What Does the Blood Say After 30 Days of Going Vegan?
Let’s find out
About 30 days ago I became vegan and I’d like to think that I’ve been making, and continue to make, educated decisions about my nutrition. I am operating under the assumption that there are no nutrients that I can get from meat that I can’t get from a healthier non meat source. As of yet, no one has been able to provide me with any evidence to the contrary. The sources of my research are the China Study (a book my doctor recommended and touted as the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted), How Not to Die, Nutrition Studies, NutritionFacts.org, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to name a few. These resources are based on tens of thousands of studies conducted on hundreds of thousands of individuals that spans decades and conducted by world renowned scientists, some Nobel laureates. All studies are peer reviewed, committee reviewed, published in the most prestigious medical journals and backed up by thousands of people, including me, who have completely reversed their blood and cardiovascular health.
I am lucky enough to be able to get my blood tested fairly regularly so I took full advantage and I’ve been anxiously awaiting taking these tests after 2 months of being vegetarian with one of these months going completely vegan. These are the results.
A few things to note:
- I didn’t change my diet all that radically. I was already eating similar salads and sides (which are now my mains) of vegetables. I wasn’t eating pizzas and hot dogs and chips every night to switch to fruits and vegetables only.
- I did raise my activity a little, but I had to with all this newfound energy. Diet and exercise are truly symbiotic.
- I take no meds for anything, I haven’t drunk alcohol in months even before that last comparative test.
- I meditated before and I continue to do it every day.
- I am genetically predisposed to heart disease, high blood pressure, 6 cancer cases in my family, and dementia. I’m a fighter so I’ll be fighting each of these hard! It just so happens that a delicious plant-based diet is a weapon to combat all of them.
Cholesterol and LDL
The money shot! This is what I was most excited to see. After all the research, the reading, the documentaries, the tracking everything I ate from vitamins to snacks to dinners I can see if all this stuff is true and also how fast it works.
The big number is the Cholesterol/LDL ratio which was alarmingly high in September of last year, approximately 6 months ago. My total cholesterol to HDL (“good”) cholesterol ratio was at 6.4 and today it is at 3.6! Almost half! My LDL (“bad”) cholesterol was 3.63 (140 US) and is now 2.53 (97 US). My HDL cholesterol was 0.82 (31 US) which was alarmingly low and tagged as a risk. Today it was 1.20 (46.4 US) bringing it back up to healthy and this will continue to rise.
What does all this mean? It means that even given several data points that indicate I’m genetically predisposed to heart disease, I am at very low risk of getting a heart attack in the next 10 years.
Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12 is a vitamin made by bacteria. It is not made by plants; it’s not made by animals either. It’s made by bacteria, some of which line the guts of animals, of which people eat and drink. But that’s not the best source, because of the baggage that comes along with it. I drink plant-based milks that are fortified with B12 and I also take a supplement once a week which is more than enough and any extra of these delightful little microbes that we consume are evacuated in our urine. Being vegan I certainly wanted to keep a close eye on it and levels are optimum at 468 which is 24 points above the September results. Since I am now more aware about what my body needs it seems I was able to improve in many areas.
Hb A1C AKA Insulin and Diabetic Risk
I was on an upward trajectory towards diabetes while being overweight which is coming down fast. The term HbA1c refers to glycated haemoglobin. It develops when haemoglobin, a protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body, joins with glucose in the blood, becoming ‘glycated’.
By measuring glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), clinicians are able to get an overall picture of what our average blood sugar levels have been over a period of weeks/months. In September and six months before that I was at 5.5+% which is slightly on the warning chart below, but today it was 5.2% which slips completely off this chart into very healthy territory.
Blood Pressure
I think the daily meditation, my general positive outlook on life and my training really set this up for success.
Ideal: 90–120/60–80
Me: 103/71 — in fantastic shape!
Resting Heart Rate
I have been doing sprints in a one-minute workout 2–3 times per week which seem to be working. My RHR has been as low as 49! Athlete level!
Liver function is good, kidney function is good, thyroid good, all nutrients are good! Life is good. Below might be a bit shocking and I’m still tweaking my intake, but this is my average nutritional intake over the last 4 weeks on a plant based diet. The fat content is huge, but it’s mostly from nuts and seeds and some from oils which will also be next on my list to phase out. Vitamin D says it’s low, but it was just hard to track. I’ll be testing that in my next blood panel in a few months.
And of course it’s always fun to look at the weight loss with a closer look at the recent drop. I’m still over where I would like to be, but I’m getting there much faster with this tasty lifestyle!
Moving to this diet was easier than I thought it would be and it has returned incredible results for my health, my happiness and ultimately my home and work life. There was some work however. I found I had to re-learn things I really believed I knew. I subscribed to “everything in moderation” which is naive. How much snake venom is within moderation? I believed we were “meant” to eat meat because of our evolution, but what we did in the past doesn’t have to dictate what we do in the future plus we strive to live longer and with less ailments. We know we can get any nutrients we need from the cleanest sources. I believed we were “made” to eat meat because of our physiology only to find out the reverse is true. Our jaws, our intestines, our colon match herbivores. Once I let go of what I thought I knew it opened me up to the science, which is just another word for knowledge by the way. Finding trusted sources of information was a challenge, but I believe I found them. I hope you found this helpful. Good luck with your journey.
Addendum!
I have followed this post after six months with new blood tests. Check it out here: What Does the Blood Say After 6 Months of Being Vegan?
