12 Weeks: The Vegan Weight Loss Challenge

(See above for the book giveaway winners)

I'm excited to announce a new contest for this blog. The 12 week vegan weight loss challenge.

As part of the challenge, Elise and Brad, a couple embarking on their own weight loss journey through a plant-based diet will be guest blogging for the next 11 weeks, sharing bits and pieces of their own experience. Hopefully they will inspire you to make the changes needed to lose the weight and get/stay healthy!

Just a bit of background info. Elise and I have been friends since college. She's a mother of two, and as such, is a busy woman! She is a kind, intelligent (a very good writer, too!), and I'm honored to count her as my friend.

Other than that, I say take it away Elise, we're so excited to hear about your new experiences!

WEEK 1

Transitioning.

Meet us. Elise and Brad. We are not naturally whole-foodie, plant-based eaters. We are, in fact, recovering overeaters. We eat when we're bored. We eat to feel happy. We eat to feel fulfilled. You could call us addicts. We won't be offended.

I probably would have never considered a plant-based diet had I not been a friend of Janae's. We met in college, became friends, kept in touch, and I started reading her blog. It was at about that point I started to think she was insane. I mean, who can cut oil out of their diet along with all animal products and processed foods? And why?

At this point in my life, my food priority was price. My world revolved around feeding a family of four with a budget of $100 per month.

For 100 bucks a month, you can get some great deals on meat, cheese, cereal, canned veggies, and a lot of flour. Not a lot of fresh anything. So our menus consisted of things like deep-fried homemade pizza pockets. And homemade pretzel dogs. And barbecue brisket.

A year later, we moved in with my parents where my mother, gourmet chef, took over the cooking. Her food was/is amazing. And our waistlines served as evidence. We were eating all the time. Brad estimates at his worst, he was eating 5000 calories a day. My pants were getting tighter.

About this time, Janae put her before and after pictures on her blog. Somewhere in there she mentioned she was now a size 4.

A. Size. Four.

I always considered that Janae and I were made of the same kind of material. We were both tall, and we both were not really overweight. We just happened to have bigger frames. I don't know about Janae, but I always had one problem area: my tummy. My legs and arms had always been pretty small. But my love handles (for lack of a less offensive word) were embarrassing. They outsized my hips and my bust. Mostly because of my waist, I had been a size 10 since my junior year in college, and at this point would have fit more comfortably into a 12. I had never thought it possible that I could fit into anything less than a size 10. The fact that Janae had broken the barrier was kind of astonishing. I thought (and still hope!) maybe I could do it too.

In the meantime, those approximate 5000 calories a day had brought Brad's weight to an all-time high of 291. He had heard me talk with interest about Janae's blog. When we finally moved to our own place again (at the beginning of December 2009), Brad said to me, "Let's go vegan."

The results have been drastic.

For those of you who are interested in specs, here they are:

Brad:
Starting weight: 291
Goal weight: 200
Current weight: 250

Elise:
Starting weight: 146
Goal weight: 125
Current weight: 138

Those are pretty decent results for efforts since December 1st with a really bad week at Christmas! For Brad, it's 41 pounds! Now, since I've started doing some research on measurements, my goals have changed significantly. I won't be focusing on weight as much as size. I'll talk about that next time.

I should mention here that our diet is not strictly vegan. Because our choice is based on health and not ethics, we allow a modification. On a daily basis, we eat an oil-free, whole-foods, vegan-compliant diet. But once every two weeks, we cheat. We go to a restaurant and eat whatever we want.

At the beginning, this cheat day gave us something to look forward to. Now, this day reminds us. We leave the restaurant feeling, well, gross (we are overeaters, remember). It reminds us why we're making the dietary choices we are.

Since our children are also in transition, we feed them non-vegan foods at home such as eggs, macaroni and cheese, and occasional hot dogs. We require them to eat our vegan dinner which they are starting to like. It is our hope that eventually we can have a plant-based, whole foods kitchen.

In the following weeks (there will be 11 more!) I hope to talk about some of our favorite recipes, some of our favorite resources, and some surprises we've encountered in this lifestyle change.