cold turkey (pun intended) or will you start by having meat-free days and gradually increase those days?  The main goal here is to do what you feel comfortable with and let it be good enough.  During your planning you should come up with some simple meal recipes that you can create so you always have available food.  It also helps to scope out your town to find vegetarian restaurants or vegetarian dishes at your local food places.

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The process for this 7 day cleanse is pretty easy to follow.  There is a packet you take in the morning, capsules you take with breakfast & lunch, and a powder you mix with water and drink before bedtime.  One thing I didn’t like was that the directions are not clear about what else you can or should ingest while doing the cleanse.  I discussed with one of the employees at Sprouts and also researched online.  I found that it is recommended to drink plenty of water, eat mostly fruits, vegetable, and nuts, and add some healthy fat like coconut oil or flaxseed oil.  Also, it is recommended to eliminate high allergen foods (wheat, dairy, soy, etc.) and eliminate sugar, refined flour, processed foods, and caffeine.

Step 1 - Toxin Defense

Step 1

The first step is a little packet that you take first thing in the morning.  The instructions are to open the packet and dump it in your mouth.  Then add a little bit of water and swish it around your mouth.  Finally, swallow the whole thing.  The idea of this step is to balance out your mouth – which is the first point of access to your digestive system.  It contains probiotics that work in both the mouth and the intestinal tract.  It is a defense against toxins at the entry point into your body.  I like the idea of this “point of entry” defense and haven’t seen this idea in other cleanses.

The taste of this packet isn’t bad at all.  I did find that it clumps up pretty easily and sticks to the insides of your mouth.  My suggestion is to put some water in your mouth first and then pour the packet in.  That seems to help the powder mix a little better.

Step 2 - Organ Detox

Step 2

The second step is capsules that you take throughout the day.  These are marked as organ detoxifying and contain things like milk thistle for liver function and green things like chlorella and spirulina as antioxidants.  You take 6 capsules each day.  The directions recommend taking 3 capsules with breakfast and 3 with lunch.  The idea of this step is to support liver function so that your body can better eliminate normal and environmental toxins.  It also contains a range of antioxidants to help with this as well.

Being capsules, obviously there is no taste to discuss.  The capsules themselves are fairly large, but I found them fine to swallow and didn’t notice any aftertaste or refluxed taste.

Step 3 - Digestion & Elimination

Step 3

The third and final step is powder that you mix into a glass of water and drink down. This is done about an hour before bedtime.  The container comes with a little plastic scooper and you add two level scoops to a tall glass of water.  The powder doesn’t really fully dissolve, so you are left with a large glass of thick chunky liquid to drink.

I use the term “drink” loosely – it is more like “chug while trying not to gag”.  The taste isn’t very good, and it is hard to deal with the thick consistency.  This was the worst part of the cleanse.  While it doesn’t taste great, it isn’t terrible and if you just gulp it down quickly it goes fine.  This is the most noticeable step because the contents act as a fiber bulk and your bowel movements the next day will be decidedly larger and bulkier.  It is made up of natural fibers like coconut fiber, flax seed, and chia seed.  The product material claims that the fibers used are less harsh on your digestive system than things like psyllium which many other colon cleanses contain.

Final Thoughts

I did the whole 7 days of this cleanse and it was a good experience overall.  While I did not notice anything drastic, it did feel like my digestive system was a little more settled and happy.  As I mentioned above, the 3rd step of the powder noticeably affected my bowel movements and it seemed to clean me out a little.  Compared to the Master Cleanse, the results are far more subtle.  It was a positive experience, but I’ not sure how often I would repeat the process.

Have you done this cleanse or any others?  If so, or if you have any other feedback or questions, please comment and let me know.

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1. RAW Cleanse Toxin Defense – optimal oral health and immune system support.
2. RAW Cleanse Organ Detox – natural detoxification of organs and GI tract
3. RAW Cleanse Digestion & Elimination – toxin capture and removal

I’ll explain each component as I go through them.  I got my kit from our local Sprouts store for a little over $30 plus tax, but you can get it online from Amazon (RAW Cleanse – 7 day – Kit) for just under $30 with no tax and free shipping.  I liked it because the product is Vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and claims to be less harsh than some of the other colon cleanse products on the market. Here are some pictures of the whole box and the 3 parts inside.

Garden of Life – RAW Cleanse Box

3 Components of the Garden of Life RAW Cleanse

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Scar Is Healing Well

I saw the doctor this morning and I am now cleared to get out of the boot and actually put a shoe on my left foot!  I’m really excited and can’t believe I have made it this far.  Two days ago, when taking out the trash, I put on my sandals just to run the trash can to the curb and it felt really good to have a sandal on my left foot.  Even though I have been going barefoot around the house without the boot, it was different to be in a shoe.  Mentally it felt like progress and it seemed to make walking a bit easier and better.  The doctor told me I am cleared to wear shoes when walking around and at work (sitting in front of a computer isn’t too strenuous!), but if I do anything even a little active like yard work or playing with the kids, he wants me back in the boot.  The scar is healing well and the hair is growing back on my leg.  I have been going to physical therapy three times a week and that is going well too.  We haven’t done anything too aggressive, but just moving the foot around and having the joint and scar area manipulated by the therapist is great.

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Wonderful boot on my left leg

I am making progress in my recovery from my ruptured Achilles tendon.  Yesterday I went back to the doctor and he adjusted the boot so it was in a neutral or 90 degree position.  Previously, the boot was angled down at a 30 degree droop in order to keep tension off of the tendon.  I am happy to be making forward progress, but going from the drooped and relaxed angle to a completely flat angle has been hard.  My tendon is really tight and has shrunk up so it is very uncomfortable to be stretched even into this neutral position.  The flat position is much easier to move around and more comfortable for things like sitting in the car, so overall it is good.  I still hate the crutches and I think that is the worst part of this whole ordeal.  Getting around on crutches just sucks.  My wrists are messed up and sore, and my armpits are getting sore and chaffed even though I mostly keep the weight off of the armpits like you are supposed to.  The hardest thing to get used to with crutches is that I can’t really carry anything.  I have been making great use of my back pockets and will stick food, bottles of water, whatever in my back pocket and hobble back and forth to the couch.  It is a real pain and I can’t wait to get off of the crutches.  More updates to come as I progress through this slow recovery.

This is the adjustable dial part of the boot

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