Going Vegan ● by Jess

Confession: I'm a little bit obsessed with veganism. 

So, for the last four months I've been planning and pondering and prepping and at last we are going to do it! Well, at least for the next 30 days. 

We tried this once before-- a year ago-- after being vegetarian for a few months (and after being inspired by that delicious little piece of veg propaganda called Forks Over Knives). Needless to say it lasted less than a week, but I will say that in that time, Jon passed his CPA exams AND ran a marathon without even training (what a hunk!). Now, obviously, being vegan had little do with it, but both Jon and felt like we could think better and felt so much healthier when we limited the animal protein from our diet. The tricky part was being vegan is hard, like INSANELY hard to get enough dietary protein and not avoid late night runs to the store for Haagen Daz. 

I've spent the last several months making menu plans and analyzing the nutritional data. I think I can successfully say, I have 30 solid days of meals perfectly planned out using nothing but plant-based ingredients. 

For the purpose of this blog, I'll be recording everything I eat (not necessarily Jon's menus, which will have higher caloric/protein counts) with all the recipes. Each day has menus that total under 2000 calories and will have at least 65 grams of protein.* I'll be going on a culinary journey around the world, with the main meal for each day being inspired by (or coming directly from) a different country or region. We'll start in Japan and move west around the world, finally ending in Hawaii on day 30. 

At the end of each week I'll post everything from the previous 7 days on this blog. During the week, feel free to see what I'm eating via Instagram by searching #30VeganDays (or just follow me! @youngrubbish).

I'm a little nervous (and excited!) and just really grateful Jon is on board with this! Its going to be an adventure. 

*My number of 65 grams is based on several sources, most notably an interview by Mac Danzig (pro UFC fighter) who only intakes about 70 grams of protein (as a male athlete) when not training. Most days will be higher, but this is my goal for each day.