Lifestyle
Eating the Same Thing Everyday: Example Meal Plan
For Intermittent Fasting with a Plant Based Diet
I began my vegan journey almost a year ago, just after Canadian Thanksgiving (the next Thanksgiving is just around the calendar corner at the time of writing). Since then, I’ve been experimenting with low carb vegan cooking, verifying the results of my diet changes based on my bloodwork, mainly my HDL (‘good’ cholesterol) and LDL (‘bad’ cholesterol) levels, and doing some travel in the Mediterranean region in search of cuisine inspirations, not to mention asking AI for lots of advice along the way!
In this year of experimenting, fat pounds have been lost, muscle pounds gained, and I can certainly cook and source food a lot more effectively than before : ) I have arrived at a mostly vegan — though technically, pescatarian — daily meal plan which I literally eat everyday. For me, ‘vegan’ is what the food consists of, not an identity I need to claim for myself. After all, anyone can order vegan food off a menu and not be a card carrying member of a vegan society. One does not have to be vegan in order to eat vegan.
I started with a low carb vegan approach and ended up with an intermittent fasting, mostly vegan (terminologically correct: pescatarian) and moderate carb approach, mainly to support muscle hypertrophy (growth), protein synthesis, raise HDL levels, and to get my body to stop slowing down my metabolism by going into starvation mode. However, I continue to think that low carb veganism is an excellent way to transition to intermittent fasting since most people find a fasting schedule hard to achieve (I typically eat in a 6-hour window, e.g. 9am-3pm or 10am-4pm).
Eating the same thing every day, as long as it provides all the necessary nutrition and fits seamlessly into other aspects of one’s lifestyle, offers several benefits, particularly in the context of the inherent complexities of nutrition, genetics, and biology. These fields are deeply complex, with every dietary intervention influencing a wide range of biological processes that are often interrelated. The more variety one introduces into one’s diet, the more this complexity compounds, making it challenging to isolate the effects of specific foods on health.
By sticking to a consistent, nutritionally complete diet, you can reduce these variables, allowing for a more straightforward understanding of how your body responds to what you eat. This stability can be particularly useful when considering genetic factors, where individual responses to certain foods may vary widely. Simplifying your diet allows for a clearer observation of how your body reacts over time, reducing the noise created by constantly changing food choices.
In addition to simplifying the biological and nutritional complexities, a consistent diet can significantly streamline the practical aspects of food storage and management. A wide variety of foods in one’s diet often leads to a cluttered and chaotic kitchen, with different items vying for space in the fridge, freezer, and pantry. This variety can lead to food waste, as certain items may spoil before they are used, or to frustration when it becomes difficult to keep track of what is on hand.
By settling on a fixed set of foods that are easy to store and source, you reduce the complexity of managing your kitchen. This not only makes meal preparation more efficient but also contributes to better organization and less waste. Knowing exactly what you need and where it is stored can save time and reduce the stress of meal planning, allowing you to focus on other areas of your life.
Another significant advantage of eating the same thing every day is the ease with which you can test and adjust specific nutritional components to meet your personal health goals. For instance, if you want to track the impact of increasing or decreasing your intake of certain nutrients — such as fish to influence HDL levels in your blood work — you can do so with greater accuracy when your diet is otherwise consistent.
Similarly, making adjustments to carbohydrate intake for weight management or to support protein synthesis becomes more straightforward when the other variables in your diet remain constant. This approach allows you to establish a reliable dietary baseline, from which controlled variations can be made.
These precise adjustments can lead to more effective and measurable outcomes, helping you to fine-tune your diet to better align with your health and fitness objectives. Overall, by simplifying your diet, you create a foundation that not only supports better health outcomes but also enhances your ability to manage and optimize your nutritional intake effectively.
What I Eat Everyday
The Main Meals
➢ Messy as Fuck Burger*
➢ The Go-To Stew
➢ Pescatarian ‘Cheat Meal’
*I alternate the patty daily between (all from Costco): Black Bean Chipotle, Pacific Salmon and Beyond Burger.
The Main Drinks
➢ Smoothed Spiced Coffee
➢ Super Tea!
➢ Water, No Sugar Added Oat Milk
The Main Snacks
➢ Michael’s (Mostly) Vegan Epic Smoothie
➢ Baked Apples
➢ Rolled Oats with Prune Nectar
➢ Natto
➢ “Stuffed” Chickpea Flour Flatbread
➢ 1–2 Mandarin oranges, a few dried prunes, mixed nuts and seeds, dried figs, and edamame
Of course, like anyone else I sometimes eat out or at a friend’s place, which is one source of variety to my diet. Another source of variation is going on a random fruit or even veggie quest at the produce market to sometimes try something new. As you can see, this is plenty of nutritionally dense food to get through in a 6-hour period!
