Picture this.

I’m sitting in a meeting at the Dairy Council — we had a meeting in Chicago last week.

Not really the ideal client in terms of meal time choices when you’re trying to be a vegan for a week.

But I started off strong because I planned ahead.

I brought some homemade trail mix — almonds, walnuts, and pistachios with a bit of dried fruit (dates) and cacoa nibs — great mix for sure.

When break time came and they had plates of cheese, fruit, and crackers — I skipped the cheese and only grabbed the fruit.

But then dinner came.  A fantastic steakhouse.  I stayed calm, looked at the menu online ahead of time, and while challenging, I saw some options.

Then I learned they had a pre fix menu for our group.  And only 1 food on the entire menu, from appetizers to dessert, was vegan.

It was the grilled tofu entree.

Do I stick to my guns and order the tofu, not eat anything else, including the appetizers, sides, or dessert?

Or I do I skip the plan this one time and get back on track the next day?

Well here’s the problem — I don’t like tofu.  I don’t mind it in things, but a grilled piece of tofu doesn’t appeal to me at all.  If they had some other options, I would have stuck to my guns — but I caved.  And wow was my steak fantastic. 

So what are the 5 lessons learned from our vegan week trial?

1. Planning Ahead is more important than ever – whether following a vegan diet or simply trying to stick to your current plan, if you don’t plan, you’ll continue to chase your dreams.
2. You have to be creative to keep interest high — like any diet or nutrition plan, creativity is the key.  Use healthy cookbooks, magazines, etc to find and try new recipes.  If you’re eating the same things, day in and day out, you’ll have a tough time reaching your goals.
3. Stay away from prepackaged junk — now, we didn’t really LEARN this during our vegan diet, but it was more true last week than ever.  It’s easy to turn to prepackaged vegan foods instead of preparing meals. 
4. Vegan diets make you think — a lot.  Normally when we’re hungry for a quick bite, cottage cheese and fruit, Greek yogurt and fruit, or maybe just string cheese and a handful of prepped veggies fit the bill.  Not this time.  You really have to think and plan a lot more than usual when so restricted with eating.
5. We will stick with a couple days/week of vegan/vegetarian living as it forces creativity, new meals, loads of veggies, and it’s good to get away from meat all the time.  But for us, it’s not a permanent lifestyle. 

Kara and I spent some time in LA last week for a conference.  Great to get out of this heat for awhile (heat index has been regularly in the triple digits in Kentucky). 

And great to catch up with some friends who we only get to see a few times each year at these conferences.  I also spoke at the conference and went to a bunch of other sessions to learn from others…

…then on the last day, we learned that two friends from New Jersey, Jason Ferruggia and his fiance Jen, were in Santa Monica — just a short trip up the road.

Jason and Jen run a gym in New Jersey called The Renegade Gym — by far our favorite place to train, even if it is just a few times per year. 

So why am I telling you all this? 

Jason and Jen are also vegans — and we’ve talked a ton about diet and shared some different ideas and thoughts over the years.  When we were out with them in Santa Monica we visited a place called Planet Raw … where they serve, well, only raw foods.

While you may initially think that sounds disgusting — pretty much living off veggies and fruits, you’d be absolutely amazed at what they come up with and serve. 

For example, I had a Green Curry Pasta ("pasta" was made out of shredded zucchini to look like pasta strands), followed up with a Coconut Cheesecake for dessert.  Since it was also a vegan restaurant, the cheese cake wasn’t made with real cheese, but they instead used macadamia nut and cashew cream.  It tasted exactly like cheesecake, just much lighter.

Everyone else had incredible meals too …

…but what really struck both Kara and I (the other two are used to eating this way), was how great we felt when we left.  We certainly didn’t leave hungry, but contrary to the usual feeling when you leave a restaurant … overstuffed and bloated, we instead felt amazing. 

Hmmmm.

So as we were walking after dinner we decided to try a vegan diet for 1 week.  And we’re going to post about some of our meals here with recipes and post our grocery bill to give an idea of what it would cost as well. 

We’ve consistently suggested eating a few vegetarian meals/week so you’re not eating meat on a daily basis. 

We just thought we’d take it one step further and try a vegan diet (no meats, no dairy, no animal by products, which includes eggs and honey) for 1 week.  

Maybe we’ll love it and want to continue.  Maybe we’ll hate it.  You’ll get the full report here. 

What do you think?  Could you follow a vegan lifestyle