Vegan February: Week 1

It's Waitangi Day here in NZ which has meant two long weekends in a row (yay!) and it means I'm a week into the February Challenge. So far, it's gone pretty well. I've only slipped up once, when on Friday I caved and ate a pumpkin filo pastry bite and a little chocolate cake on a stick at a work morning tea. I managed the league's day at the beach today without eating a good friend's chocolate cupcakes, and have managed to eat out twice this weekend with minimal difficulty (thank you Hell Pizza for your Sinister vegan pizza, delicious without resorting to vegan cheese!).

A few observations from the first week:

• Dairy products are everywhere. The bread I thought was vegan? Contains whey products. It took me over ten minutes carefully reading the small print on all the loaves of bread in the supermarket last night until I found one that was vegan friendly (this time I checked twice to make sure). Once you start looking, you see it everywhere.
• Preparation is key. On Saturday a few friends and I checked out the Auckland Circus Convention. We'd be there for lunch and into dinnertime, and whilst circus people are more likely to have a vegan-friendly diet I couldn't guarantee there would be food there I could eat, so I built some time into my day to go to the local whole foods store and get a few provisions. It turned out that we got dinner out anyway, but in a world where almost everywhere now has decent vegetarian options it's interesting being in a situation where there isn't a lot of choice. 
• I miss cake.Though it's interesting for someone who finds it difficult to say no to food being in a (self-imposed, admittedly) situation where I can't just say yes without thought. 

I have to say, I have been feeling quite tired and run-down in the last few days. I am finding work incredibly stressful to get back into though, and my body clock's adjusting to a four-hour shift (left to my own devices and I wake up at 10am, so my 6am work start is taking some getting used to). The last couple of times I've gone for a run I've only managed a few km's before I've ground to a halt but it's also been very humid so I think I need to get up even earlier to take advantage of fresh mornings) I'm eating enough according to MapMyFitness's nutrition program, and eating a good balance of proteins, fats and carbs, so I'm going to keep an eye on it and see how I go once I get used to being back at work.

Next week I have another vegan pot luck on Saturday (which I'll be doing some baking for- molly cake is a vegan fruit cake with no added sugar and it's DELICIOUS), two coaching sessions on two consecutive days (league has started back for new skaters, which I'll save for another post!), a duathlon, and possibly starting a circus skills class. And that's in addition to running and work (and sleeping) so I'll have my work cut out to eat more than endless rounds of avocado on toast! I managed to whip up a tasty lentil curry this evening in about 15 minutes, so I'm hoping this won't be too difficult.

Next post will be about roller derby, I promise.