My Vegetarian Low Carb Goat Journey

I have received many questions about my experiment with vegetarian and low carb and one full month passed and I think I can finalize what happened to me during that time. I had an amazing goat experience.
As some of you know, I love fruits and vegetables and I said over and over again that if I had nothing to eat but fruits and vegetables, I’d be the happiest person on earth. Well, I was testing this belief in a short experiment,  and I learned a lot about myself.

Let’s put some order in the terminology.
Fasting means nothing goes into the body. ( apart from water, coffee, tea, bone broth – no sugar)
Carnivore means mainly proteins go into the body
Keto means lots of fat goes into the body, medium protein, and very low carb.
Low carb means high protein, healthy fats, and low carb.

I was trying to find where I was standing between the keto and the low carb, with emphasis on being vegetarian.

So, here is what I have learned.

The first days, I didn’t feel hungry at all. It was very easy. After a week, I started craving fruits and suddenly, berries were simply not enough. It started with a whole bag with half a kilo of blueberries and ended up with Nectarines and peaches and mango. Yes, I even ended up eating mango. The problem was that I ate fruits, and I just couldn’t stop until my body started “ talking.”  Almost always, I had a pain in my upper stomach that forced me to stop. The good thing about this was that while in the past my fruit tank was never full and I could eat 7 mangoes in one sitting,  this time, pain stopped me.

During this experiment I was… hungry. It was a different hungry. I wanted to eat but… didn’t feel like eating what I prepared. I think I didn’t enjoy the food as much. It felt like a chore. I didn’t like it at all. I was in constant search for something to eat but nothing was appealing  That didn’t feel good at all. Before this, I really enjoyed my food. I didn’t even feel restricted and when I ate, I was full and satisfied with my choices. This month, I didn’t feel it. The peace with food was gone. I didn’t like it at all.

The most significant change was bowl movement that went up to 4-5 times a day. My tummy felt comfortable and soft. I didn’t think it was uncomfortable before, but it felt empty and relaxed. I liked that feeling.

I hardly used dairy during this month. I love dairy food but thought I would avoid it if I could. I used coconut yogurt and ate it with blueberries and mixed nuts. That was an easy snack and I think the increase of nuts and seeds were not doing me good. I ate it but never felt… satisfied.

Eating outside was harder than ever. There were very little options with keto vegetarian. If you think it is hard to eat outside with keto, OMG, you don’t know what you are talking about. Most of the vegetarian options have noodles, rice, and wheat product. It is much easier ordering vegetables and protein than ordering vegetarian proteins. I ended up eating on those events mostly meat and sometimes I simply gave up and ate the carbs.

Four times,  during this month, I ate fish, it was mostly a compromise. I was a guest somewhere and the host remembered me eating mostly proteins so, she prepared fish.

While eating keto as a guest was a very easy thing to do, being a guest on low carb vegetarian was not an easy at all. I tried only eating the vegetable dishes but there was simply not enough ( OMG, there are so many carbs on those vegetarian dishes),  and I was constantly hungry.

One day, on the last week of this experiment, I ate the regular things and could not sleep at night. I had pain in my chest and could not breath. It felt like I needed to burp but couldn’t. Every time I stood up, I felt better, and drinking water helped  a bit but when I went back to bed, my chest was in pain and so were my upper back. Because I never had heartburns in my life, I am only guessing that this was the issue. I ended up taking Colloidal silver and did over an hour of breathing techniques until it went away.
This happened to me twice during the last week of the experiment. The second time was much shorter because I took the Colloidal silver earlier and started with my breathing straight away.
It had nothing to do with frying because I didn’t use much fat and ate nothing deep fried.

Generally, I don’t think I ate enough protein which explains why I was hungry all of the time.

I had several short attempts to fast and that was out of the question. Since I am a good faster, I thought I would do it easily but by the time I got up in the morning after making the decision to fast, to the first meal, didn’t even take two hours.
Usually, I skip breakfast, so it is easy to do intermittent fasting until 11 or 12 noon  but this month, it was basically impossible.

I wasn’t craving for processed sugar but craving for food. For snacking, for fruits. It was like a gate open, and I couldn’t close it. Even the gluten free didn’t save me from hunger.

One day, I was invited to a Koren BBQ, and it was a carnivore heaven ( for carnivores! Obviously, I wasn’t in heaven). At first, I said to myself, Ok, it is not going to be vegetarian meal. I’ll make it carnivore but seconds after we got in, I changed it to keto and as we sat to eat all my decisions were gone. I did enjoy the meat very much but most of my food was vegetables… and fruits… and rice paper roles… and sweet potato patties… and sauces… and desserts…
If I can say something about my motivation. I mostly felt like my captain and crew were not cooperating at all. One made a choice, and the other one was simply ignoring that choice. It was no wonder that I have gained almost 2 kg this month so , weight wise, it was not good for me. ( still proud of myself for trying).
I don’t think I drank enough water, not because of lack of trying but I am guessing the fruits made me feel full.
my concentration and productivity were high as usual.
My energy level was normal. My sleeping was normal ( apart from the days I felt pain in my chest) I meditate and am zonked within 2-3 minutes, and nothing changed in that period.

I think I was calm, and I was happier the first ten days when I started eating more and more fruits but later that feeling changed to feeling mostly hungry. – not a nice feeling.
After almost 9 years of not really familiar with being hungry, that was not pleasant at all.

Being flexible during this experiment only made me eat more and more things out of my “plan.” So, flexible translated to a little bit off track and very fast to far from being on track. I’m guessing inconsistency only made my body “store” more in fear of not knowing what the future holds.

Generally, it was very nice to eat things I took out of my eating lifestyle for a long time, but I felt it was way harder than my regular eating habits. If I ever though that Keto was hard, this was harder. It was a good Goat experiment.
What Do I mean by that?
This goat story is the best way to explain it.

 

One man came to his rabbi and told him, “I don’t know what to do, we live in a one-bedroom apartment with 5 kids and one of them is a baby, the house is a mess. I step on toys and can’t sleep properly. My house is so small, and I simply don’t know what to do. Please Rabbi, tell me what to do”
The Rabbi told him. “Go get a goat and bring it into your house. The goat must live with you for one week. At the end of the week, come back to me”
The following week, the man comes and says “ Rabbi, what have you done? our house is a disaster, the goat eats the sofa, poops everywhere and it smells awful, and it makes noises in the middle of the night, and I can’t sleep. “
“ You know what?” asked the Rabbi “Go home, take the goat out of the house and come back to me after one week”
The man did exactly what his Rabbi told him and came back after a week?
“ How is your house now?” asked the Rabbi
“ Rabbi, your suggestion was amazing. Thank you for fixing my problem. The house is clean now, no one eats the sofa and there is no poop around and no one is making so much noise and I can  finally sleep”
So, This experiment was very successful in learning that vegetarian low carb is not a successful  option for me. I could only understand it because I compared it to a situation that was in fact easier. I had to get in a goat into my life to realize that compared to vegetarian, keto is EASY!

What will I do differently now?
I will go back to my keto but without too much fat. I only need to get to the “No hungry” point. This means I will cut the seeds and nuts and cut the high carb vegetables, focus on proteins, and low carb vegetables with focus on cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, zucchini and cauliflower and many leafy greens to add more fibre into my diet. I will try to cut down berries, tomatoes, and bell pepper ( the things I don’t have the “enough” button for).
Last words:
Though I successfully found out what is not a successful strategy for me. I am very happy and proud of myself for persisting the whole month. I could see the increase on the scale along the way and several times I told myself, Ok, enough, let’s stop now and I didn’t! I promised myself to try it for a month and I’m glad I did it . I wanted to get enough “data,” question my belief and make an educated choice about whether a vegetarian lifestyle is suitable for me.
This does not mean it is “true” for everyone. It is only true for me. Remember I told you that you are 100% statistics? Well, what works or doesn’t work for me, is only applicable for me.

Be happy,

Ronit

The Happiness Coach
https://www.behappyinlife.com
https://www.ronitbaras.com/


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