Paleo gone Vegan – 10 Lessons from an entirely plant-based week

I have been eating mainly Paleo for quite some time now. A friend introduced me to it and it has worked well for me. I was not strict about it though, so I would on occasion eat something made from grains, e.g. at restaurants or on special occasions.

Naturally, I had a tough time wrapping my head around the concept of Veganism, as this group is right on the other side of the spectrum of Paleo. But one day I came across this quote:

Since I hate to leave great advice go by, I thought a 1-week Vegan challenge won’t hurt. And it didn’t. To the contrary, it greatly improved my knowledge about food and nutrition and actually had a major influence on my future diet.

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Useless Diets: Why no diet works – but you must try them all

Remember I told you I was on a 1-week Vegan challenge, way back in October? Yeah, I’m way behind on the results, sorry about that. I’m not gonna make excuses saying I didn’t have time – I don’t believe in ‘having time’ (see below).

Something else I don’t believe in, is diets. At least not in what we call diets these days. If you look up where the word diet comes from, Google shows you this:

Screen Shot 2014-12-16 at 3.45.17 PM

See the last line? Greek – ‘diaita’. A way of life. This is, in a nutshell, the reason why all these powders, pills, belly- and waistbands, electric power plates and magazine diets that are re-named and re-promoted year after year, don’t work.

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Comfort Zone Challenge: I just ate an entire lemon – and I’ll give you 5 reasons why you should too.

Around 9 am I always need a second breakfast, since my first breakfast at 6:30 am won’t last. Usually it consists of a pretzel with butter, but as I’m on a 1-week Vegan challenge right now, that’s off the menu. Fruits and nuts it is!

Over the week I most often chose an apple or a banana with some nuts. I got used to it so quickly that today I thought I had to stir things up a bit – how can I make this uncomfortable? As if eating Vegan for a week wasn’t uncomfortable enough, right?

So today, I’d like to propose a comfort zone challenge to you: Eat an entire lemon!

When I checked the fridge, I spotted a few lemons sitting at the bottom, and before I could finish wondering whether you could eat lemons whole, like you do with oranges, I found myself next to a bowl with 4 big, peeled, chopped up lemon slices ready to go.

Here’s me eating one:

I finished the whole thing. I’ve had more pleasurable experiences with fruit, goes without saying. But here’s what I learned:

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Become your own MEDIC – Why you must leave your comfort zone to find happiness

Look around where you are right now. I guess you are reading this on the big screen of your computer at work, sitting in your height-adjustable office chair, coffee mug right next to you. Or maybe you are at the library, checking facebook, using their free wifi during a study break. Unless you are already home for the day, cuddled up on the couch in your pajamas with your iPad, freshly delivered pizza in the still warm box sitting on your lap.

Wherever you read this, I am betting you are knee deep inside your comfort zone.

I’ve been there. Often times I still am. But then I remember that I must leave it.

As comfy as it gets.
Right in the middle of the comfort zone.

Before convincing YOU to leave it, I would like you to do one thing. No worries, you won’t have to get up (yet). As in the article I talked about, rate your happiness on a scale of 0 to 10. Where do you land? Look at the important areas of life:

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