Diet Diaries: Crossing the Finish Line of the Vegan Challenge. But What Do the Scales Say and What Have We Learnt?

Simone has crossed the finish line! She undertook a four-week challenge to go vegan and to detox, and she shared her updates with us here at beaut.ie. There were lows (the horror of the hangover without her cure of choice), highs (the energy and surprisingly delicious meals) and above all there was honesty.

She is back today with her final update and to tell us what she learnt from the challenge and what the scales had to say about it all.

Thank you Simone for sharing your experiences with us!

No, that’s not me.

That’s what a fad diet pill/course/gimmick would show you.  But this trial was all about honesty for me. I wanted to give you (and me) as best an insight as I could into an alternative way to live and eat.

My four weeks of the www.happyheartcourse.com are now complete and I’m genuinely delighted that I took part in it. Are you interested in the numbers? Well, my total weight loss was ten lbs across the four weeks and the average weightless of the group was about six lbs. And this is the figure that really got me thinking - of the people who stuck to the course (more than 80% of us), there was an average cholesterol drop of a whopping 30%. 

Now, before I started I thought that the numbers would be the most important thing for me, but very quickly they started to lose significance.  It became about a lot more than just what the scales said. It became about how I felt.

I’ve learned to look at food in a different way. I found the vitality of David and Stephen Flynn (who run the course) infectious, and that has really made me  start to think that they must be on to something. If you feel that good and that energised, you must be onto something.

My mantra (that I’ve adopted from them) is that there’s a whole ‘spectrum of choice’ out there. Every time I go to eat now, I mutter that to myself. And even just taking that brief moment of mindfulness, makes me realise that there’s a world of food out there to choose from. Sometimes just realising that you do have a choice is enough to stop you reaching to grab that chocolate bar - it's about breaking that learned habit.

And what about life after the course?  Well, I'm starting to agree with the premise that as human beings, we are meant to exist on a plant based diet. Buuut I’m unwilling to forego meat and fish forever - that’s too restrictive for me.

So I’m going to be a vegetarian for 5 days of the week. When I do eat meat or fish I’ll really enjoy and savour it, choose a high quality and make a treat out of it. Dairy will be gone apart from the very occasional treat of cheese (I just can’t live without it forever). And as for white/processed foods, arrivederci! Wholewheat/wholegrain all the way out from here.

Thanks for supporting me along the way.  I’ve taken the first step on what’ll be a long road back to being myself.  But I plan to enjoy the journey, and slowly but steadily I’ll win the race.

Can you relate to SImone's story? Have you undertaken a similar challenge? And have you ever tried to eliminate certain foods from your diet? Share with us in the comments!