I suppose I really ought to post some past updates that I wrote on my forum, but I think today's entry there will make sense even without a lot of recent background. I may post older entries later, though.


So I recently decided to go vegan, or at least as vegan as is humanly possible. Just in case anybody doesn't know, vegan means that I will not be eating meat, dairy, eggs, or other animal products such as honey, gelatin, whey, casein, etc. I decided to become vegan about a week ago, after reading horrible quotes from people who worked in slaughterhouses, and then seeing a video about factory farms on GoVeg.com. That was enough to start me off; but I've also done a lot of interesting reading about the health benefits of being vegan since then, which simply serves to reaffirm something I decided to do because of ethics. And to answer the obvious question... no, it has nothing to do with ED. Even at the worst of my restrictive episodes I was never even vegetarian, let alone vegan. To be honest, I always thought it was silly to go veg as a way to restrict. I liked meat, and still do, really. I just can't pay people to treat animals like shit and/or slaughter them anymore. That's all.

I've found a lot of interesting/good vegan substitutes, though. I already ate and liked veggie burgers and veggie dogs; I've now also got stuff like vegan meat substitutes, nayonaise (a vegan spread that is like Miracle Whip), soy milk (although I plan to try rice and almond milk as well), soy yogurt, etc. The only thing I really haven't liked was the soy yogurt, and even that might be palatable if I eat it with All Bran or something. I hope so, as I don't want to have wasted my money on it.

The funny thing is that I'm actually eating a lot more healthfully now that I'm doing the vegan thing. Aside from even protein worries, which are really bogus (especially when you consider how much soy I'll probably be eating), there are concerns that vegan diets can sometimes lack in stuff like calcium, vitamin B-12, etc. Yesterday I got well over 100% of my daily RDA of vitamin B-12, though, because my vegan meats and soy milk are fortified with it. As for calcium, well, honestly, I never even got enough calcium as an omnivore, so I'll probably get about the same amount as a vegan. On the other hand, I saw a really interesting video about how animal proteins leech calcium from your bones, so even if you get the RDA for calcium every day, if you eat meat you can basically drain it all out again. So there's a decent chance that the calcium I do get now will actually stick with me, so I'll probably actually get more of it into my bones now.

I can't go 100% vegan everywhere -- meal support only does vegetarianism, although they do offer soy milk in place of regular milk, which I will take advantage of. Total veganism is also hard when eating at a friend's place, or going to restaurants, but I am going to do my very best to go as vegan as possible in such circumstances. Minimally I can avoid meat as well as overt dairy and eggs, although I may end up having to eat products that contain milk or eggs as an ingredient. It is going to be an interesting journey, and I will have to figure it out as I go along... and I am certain to make plenty of mistakes (I have already). But that doesn't mean I'm not going to do my very very best at all times.

On the ED front, I started the nutrition education group on Monday and am due to start art therapy in another couple of weeks. Nutrition ed involves nutrition-related goals, which is... interesting. My goal for this week was to "mechanically eat" breakfast, lunch, & dinner without purging any of it. I did manage that yesterday. We'll see how I do today, and in the days to follow. My other goal is to actually get a "real" meal plan from my dietician, which I technically should have, but I've been bad and been refusing to follow a formal meal plan for weeks now. I can't honestly say I will follow anything she gives me now, either. But maybe it would be better to have a guideline, at least, even if I don't follow it strictly. I dunno. We'll see.

That's about all in the ED/food life of me. Still eating, still probably maintaining this grossdisgusting weight I'm at, but trying to do things a little healthier, and not buying binge food, etc. I guess it could be a lot worse.