Vegetarian Update

I wanted to provide an update to our family's vegetarian experiment. I posted earlier about us giving up meat for Lent and living without meat has actually gone pretty well. We still eat eggs, cheese, and other dairy so we are not going true vegan.

We are all feeling good and actually like not having that bloated feeling you get after a meal of meat and potatoes and everything with it. It is like eating Chinese food, you eat a big meal and 1 hour later, you feel hungry again. I have lost a few pounds already, and am sure it is a combination of healthier eating and ramping up my running mileage again. I find myself snacking every couple of hours with an apple or piece of fruit. Again, these are things that we should be doing anyways but never seem to be able to do.

Denise has it the hardest with planning the meals and shopping. Since we are eating fresh as much as possible, it means more frequent trips to the store as well. We have a list of meal ideas posted on the fridge which helps somewhat. We found a really good lentil-loaf recipe that was a huge hit, although next time a double batch will be made to help offset the time of the prep work. Throw the extra into the freezer for a meal next week!

I read somewhere that good nutrition is really the simplest thing to know, but the hardest to implement. It takes planning and time; which is an investment. We are treating this as an investment into our family's health and just another way to encourage healthy choices.