Digital Diary – Vegan Keto, The Beginning

In these final hours, I find myself binge-eating cheese and eggs.  I’m even drinking an IPA that has been in my fridge since Irish Mike left his residuals a year ago.  Because, I think to myself, fuck it.  

I’m going vegan for a month.  

Except, after two years successfully on keto—and having lost sixty pounds—I’m terrified of carbs. So, I’m going vegan, but keto style.  

Which, at first glance, sounds easy enough, right? Just replace all meat with tofu. Boom, done.  

No, no, no.  

For those of you new to the concept of keto, the diet revamps your body chemistry to eat fat instead of carbs for energy. To do this, you drop your carb intake to 20 grams a day and get 20-25% of your calories from protein and 70-75% of your calories from fat. You can probably guess this is easy enough to accomplish with meat, dairy and leafy greens.  

But when you take out meat, dairy, butter and eggs… 

Yeah.  

And I wouldn’t really mind it. Whatevs, you know, just another nutritional challenge—but it is so expensive. 

For my height (5’2″, female) and build, the keto macros are circa 1,500 calories, of which 100 grams should be fat, 20 net carbs, 115 proteins. After two weeks of vegan keto research, my meal plans are getting an average 1,300 calories, 107 grams of fat, 20 carb, and 43 proteins. As you can see, daily intake underperforms in both calories and proteins.  

Which would turn me into the Snickers raging hunger monster.  

I’ve heard arguments that keto and vegan diets are simply incompatible. With a soy protein supplement, however, I can meet my macros. I’m going for it.  

I decided to order a bunch of staple items in bulk to offset the cost. It was a hefty $200 for everything, not including fresh produce, but if I did my math right, it’ll last a while. The worst of the expense are the ingredients for plant-based fat bombs like coconut oil, almonds and cacao powder. 

So now, while I am waiting for the supplies to deliver, I will consume all the non-vegan foods in my apartment (waste not and all that jazz), do my taxes, and speculate how much I will miss real cheese.  

***This post is a log of my adventures with and experimentation of nutrition. I am in no way a professional nutritionist. Always consult your doctor before considering a change in your diet.***