Going vegetarian with no result

[Pavel Alasheev]

I am asking for advice from my vegetarian/vegan forum-mates.

I went vegetarian 6 months ago. It was absolutely no problem for me, a week after i started the experiment i had not a slightest desire for meat. My diet consists mainly of grains and fresh fruit and veggies. I meant to go vegan at first, but in my city soy products (to replace dairy) are pretty hard to find, so i thought i'd try vegetarian first and see what the results are.

Well the problem is there are no results. According to Steve (and other vegetarian/vegan people) becoming vegetarian should greatly boost your energy. I didn't experience anything like that. In fact i possibly had a decrease in energy, cause i noticed that i need more sleep now than i used to before this experiment.

So now i'm in doubts whether to stay on this route, or go vegan, or go back to eating meat. Has anybody had similar experience? Any help is appreciated.

[elainevdw]

Try cutting out dairy. A month and a half ago I did a vegan 30-day trial and had great results. I have no problem with meat cravings either, but it was socially difficult for me to keep the dairy out. So after 30 days I reintroduced a little dairy, and I just feel crappy all over again!

Granted, I'm lactose intolerant... but maybe try reducing dairy as much as possible.

I'm not sure what other milk substitutes are out there. You may be able to make your own (raw) cashew milk by pulverising cashews and adding water to the right consistency. I've never tried this, though.

[Ilya]

When I became vegetarian several years ago, I did experience a boost in energy and mental clarity. But I did it simultaneously with meditation, special physical excersises and so on. Some time ago I went to a seminar on traditional Slavic personal growth techniques.
It was rather anti-new age. The guy who was leading the seminar said that the personal development practices should differ depending on the land and culture you are in. Something that works in Eastern Asia and India, might not work in Russia. He said that vegetarian diet is not efficient enough in Russian climate, especially in winter. It was against everything I knew up to that point, but decided to approach it with open mind and do a 30-day non-vegetarian test.
The idea seemed like going back to the bear cave, but, why not, if it is just for 30 days. So I did it and guess what? Nothing happened. My energy levels did not decrease, my mind clarity didn't decrease. It was surprising, because I expected it to happen. After some thinking I've got the idea that maybe it was not the meat that affected me in the early years, but the amount of food. In recent years I eat much, much less then before.
I did not become active meat eater at the end of experiment, but for now, I am not a strict vegetarian and allow myself a chicken or a meat dish once in a while. Junk food still is out of the question.
So, Pavel, there is no universal answer to this, follow your feeling.
Also, remember, that in our country the quality of food may not be very good - in Moscow most of it is terrible. And with vegetarian diet you have to aim for the best, which may be expensive. Otherwise, you run the risk of not getting enough nutrients that should be there, but are not. Try compensating with vitamins and minerals. Especially in autumn, winter and early spring, when we don't get enough of nutrients. Try iodium, drink a lot of clean water, may be you have some cravings for something other then meat. Follow them, listen to your body, may be it is missing something.
Hope this helps.

[pdamoc]

Originally Posted by Pavel Alasheev

So now I'm in doubts whether to stay on this route, or go vegan, or go back to eating meat. Has anybody had similar experience? Any help is appreciated.

Well, I'm vegetarian too, for little over a year. However, my reasons for giving up meat were more of a spiritual nature and as you can imagine I'm very happy with my choice and will never get back to the killing circle.

For the energy part what I can say is that going vegan is not the answer to getting the energy but only to getting a simple boost in current energy (you have to have it). That means that you have to do something else in order to get it and that something else is activation of the body in the morning. All the advice on getting more energy talk about this activation.

You can go several routes. You can try to implement a PowerHour as Anthony Robbins explains in "Get The Edge" or if you are as lazy as I am go with a simple Gratitude + Shovelglove + UrbanRanging + a bowl of Muesli

Do this for about a week and you will see improvement in the Energy department. After the system is in place all you have to do is push the waking hour toward 5 AM to get even more Energy

[thadroe]

Try cutting out dairy. A month and a half ago I did a vegan 30-day trial and had great results. I have no problem with meat cravings either, but it was socially difficult for me to keep the dairy out. So after 30 days I reintroduced a little dairy, and I just feel crappy all over again!

I agree with this....dairy is just nasty....liquid meat. Frankly, I'd rather eat a little meat from time to time than dairy.

Also...and this is just me, but there's a lot of data to back this up...I don't really believe eating a large amount of whole grains is good either. I try to always shoot for building my "pyramid" around greens, greens, greens, vegetables, fruit, beans, greens, and nuts. I have had by far the best weight loss and health results from this.

William Harris has a great article published a while age called "Less Grains, More Greens"

There's also a lot of "Vejunktarians" out there...who eliminate meat, but don't really eat much that is healthy.

My basic rule is I try to stick to unprocessed stuff that grows out of the ground.

Thad

[tgl]

Originally Posted by Pavel Alasheev

I am asking for advice from my vegetarian/vegan forum-mates.

I went vegetarian 6 months ago. It was absolutely no problem for me, a week after i started the experiment i had not a slightest desire for meat. My diet consists mainly of grains and fresh fruit and veggies. I meant to go vegan at first, but in my city soy products (to replace dairy) are pretty hard to find, so i thought i'd try vegetarian first and see what the results are.

Well the problem is there are no results. According to Steve (and other vegetarian/vegan people) becoming vegetarian should greatly boost your energy. I didn't experience anything like that. In fact i possibly had a decrease in energy, cause i noticed that i need more sleep now than i used to before this experiment.

So now i'm in doubts whether to stay on this route, or go vegan, or go back to eating meat. Has anybody had similar experience? Any help is appreciated.

I was going to suggest that your body might be detoxing from all the assorted poisons and toxins built up in your system, but then I noticed you'd been vegetarian for 6 months.

May I ask what you do for protein? Do you eat beans instead of soy products? Nuts?

[julien]

Are there any scientific grounds to those assertions ? If humans were born with canine teeth, maybe it's because they are meant to eat meat ...

[alexanderbecker]

I ate vegan for more than a year and felt great and lost all the excess weight that accumulated over time. I always try to eat as healthily as possible -- strictly no junk, etc.. In the spirtit of tweaking and researching, I came across the concept of the hunter-gatherer diet which tries to mimick the way our ancient ancestors used to eat. It's basically fruit, veggies, meat & fish, nuts and eggs -- no dairy products, no grains, no starches. Low-carbs but in a healthy way.

For quite some time I suspected milk to be the main offender when it comes to energy drains and sickness and related issues. I finally started the way of eating like a caveman which is technically vegan plus organic meat, fish & eggs; sans grains and starchy vegs. I never felt better. The meat gave me an even more powerful energy boost than the initial vegan experience.

I wrote about this on my own site, including coverage of the spiritual implications of giving up eating vegan.

-Alexander

[oakspringer]

I've been vegetarian for about 5 months now.

I haven't felt an increase in energy, though.

I do feel lighter. I feel that I have greater immunity to sickness (I haven't contracted any colds this season.) I also feel I can push myself hard, and work longer with less sleep without any drawbacks.

Overall, I feel healthier. Lately, I have been having cravings for meat. But I don't have the inclination to going back.

I'm definitely not as hardcore as some vegetarians, I did it primarily for the health benefits. I don't feel a greater spiritual awareness, nor a greater clarity of thought. I don't consume many animal products in general.

So I think we each take different experiences out of being vegetarian, and have different reasons for doing so. Mine are pragmatic.

[Tester]

Originally Posted by julien

Are there any scientific grounds to those assertions ? If humans were born with canine teeth, maybe it's because they are meant to eat meat ...

Humans also have much longer intestinal tract then predators, thats making us more similar to herbivorous animals. In fact humans are omnivore. Hovewer, I've read that some important proteins can be found only in meat, they can't be replaced by proteins, for instance, in beans or nuts.

[Erki]

As of tomorrow I have been vegetarian for to weeks. Not a long time of course and I haven't experienced any earth shattering changes, maybe I feel a bit better than before I went vegetarian. Now it's snowing here as well and temperatures have been quite low for quite some time and I haven't been wearing too many clothes. What's interesting is that I haven't caught any cold, I haven't felt weak, haven't had a sore throat or cough or anything like that. Don't know if it's related to my diet but interesting nevertheless(at least to me )

Originally Posted by Tester

Hovewer, I've read that some important proteins can be found only in meat, they can't be replaced by proteins, for instance, in beans or nuts.

I have heard that same thing. And I have heard the exact opposite as well. And both sources("some scientist", sorry for so rough generalization) seem to be credible. So the best way to get to know the exact answer is to try it on yourself. Steve had a blog post "Trust yourself, not the experts" - that's exactly what I do.

[jjquin]

On August 1st this year I decided to start taking care of my body. I began following the new government pyramid and was loosing weight fast. I read about Steve's rising energy as a Vegan so six weeks ago I decided to try it for 30 days. I wasn't super strict, I ate no eggs or dairy but I didn't worry if eggs or dairy were the last ingredients in a food I was eating. I haven't lost weight any faster but I have found that I have more energy. I get up at 4:00 am and can easily make it through the day. I can't imagine going back to eating the way I did.

JJ

[julien]

Well, there's also the psychosomatic part of it. You're starting something new, whence you're feeling a little upbeat, and you think you're experiencing a boost in energy levels.

On the other hand, it is possible that some components of meat, if absorbed in excess, are poisonous for the body (e.g iron for the heart).

The whole point in absorbing animal proteins is that they are assimilated by the organism much faster than the vegetal ones; in this way, I am rather skeptic regarding the so-called benefits of veganism. Also, keep in mind one essential point: you feel physically better doesn't mean your health is getting better. For instance, when you take drugs, you feel great. But what's the impact on the long run ? Is that wise to follow a path which has not been correctly investigated by the community yet ?

[Pavel Alasheev]

Thank you guys for all your answers.

I tried to think once again what has changed over these 6 months, and here are a couple more observations. Like some people here, I've also noticed that i'm less subject to colds and flus, in fact during all the 6 months, i never fell sick, though there were many times i felt i was "on the edge". Before the experiment i used to have very weak health, constantly coughing and sneezing, also some chronic sinus diseases. At the same time that i went vegetarian, i also started taking cold showers every day. So these two factors (probably) were a lot of help in improving my health.

Also my overall emotional state has improved. I've always been quite stress-resistant, positive thinking and positive feeling. But compared to 6 months ago, i really feel more joy and peace every moment. But i don't think it's due to vegetarian diet, but rather due to some conscious work on my mental and emotional state.

The only thing that bugs me is sleep. I used to be able to sleep 3 or 4 hours a night for weeks and have no visible negative effects. I could get up whenever i needed to no matter how much sleep i had got. Now it's very different, if i don't get enough sleep for two nights, i feel really drowsy all the time and sometimes just cannot resist the urge to fall asleep.

Anyway, i've decided i will first get other areas of my life in order, such as waking up early, maintaining a proper sleep schedule, running every morning, etc. And after i take care of all other issues, i'll experiment some more with diet. Cause any positive effects of vegetarianism could be overweighed with negative effects of sleep deprivation and lack of physical activity.

[dcaldwell]

I went vegetarian a few weeks ago for health reasons. I don't drink milk anyway, but I still consume some cheese and eggs. So far, I haven't experienced any energy gains, but I do feel much lighter. About a week ago, my family caught a nasty cold that was going around. Normally, I would've caught it too, but did not, and the only thing that's changed is the lack of meat in my diet. This potential itself is quite motivating.

[Vinny]

I'm lactose intolerant and decided to try to the no meat deal for 30 days. I might say I only lasted 7 days, but within those 7 days, I felt so much energy in my mind and body. I felt like a new person with super powers. I also meditated and surrounded my enviroment with vegetarian foods. It helped so much. Now I'm just not eating any meat at all I have been doing this for about 3 weeks. It makes a big different how your diet is affects your mind.

[Lucas]

I gave up meat about 5 months ago, and I feel great. Not so much a boost in energy per se, as much as not feeling like a rock when I am done eating. I never digested meat well, and it was a logical thing to stop. I really like dairy products, but I can usually feel the negativity there is on my body...so I have been trying to not drink milk, and give it up one product at a time.

[Sky]

This is a topic that's been rattling around in my head for a few years now. I'm the kind of guy who needs to have a plan that makes sense to me before undertaking a radical shift. Can anyone recommen a book with a scientific/methodical approach to eating healthier, whether it be vegetarian, vegan, anti-additives, or whatever?

[thadroe]

Are there any scientific grounds to those assertions ? If humans were born with canine teeth, maybe it's because they are meant to eat meat ...

This same question comes up time and time again. I don't think it's something you can look at as black or white and many people will argue one extreme or the other. I like to think of it in a slightly different way.

There may have been a point in time where humans were more adapted to eat meat. At this present moment in time, I like to think of us as "opportunistic omnivores"...with our bodies being adapted mostly to vegan eating and tolerating small amounts of meat when the opportunity or need presents itself.

As far as our bodies being more adapted to a mostly vegan diet....it's not hard at all to understand why that is true. Disagreeing with that is like saying the world is flat. Just look at the new research that comes out every single day. How often do you hear that chicken is good for you, beef is good for you, etc...almost never. How often do you hear new evidence that a particular fruit, vegetable, bean, or nut is good for you?....almost every day. It's just a fact that our bodies respond very well to plant food...and negatively to most animal products.

I think it's always pretty futile for anyone to argue over the semantics of whether or not an optimal diet contains small amounts of meat or not...just not enough evidence to really say that for sure. But when it comes to where you should get the vast majority of your calories from....plant foods obviously win hands down.

Thad

[thadroe]

This is a topic that's been rattling around in my head for a few years now. I'm the kind of guy who needs to have a plan that makes sense to me before undertaking a radical shift. Can anyone recommen a book with a scientific/methodical approach to eating healthier, whether it be vegetarian, vegan, anti-additives, or whatever?

Hi Sky,

If you want a good book/program with more science than you can handle...try Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

I lost 50 lbs and reversed my diabetes with that book.

Thad

[Quetzal]

I've been Lacto-Vegetarian for a couple of years now and i've lost weight (i'm very slim 60kg) and also i think i've had much less energy generally

Sometimes i think to myself, i've not had a proper (complete) meal since becoming a vegetarian as i always kinda thought meat completes a meal but i'm no way changing from being a herbivore, it's just a bit of a struggle sometimes

I have alot more respect for fellow Vegetarians/Vegans than i do for Non Vegetarians/Vegans

[Nabusman]

I've had the same experience, I became vegan straight from being a meat eater. Did it for little under a year. I felt no difference in mental clarity, physical energy, or immunity. I became a vegan specifically for those reasons; I concluded that it affects certain people in different ways and dropped the whole idea. I went back to meat eating about 4 months ago.

[Brendon Colby]

Originally Posted by Nabusman

I've had the same experience, I became vegan straight from being a meat eater. Did it for little under a year. I felt no difference in mental clarity, physical energy, or immunity. I became a vegan specifically for those reasons; I concluded that it affects certain people in different ways and dropped the whole idea. I went back to meat eating about 4 months ago.

Same here. After reading Steve and Erin's posts about veganism, I decided to give veganism a try earlier this year. I was 100% strict for about two months. I started at a point where I really didn't eat much dairy and stuck pretty much to chicken and turkey and sometimes beef.

I guess I expected amazing results - a major boost in energy, mental clarity, etc. But, after two months, I received no benefit as far as I could feel. In fact I recall becoming very lethargic and depressed. So I was pretty disappointed. I just expected much better results.

Then I got into Furman's book about eating a pound of raw greens and a pound of cooked per day. A pound of raw greens is a ton of food! This became very unappealing to me after a few weeks. I still can't bear to eat salad that often. Most salad seems half rotten by the time of purchase so I had to eat it up right away and go to the grocery store all the time. This way of eating was severely unappealing and inconvenient for me.

So now I just listen to my body and eat as reasonably as I possibly can and work out regularly. For me that means eating meat. While I'm concerned with the spiritual and environmental aspects of this, I don't believe eating meat is universally "wrong." I've seen a lot of statements about meat eaters being "walking graveyards" for dead animals, that meat is murder, cancerous, rotting, etc. I adopted these beliefs for the time I was vegan and found them extremely disempowering for me. To me veganism is "software" one can "install" and keep if one finds that empowering for them (to use Steve's terminology). I just happened to find that quite the opposite was true for me.

[pylonian]

Originally Posted by Tester

Humans also have much longer intestinal tract then predators, thats making us more similar to herbivorous animals. In fact humans are omnivore. Hovewer, I've read that some important proteins can be found only in meat, they can't be replaced by proteins, for instance, in beans or nuts.

I've been vegan for eight years and researching it for ten. In none of my research, including my education in medical school, have I come across this idea. I can say with confidence that there is literally nothing that one cannot get from a plant, bacterial or fungal source that is required for normal health.

I'd be interesting to see any credible studies that say something different.

Eric

[thadroe]

So now I just listen to my body and eat as reasonably as I possibly can and work out regularly. For me that means eating meat.

You know, this is good because the important thing is that even though you didn't stick with something like Fuhrman's advice or veganism 100%, you still took something away from it that will made you better off which is great!

I'm sure that now even though you don't eat a pound of greens per day, you probably still make better choices than you did before.

...too many people make will often say "Hey, eating this way is too difficult, forget it", and they go right back to eating the way they did before...treating like an on or off switch. I like to view it like having a dimmer switch instead. You can push the dimmer all the way down and eat like total crap, you can push it all the way to the top and eat optimally, or slide the switch to somewhere in between. You know the results will be directly correlated to the position of your switch, and that's just the choice you make...but you can also adjust it at any time.

Maybe that's a lousy comparison...I don't know. I just hate to see how some people treat healthy eating as an all or nothing situation at times.

Thad

[Brendon Colby]

Originally Posted by thadroe

You know, this is good because the important thing is that even though you didn't stick with something like Fuhrman's advice or veganism 100%, you still took something away from it that will made you better off which is great!

This has been my experience totally! I've taken positives from each diet I've been on since I started to concern myself with such things. I've even taken positives from the Atkins diet! I think that's when I started using soy milk, in fact. Unfortunately, I have always chosen extreme diets like Atkins and even veganism (at least extreme from my starting point). For me, a gradual shift towards healthier eating seems to be the best way to go. I think your dimmer comparison is quite accurate!

[Victoria]

Personally, I've been vegan for two years now and couldn't imagine going back...I did it for ethical reasons, but I've enjoyed the benefit of having a truly clear mind. And as for my spiritual development? It's never been better. Not necesssarily for being vegan, but now I have less suffering attributed directly to me, which helps. I agree with some other members here though, for some people, a bit of progress is better than none.

[jkmuller]

Originally Posted by Pavel Alasheev

The only thing that bugs me is sleep. I used to be able to sleep 3 or 4 hours a night for weeks and have no visible negative effects. I could get up whenever i needed to no matter how much sleep i had got. Now it's very different, if i don't get enough sleep for two nights, i feel really drowsy all the time and sometimes just cannot resist the urge to fall asleep.

This seems like this sleep deprivation could be the source of your problems. While surely everyone has different sleep requirements, this is way on the low side for most people. Also, this may be way off and only you can really say for sure, but maybe the change was just gradual and you didn't really notice it. Its possible that the diet change did in fact give you a clearer mind and more energy and as a result you can only now notice the effects of sleep deprivation. I'm vegetarian, and I didn't notice any energy gains when I switched, but I wasn't looking either. As some people have said here, I really notice an energy drain (as well as stomach trouble sometimes) when I consume dairy. Maybe eliminating dairy would be something to try.

[tgl]

Originally Posted by julien

Are there any scientific grounds to those assertions ? If humans were born with canine teeth, maybe it's because they are meant to eat meat ...

A great book on this is "Conscious Eating" by Dr. Gabriel Cousens. I think he has another book out as well. I think it's called "Rainbow Live Food Diet" or something like that.

His books were chock full of scientific explanations, facts, minutiae, etc.

[child]

Maybe you need a full week detox. I highly recommend searching and learning about detox.

It is possible that your body can not cleanse itself with just a vegetarian diet, you have years of poison in your body.