Day 1--Why Vegan?

Today was the first official day of the "new me." It was a rollercoaster, to be sure.  I started okay, forcing myself to eat breakfast before leaving the house, even though I usually skip breakfast. I got all of my morning errands out of the way, came home and made lunch as soon as possible, because I knew I only had a limited amount of time before I hit a wall.  And whe I hit that wall, I wanted to die.

I chose a vegan diet based on everything I've read, watched, and learned over the past few weeks, and based on basic nutrition principles that I've known for years.  I should be clear, I'm very aware that vegan does not always equal healthy.  Technically, my favorite potato chips are vegan.  This is about  more than cutting out meat, dairy, et cetera--this is an extreme back-to-basics move for me, to get me away from processed food and back to a diet mainly consisting of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.  So with this diet, I've cut out more than just animal products.

Which brings me back to the "wall."  For as long as I've had a driver's license, I've had a pretty strong caffiene addiction. Every time I go without it for twelve hours or so (usually by accident), I get a warning headache.  If I don't recognize what is happening and get caffienated, the headache grows, my eyes hurt, I get nauseous.  At that pont, nothing helps.  No Tylenol, no aspirin, no caffiene--but I always make a mental note to not let that happen again. But I've always known it was false energy.  So I broke the cycle of dependency, no coffee in the morning, and no more soda in the afternoon.

Withdrawals knocked me out for the better part of the afternoon and evening, but I forced myself to eat (Asian veggie stir fry) and I'm finally coming around.  I guess that's the good thing about caffiene addiction--the physical part of it only lasts for 48 hours, max.  Tomorrow I'll be so happy to have this part behind me!

All together, it was a decent first day.  I knew what to expect, for the most part, and I'm glad I made "Day 1" a day off from work.  But tomorrow, I'm back i the full swing.  I'm feeling unprepared, not exactly sure what I'm going to take for lunch yet.  But I'm sure it swill work itself out.  After all, the soda machine in the breakroom has been out of Mountain Dew for weeks!