Poll of the Day > Got my blood test recently. Thinking about transitioning to a vegan diet

(+) Yeah! (+)

Basically, my blood test showed that they detected high amount of cholesterol and creatine, which suggests a high fat and protein diet. This is true because I ate a lot of meat and other animal products. I have another physical in 3 months and now I felt pressure to eat better.

While I suppose it would be sufficient to just cut down on the meat, I had an idea about transitioning to cutting out all animal products from my diet altogether. I told this to my mom but she thinks I'm being too extreme. I think she's probably right, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. I know I may not be successful, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

It will probably be very difficult for me, because I'm so used to eating animal products, but transitioning to vegetarianism and then veganism will be good for my health, animals, and the environment....

I'd say you should just cut back on animal products for now. If you find that easy enough to adapt to, then try going with a vegan diet.

SoreChasm posted...

I'd say you should just cut back on animal products for now. If you find that easy enough to adapt to, then try going with a vegan diet.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Thanks for the input.

SoreChasm posted...

I'd say you should just cut back on animal products for now. If you find that easy enough to adapt to, then try going with a vegan diet.

Agree with this. Most people find extreme lifestyle changes way too challenging. It's a lot easier to slowly change your habits by reduction rather than all at once imo.

Now I want a bacon sandwich.

wwinterj25 posted...

Now I want a bacon sandwich.

Damn...

Id say take it slow. Trying to change to fast can definitely be more of a struggle. Start by cutting back, then move further after doing that for a little while

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll take it slow if I proceed with the transition.

You could start by switching to fish and chicken only, and then if you wanted to keep going, continue with an all veg diet.

Pure vegan diet is intense, costly, and basically a complete life style change. Unless it's something that sounds appealing to you I'd consider not jumping right into that.

It's not animal products, it's high fat, highly processed animal products, particularly high saturated fat intake that leads to what you are talking about.

Lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy, etc. are not correlated with what you're talking about.

And also, I would question the notion that eating protein increases your blood creatine level in a negative way. People who eat very high protein diets may have slightly elevated blood creatine levels, but this is not correlated with any negative health outcomes. It's just that their reference range is slightly higher. Your doctor should know this.

Start getting ready to let everyone know your vegan as the most important step of a vegan diet is not to cut out meat but to let everyone know you're vegan.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Start getting ready to let everyone know your vegan as the most important step of a vegan diet is not to cut out meat but to let everyone know you're vegan.

I love how people act like it's vegans who are insufferable while they make completely unwarranted comments like this one

sodium-chloride posted...

You could start by switching to fish and chicken only, and then if you wanted to keep going, continue with an all veg diet.

Pure vegan diet is intense, costly, and basically a complete life style change. Unless it's something that sounds appealing to you I'd consider not jumping right into that.

That's a good idea. Thanks for the warning.

GameReviews posted...

It's not animal products, it's high fat, highly processed animal products, particularly high saturated fat intake that leads to what you are talking about.

Lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy, etc. are not correlated with what you're talking about.

And also, I would question the notion that eating protein increases your blood creatine level in a negative way. People who eat very high protein diets may have slightly elevated blood creatine levels, but this is not correlated with any negative health outcomes. It's just that their reference range is slightly higher. Your doctor should know this.

Interesting opinion. Yeah, I did eat some processed meats in the past but I've cut down on it some.

PikachuMaxwell posted...

That's a good idea. Thanks for the warning.

Interesting opinion. Yeah, I did eat some processed meats in the past but I've cut down on it some.

That sounds like a good start!

And it's not my opinion, it's just the medical facts:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3383162/

personally Ive been trying to get to the point where I cut out eating all together, but its super hard. I know the struggle brother bing

I'll DM you my plant based Pinterest board if you want some ideas (even if you're just doing that to cut back some)

sodium-chloride posted...

Pure vegan diet is intense, costly,

it doesn't have to be costly. Plenty of poorer nations have a ton of vegetarian populations. You don't need to buy specialty products.

also b12 is a pretty good idea to supplement even for non vegans a lot of the time

Do you exercise?

Yeah I came in here to say that this is *much* easier to ease into than to just do it all at once.

Aside from meat, the big cholesterol giver is probably eggs. Alongside milk and cheese, eggs can be pretty tricky to cut out since they're often used as *components* in stuff and not just for themselves. As such, I'd try slowly replacing each of these one at a time. There are lots of possible replacements for eggs, but which ones you want to use will depend on what you're trying to do with the substitute (some egg substitutes aren't appropriate for making a rising dough, for example). Milk is the easiest of the three to replace; you can even make your own replacement without much effort.

Dont go balls deep from the get, start with the tip

Thanks everyone for the input! I read everything and appreciate it!
BigOlePappy posted...

Do you exercise?

I admit I don't, so perhaps that could be a factor as to why my blood test is like that.

grimhilde00 posted...

it doesn't have to be costly. Plenty of poorer nations have a ton of vegetarian populations. You don't need to buy specialty products.

also b12 is a pretty good idea to supplement even for non vegans a lot of the time

Vegetarian diet isn't costly, but living a pure vegan lifestyle can definitely be.