vegan (or very close) roll call!

I'm hoping to chat with some other vegans (or people who are very close to vegan) who are using this site for weight loss! Introduce yourself, and/or add me as a friend... I'll start:

Name: Amy
Age: 23
Occupation: Stay-at-home-mom and correspondence university student
Diet: strict vegan; trying to avoid wheat and refined sugar
How long vegan: 4 years
Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: lost weight, initially, until I discovered that all sorts of prepackaged junk was technically "vegan" (i.e. Oreo's)
Weight Loss Goal: the remaining 30 lbs that I gained during pregnancy
Food Weaknesses: my partner's bad eating habits, wheat products (bread, baked goods, etc.) and sugary snacks
Other Interests: baking (unfortunately, ha ha), bicycles/cycling, computers/internet, watching movies, politics

• Name: Heather
• Age: 24
• Occupation: Human Resources
• Diet: Strict Vegan
• How long vegan: 6 years, vegetarian for one before that
• Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: (Stealing Amy's answer completely, haha) Lost weight, initially, until I discovered that all sorts of prepackaged junk was technically "vegan" (i.e. Oreo's)...certain pancake mixes, candy, Tofutti
• Weight Loss Goal: I'd like to realistically go from 140-145ish to 125-130ish, (I'm just under 5'6")...and become more toned
• Food Weaknesses: Snacks/Desserts/Candy & wheat/bread products
• Other Interests: Music, movies, baking, trying out new ethnic or veg restaurants, playing the drums, dancing, artistic things, random adventures, snowboarding/skiing, people

Hi, Amy. I'm Karen, 39 years old, a linguist by profession. I've been vegetarian on and off (mostly on) since I was 13, and vegan for the past 18 months.

I actually gained a bit of weight after becoming vegan, despite also being in training to racewalk a marathon. It took me a while to learn how to eat under the new "rules"...I'd find a place with vegan donuts or pastries or whatever and it was like, "OMG, it's vegan, who knows when I will ever find another vegan donut! I'd better eat 3!" That kind of thing.

Weight loss goal: to weigh 140 lbs by age 40 (next April). That's about 25 lbs to lose. I am 5'10".

Food weaknesses: Pastries (see above)

Other interests: knitting, sewing, book arts, marathon race walking, opera, Bob Dylan

My biggest challenge right now is that I have to spend about half my time in India on business, and it is almost impossible to be vegan here unless you do all your own cooking (which I enjoy when I have good equipment and ingredients, but that is not the case here). For a while there was the added challenge of monsoon season, where most days I couldn't exercise outside without getting drenched (Monsoon lasts like 3 months). Now the challenge is the heat and the smoky air, but I manage to get out by 6:30 a.m. most days and it's not too bad.

Next!

• Name: Sarah
• Age: 25
• Occupation: Student (again)
• Diet: Strict Vegan
• How long vegan: 2 years, ovo-lacto for about half my life before that
• Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: Ga-ga-ga-gained! But I was an emotional eater and had a rough time for about 15 months... my gaining wasn't so much from going vegan, but from eating like crap because I was depressed.
• Weight Loss Goal: I've lost 94 pounds so far and want to lose about another 30-40, depending.  My main goal is to not be "skinny fat".
• Food Weaknesses: Baked goods, for sure. Tofutti "pizza pizazz", I'm glad I can't get that here in small town TX!
• Other Interests: Books, knitting, horror movies, music, writing, working out, trying to be fluent in French

Name: Audrey
Age: 25
Occupation: Student/bartender
Diet: strict vegan
How long vegan: less than 1 year
Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: lost weight. pretty much became vegan as part of my life change of eating healthy and feeling better and being environmentally sound.
Weight Loss Goal: I've already lost 50 and want to lose 15-20 more before my wedding in June.
Food Weaknesses: my roommate's fantastic vegan baking, chips and salsa, alcohol (but doing a lot better with this one)
Other Interests: cooking, music, reading, playing with my dog and two cats, pet-sitting, going to shows, shopping, traveling...

Wow, thanks for the replies so far!

Heather ~ do you have any favourite recipes (baking)?

Karen ~ Is there a lot of vegetarian food in India, but hard to find food without ghee and other dairy products? Or is it even hard to find meat-free food? I love love love Indian food. And Bob Dylan for that matter.

Sarah ~ j'apprends le français aussi. Mais, je sais très peu. Pourquoi est-ce que tu veut apprendre le français?

Audrey ~ wow you've lost a lot of weight already. how long have you had the tattoos? where have you traveled?

I have been getting tattooed for 7 years. I have one sleeve finished and the other one about half way, plus random other ones. I live in iowa and try to travel as much as possible, which pretty much just leaves chicago, minneapolis, omaha & kc for weekend trips. but, I am originally from the west coast, so we try to get out there as much as possible. 
what are you partner's bad habits? and how do you cure him/her of them besides cooking constantly?
and where are you from? where do you live?

Name: Meghan
Age: 19 (20 in dec.)
Occupation: Art Student/Nanny/Yogini
Diet: gluten free, dairy free, weaning myself off products w. eggs
How long vegan: 7 months? vegetarian over a year
Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: lost a little bit of weight, trying to gain muscles!
Weight Loss Goal: I just really want to get myself as physically fit as possible.
Food Weaknesses: Robert's Gourmet Tings
Other Interests: Yoga, my bicycle, Tattoos, reading, photography and art in general. I love to bake but I can never eat it because I'm allergic. I hear what I produce is fantastic though!

Original Post by amyvegan:

Karen ~ Is there a lot of vegetarian food in India, but hard to find food without ghee and other dairy products? Or is it even hard to find meat-free food? I love love love Indian food. And Bob Dylan for that matter.

Oh, there is PLENTY of vegetarian food here, literally in every restaurant, and even a lot of egg-free food (they call that "pure veg" or "100% veg"--that's a religious thing for most people who do it). It's the dairy part that gets you, as you guessed. You kind of have to assume that everything has ghee in it, and lots of the veg dishes have cream or paneer (a kind of fresh cheese, consistency of tofu--you probably know that if you love Indian food!). Part of what makes eating in a restaurant hard for me is that usually I just feel like it's easier to give in and try not to care whether the dish has dairy, and I hate that. Also, most of the food here is very high calorie. They use a lot of oil, and there's all that naan and rice and deep fried stuff like samosas. It's killin' me. So I try to avoid restaurants altogether.

And as for Bob, well...what's not to love? :)

Original Post by amyvegan:

Sarah ~ j'apprends le français aussi. Mais, je sais très peu. Pourquoi est-ce que tu veut apprendre le français?

I actually haven't had a French class in 7 years! I took 6 years of it in school and loved the language.  I'm quite bored lately so I just looked into taking lessons online... my goal is to one day be fluent. I am Québécoise from my dad's side of my family, so I feel even more strongly about learning it as part of my heritage. :)

I'm happy to say that I understood the gist of what you were saying... I think, haha.

audrey ~ i'm so jealous of them. i've always wanted to get more tattoos, but i'm not artistic-minded enough to even think of anything worth getting. and now that i'm not working, it's not even an option anyway cause we have basically no disposable income. jeff eats like crap, basically, he drinks at least one can of soda a day but often closer to 2 litres (luckily I hate soda so it's not really a weakness of mine) but he also eats tons of chips and hummus (and so was i) as well as loads of peanut butter...chips..pizza...all sorts of things. the difference is he used to be a bike messenger, and now he's still on his feet 10 hours a day lifting heavy stuff, so he needs the calories--i sit at home all day so i don't! i'm from hamilton, on; i lived in vancouver, bc for the past 2 years, but just moved back to hamilton a few months ago after having a baby. they're a lot of work and i wanted my mommy.

karen ~ yeah Indian food IS really high cal, usually. i don't know how so many of the Indian people I meet here in Canada are so thin.

sarah ~ you basically got the gist of it, I'd assume, since you answered my question :)

meghan ~ when I first heard another vegan call eggs "chicken menstruation" it pretty much turned me off them for good ;)

Do any of you have any "free" foods, i.e. foods you can eat as much of as you want? I know in some diets they have things like this, like I think Weight Watchers. I mean you could eat a whole lot of salad for 50 cals... but without dressing, would you want to? :)

 

Since even fat free vegan salad dressing often has a bunch of other weird chemicals, I always just get red wine vinegar. Most places have it; it has no calories and is delicious! I don't know why people even bother putting oil with it-- it just makes it greasy in my opinion. I will eat a giant salad (seriously giant... brian thinks I am very bizzare because I use the popcorn bowl for my salad) with tons of veggies, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and sometimes hummus, and I am full for quite a while. (Plus it really gets the bowels movin') And. as far as tattoos go, I don't have an artistic bone in my body, but fortunately I have quite a few tattoo artist friends!

Name: Alison
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Diet: vegan (doesn't "strict vegan" just mean vegan?)
How long vegan: 1 year
Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: stayed the same weight
Weight Loss Goal: 5-10 pounds, tone up!
Food Weaknesses: baked goods, bread and cereal, peanut butter/fatty spreads, oil in cooking
Other Interests: cooking, baking, crafting, gardening, DIY, traveling, shows, etc.

Ughh Amy I've heard that! I never eat eggs themselves but they are often in my g.f. bread :/.

Original Post by ajd43:

Diet: vegan (doesn't "strict vegan" just mean vegan?)

It does, but some people have a different idea of what veganism is that is a lot closer to vegetarianism. I guess it's just a way of underlining that someone is very strict in adhering to a vegan about it and it's not a fleeting thing.

audreymaxine- I also get looks from my boyfriend when I bring out my giant family size salad for my meal :o) haha

amyvegan- I <3 hummus! Question for you...Do you think you will raise your baby to be vegan as well?

 

I knew a girl who said that she was vegan but she ate cheese and drank milk.  It seemed strange to me but whatever rubs your buddha.

Name: Mariah
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Diet: vegan that eats honey and white sugar(I promised my family I wouldn't go too extreme this time around. Last time it was a bit much for them)
How long vegan: a couple months. Vegetarian since 4th grade except for a short bout of meat-eating(1 year) during teenage years. This is my second time going vegan.

Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: lost weight.

Weight Loss Goal: gain muscle mass and become buff superwoman like pheonix.

Food Weaknesses: dried fruit. chocolate/peanutbutter combinations. Scratch that.. peanut butter anything.

Other Interests:politics, reading, drinking coffee, working at a nonprofit, working out.

Original Post by audreymaxine:

Since even fat free vegan salad dressing often has a bunch of other weird chemicals, I always just get red wine vinegar. Most places have it; it has no calories and is delicious! I don't know why people even bother putting oil with it-- it just makes it greasy in my opinion. I will eat a giant salad (seriously giant... brian thinks I am very bizzare because I use the popcorn bowl for my salad) with tons of veggies, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and sometimes hummus, and I am full for quite a while. (Plus it really gets the bowels movin') And. as far as tattoos go, I don't have an artistic bone in my body, but fortunately I have quite a few tattoo artist friends!

 ya I'm totally not into the chemical-y dressings.  the vinegar is a great idea!  i bet balsamic w/out oil would also be good.  i usually do just lime juice, or lime juice mixed with **** sauce but I was  getting kind of tired of those.  

Original Post by hmarcos:

Original Post by ajd43:

Diet: vegan (doesn't "strict vegan" just mean vegan?)

It does, but some people have a different idea of what veganism is that is a lot closer to vegetarianism. I guess it's just a way of underlining that someone is very strict in adhering to a vegan about it and it's not a fleeting thing.

audreymaxine- I also get looks from my boyfriend when I bring out my giant family size salad for my meal :o) haha

amyvegan- I <3 hummus! Question for you...Do you think you will raise your baby to be vegan as well?

 

I guess when I put "strict vegan" all I was really thinking in my head was like, "vegan" for environmental/animal rights reasons as well as health reasons, so I'm not just a "dietary" vegan I also avoid animal products in clothing, personal care, cleaning, etc. products.  But yeah, "vegan" should just be "vegan" and people who eat no meat, dairy or eggs should be "strict vegetarians" IMO.

Yup, Raven will be vegan so long as I'm buying her food.  And if any of our family members try to feed her non-vegan food they will be in serious trouble <shakes fist>. 

Original Post by soy_vey:

Vegetarian since 4th grade except for a short bout of meat-eating(1 year) during teenage years. This is my second time going vegan.

Me too!  I didn't bother putting it, but I also went veg in grade 4 and then started eating meat again for one crazy year in high school. 

Name: Jessica

Age: 26

Diet: strict vegan

How long vegan: 1 year vegan and 3 years vegetarian

Gain or lose weight after becoming vegan: l lost a lot of weight until I started eating vegan junk food more than once a week

Weight Loss Goal: 20 pounds; I want to eat cleaner again, and limit vegan junk food to once a week

Food Weaknesses: My husband's vegan junk food eating habits, because once I see him eating junk i want it too. I bake vegan desserts when asked to for my family and wind up eating a majority of it.

Other Interests: Music, Art, Psychology, cooking, baking, going to concerts, traveling, baseball, Softball, outdoor sports, reading, discovery channel, The book "Skinny B****"