Going Veggie

2008 was a year of firsts for me. My first Marathon, my fist triathlon, and later on my first ultra marathon and my first races abroad (including my first Olympic distance triathlon in Stockholm and first sub 3.30 marathon in Berlin). Contrived as it sounds, all this showed me that setting goals really can help make things you’ve wanted to do for years (as well as things you thought you’d never be able to do) a reality. This year I’m aiming to do at least one ultra marathon or marathon a month as well as few half marathons, 10k’s and triathlons. Of the latter I’m hoping to do my first Ironman 70.3 (half full Ironman distance) triathlon in June. I’m also going to try and do this on a fully vegetarian (and possibly even vegan) diet (well maybe not the vegan part…yet).

Why go veggie? I hear you ask; well it’s something I have been wanting to do for a while. I first started eating veggie food when I was at my at my Mum’s one weekend and the only food I could find was my sister’s Quorn burgers and sausages (my sister, to her credit, has been veggie for many years now). I found that I actually quite liked it and proceeded to annoy my poor sister by constantly the veggie stuff in the house even when meat was available. Meat replacements like Quorn are much lower in fat than meat and so when I decided to try and lose some weight back in 2006 I stopped buying meat at the supermarket and just ate Quorn instead – it worked quite well. I still had the odd burger/sausage etc when I was out though.

There is also an ethical dimension to this. In the past I have tended not to think too much about where my food comes from, although I don’t like the idea of animals suffering just so I can eat and I certainly would not be able to kill one myself. Anyway, this went on for a few years. Often I’d be eating a veggie diet for weeks and then getting sausage and mash or a bacon sandwich when I was out. I kept wanting to take the next step but the smell of a cooked burger or bacon always was too tempting. It was the same when I tried going veggie once before back when I was about 12 or 13. Anyhow with the advent of the New Year I decided now was the time to act and have committed to going fully veggie, or at least lacto-ovo veggie (for the time being I still eat milk and dairy but no meat (including fish)). So far it’s going very well, you have to be careful not to eat non veggie cheese (contains animal rennet) or food like jelly babies (which often have gelatin in them) but as I had already largely removed meat from my diet it has not been too hard so far and my training has not suffered at all. There are many vegetarian sportsmen and women from sprinters to weightlifters and I once met a veggie farrier who was built like a tank so you can clearly do very well on such a diet if you are careful.

My friends and family have been very supportive of this decision and I’ve not had any of the gentle ribbing I was expecting. I’m not trying to force my opinions on anybody else. I don’t think meat eaters are evil or anything like that. What you eat is a personal choice for you and nobody should judge you for it. All I know is that this is something I want to do. Will I go further and cut out all animal products? Well, we’ll see. I have tried vegan soy yogurt and it wasn’t too bad, and I really like the taste of Soya milk. If I can take vegan cheese I may just try it…