Day 91 -- Three Month Anniversary!

Today I celebrate three months as a vegan!  I started this plan on December 27th in the hopes that I might finally find a way to get myself healthier in the new year.  I was optimistic and truly ready to make a major change. But I had an enormous task in front of me and I'd failed at this so many times in the past.  But this would be different.  I was going to eat a vegan diet low in fat, but I wasn't going to restrict the amount I ate.  As long as it was healthy, I was going to eat as much as I wanted.  And I was going to blog about my experiences every day.

In the past 90 days, I've discovered a lot about food -- and a lot about my own attitudes about food.  Food and I have always had a antagonistic relationship.  I could both love it and hate it at the same time.  I used food to reward myself for any number of things -- a long day, a job well done.  I'd always find some excuse to eat some high-fat, high-calorie meal and then beat myself up afterwards because of my choices.   The food I ate and the mood I was in were inextricably linked.  So when I made this plan, I walked into it wondering how I'd ever deal with the cravings, my need for all those rich, familiar tastes that I'd enjoyed for so much of my life.

What I didn't expect was that getting better nutrition and eating a more balanced diet would make the cravings almost non-existent.  I've been able to eat everything I want and I rarely feel hungry enough to fall back into my old habits.  I do miss some foods I used to eat -- cheese, most of all.  But I'm not willing to give up the progess I've made just to eat something that tastes good.  Plenty of what I eat now tastes good!  So now, when my brain plays this little game of temptation with my stomach, I'm strong enough to fight it.

I've lost 42 pounds in three months, I've lost five inches off my waistline, my acid reflux is gone, I sleep much better and I'm getting more active every day. I'm a quarter of the way to 365 days and if the next three months go as fast as the first three, then I'm in pretty good shape.  In another three months, I hope to have another 30 pounds gone.  That will be June 26th.  Summer can't come soon enough!