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I Can't Believe I'm Joining a Vegan Community!


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Two years ago, I'd have though you were all crazy new-age tree-huggers, but I've since been enlightened, and now I know this is the place where I belong.

 

Me: Brandon, 29, North Carolina, Computer programer.

 

I've been without meat for probably 2 months, and without milk and eggs for eight days now. Giving up dairy was harder because it was so omnipresent in my diet, but after the first few days of shock, I've grown used to working around milk/butter/sour cream/ranch dressing, and I feel better for it.

 

I initially found this site (by a link from what's now stevepavlina.com) a couple of years ago. Just recently, we moved into a new house, and I've created my "Fortress of Solitude" in the basement and started lifting weights again (for the first time in 3-4 years probably). I figured if I was going to get serious about getting fit, I need to make some dietary changes too.

 

So I'm new to the diet, but pretty experienced with the workout regimen. I've been impressed by all the intelligent, thoughful posts here, and I hope to become a contributing part of the community pretty soon. Thanks for Robert for making a cool site and to all the forum regulars for creating such a good resource.

 

Brandon

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rock on brutha...you're making some smart moves, keep it up. what kind of protein are you getting? I know when I first made the switch 4 years ago I had a serious lack of energy, til I figured it out. lately I make sure to get around 200-300 g. of protein daily - mostly from soy protein isolate, rice and hemp protein. just trying to save you some grief and keep you from getting discouraged, it can be a rough adjustment at first for some. This is my first post here too, seems like there's lots of cool people around here, very kind individuals from what I see.

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Hey Brandon, welcome to our awesome team! Thanks for the kind comments and for telling us a bit about yourself.

 

We do indeed look forward to getting to know you on this site.

 

Yes, that place of solitude. I know it well. I don't have that area in my basement, but for years I used the gym for that. Now I'm a little high energy and chat too much in the gym, but I love that focus of just grinding it out rep by rep, working toward a goal.

 

You will find all kinds of support here.

 

Welcome aboard!

 

-Robert

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29 year old programmer new to this site? That sounds like my kinda person, but I may be biased, since I fit that description too. Welcome aboard. What kinda coding do you do? Glad you made the move to veganism. After a little while you never look back. Thinking how you used to consume animal juices will seem totally ridiculous.

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Welcome Brandon! Crazy new-age tree-huggers, huh? That's me!

 

I think many veggies find it more difficult to give up dairy than meat. So many of our traditional 'comfort' foods are based on dairy, plus it's everywhere! Also, cheese has addictive properties that make giving it up even harder.

 

http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/barnard_food_seduction.htm

 

snip...

 

Well, in 1981, Eli Hazum and his colleagues at Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., reported a remarkable discovery. Analyzing samples of cow's milk, they found traces of a chemical that looked very much like morphine. They put it to one chemical test after another. And, finally, they arrived at the conclusion that, in fact, it is morphine.

 

more...

 

But that was only the beginning, as other researchers soon found. Cow's milk-or the milk of any other species, for that matter-contains a protein, called casein, that breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates, called casomorphins. A cup of cow's milk contains about six grams of casein. Skim milk contains a bit more, and casein is concentrated in the production of cheese.

 

If you examined a casein molecule under a powerful microscope, it would look like a long chain of beads (the "beads" are amino acids-simple building blocks that combine to make up all the proteins in your body). When you drink a glass of milk or eat a slice of cheese, stomach acid and intestinal bacteria snip the casein molecular chains into casomorphins of various lengths. One of them, a short string made up of just five amino acids, has about one-tenth the pain-killing potency of morphine.

 

===

 

Amazing, huh? It's a very interesting article & a property of cheese that I don't think many people are aware of.

 

BTW, I too would like to know more about what kind of programming you do. I'm pretty new at it -- 4 years -- but work with software engineers who have been coding since the 80's. Of course, there are some issues with that too!

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Two years ago, I'd have though you were all crazy new-age tree-huggers, but I've since been enlightened, and now I know this is the place where I belong...

 

 

Brandon

 

Hey, I resemble that remark! I *love* trees and am a proud hugger. I used to talk to our tree in the back yard as a child

 

Nice to meet you, Brandon; welcome!

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Thanks for the warm welcome. Giving up dairy got more challenging this weekend as we've had 2 birthday parties in the past 2 weeks, and I've not had any birthday cake at either one. It's getting to be time for me to explore some soy milk and vegan pastry options. I'll be checking the recipie boards this week. What's got me thru so far is learning that one of our southern culture delicacies are actually vegan: http://www.moonpie.com.

 

As for my programming, I was did C++ in college http://www.unc.edu, but my 8-5 has me doing mostly VB. I also do some web development, and am pretty comfortable with PHP, so mabey I can help Robert get something done for the site sometime. I also programmed my own video game and I sell it here http://www.questengine.com. I'm a huge video game fan, and actually making one, was a huge life-long dream. It takes genetics (and probably drugs) to be Mr. Olympia big, but it only takes time and effort to make a video game!

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Welcome, Brandon! I don't know about others on here, but one thing I found when I first came over to the green side, was that I had a heckuva time keeping weight on. I lost like 15 lbs in a couple months (and I was veggie b4). I had to force myself to eat a bit more than I was used to, which was actually an awesome bonus since I love eating.

 

Also, my wife is addicted to vegan chocolate cupcakes, which means I am too. Very tasty.

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@finbarrio

 

I'm really looking forward to the weight loss thing. I'm 210 at 6ft. Which isn't fat, but 36in pants fit me a lot better than 34's. And as far as I'm concerned, there's no reason I can't eventually fit a 32. I weighed feb 8, when I went vegan. I'm not weighing again until March 8.

 

I actually started this vegan thing as a 30 day trial, thinking I might switch back if I was unsatisfied, it was just an experiment. But it made so much sense, and wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be, that I'm already preparing to keep it going.

 

@sinisterkungfu

 

Lexington, near Greensboro and Winston-Salem

 

@Daywalker

 

More of a fan of solitude than of Superman really. I lean toward the Marvel side of the super hero universe.

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