My HONEST EXPERIENCE On A #Vegan Diet For 3 Years

In this video, I share with you my experience of 3 years on a plant-based vegan diet of 3 years. I will describe the positives and negatives of my time as a vegan.

My name is Daniel Walstead, a plant-based vegan personal trainer in Sevenoaks, and I wanted to share with you my vegan story over the past three and a half years. In fact, it's three and three, three-quarter years now. God, how quickly time has gone. It really has gone that quickly. I wanted to share with you my balanced opinion of being on a vegan diet. We're all so quick to jump on the positive bandwagon, and yes, 99% of it is incredibly positive, but we do go through stages where maybe there's a bit of self-doubt going on, or we get a few months in and we think, is it really worth it? So I wanted to share with you five positive and five negative opinions of my own from being on a plant-based vegan diet for over three and three-quarter years.

Okay, positive number one. When I initially went vegan, I had so much more energy, and when I initially went vegan, I went through a transition period. So I went for about three months where I still had a little bit of meat, I still had a little bit of dairy, and I still had a little bit of fish within that time frame, however, over time, I was feeling like I had more and more energy. I was able to train at the gym for longer, and I was getting stronger, which was really such a plus for me because I've always struggled with that. Strength has always been an issue for me. So that for me, was huge. Going past the three-month period, the energy levels stayed high, they've never dropped. I've been through stages where I've absolutely ripped, got an eight-pack body fat percentage down to five. That was incredible to do so, and I do not believe and I've tried before, but I also do not believe if I tried again, that I would have been able to have done that on a standard Western diet or just a decent Paleo diet that incorporated lots of fruits and vegetables, but at the same time, you had plenty of animal protein. I tried it for many years, didn't do it, went vegan one year later, got in the best shape of my life and stayed that way ever since, which has been absolutely incredible.

And on that note, positive number two, I can keep a leaner body weight all year round. Now, for some of you that have always struggled with high weight when you're younger, like me, someone who puts on weight very easily, this is such a positive because I am a glutton. I love eating food, I'm an absolute pig. I would happily eat the biggest trough in front of me, and it will be polished off. That's the beauty of having a plant-based vegan diet. The nutrients you're taking in are only benefiting your body, and typically, the nutrients in a plant-based vegan diet are a lot less than having animal protein, so you can eat more without having to worry about putting on weight.

Positive number three, and that's been the insides of my body. I've got lower blood pressure now, I've got lower cholesterol now. These are done by blood tests, of course. When you see a car underneath the bonnet and all the valves are clean, the engines running well, the filters are clear. You know you've got a good car.

Positive number four, and that's better concentration. I've actually found that my speech has become a lot better since going vegan. My vocabulary got better, my writing got better, and my ability to focus on one task at hand was a lot better. I find that I'm a lot calmer in situations, which means my mind is just in one position. If there's lots of craziness going on in my life than previously, I would have been thinking about one thing, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, all kind of like in one area. Now if I've got one problem, I'll focus on the problem, and fix it. If I can't fix it, then forget it. And positive number five. Of course, it's the animals. Saving probably thousands of animal lives now by being on a plant-based vegan diet. I think that is kind of something special. And to know that I've put a stop to that in my personal life is so good. Okay, so I'm wanting to be relatively balanced with this. Okay, negative number one, and that is eating out. Initially, when I went vegan over three and a half years ago, it was really hard to eat out. In fact, it was really hard to just get anything from the supermarket that was processed but was vegan. I know that sounds really bad because I like to eat whole foods and I like to eat plant-based, but sometimes you do want a little treat now and again, like someone else making you a vegan lasagna or someone else making you a vegan curry or something like that. It just wasn't available. So when I first went vegan, that was really tough. Also, eating out was incredibly tough. Now you can pretty much go to any restaurant in the UK and there's vegan food on there, but these days now, there might be two, three or four and that's real work. It feels like a real treat to be able to go out, enjoy it, and know that you've got a good few options there. So that might be a positive now, I don't know, but initially, it really was quite tough. The next one, negative number two, and this really gets me and that's toxic and really negative. Preachy. Vegans. Oh my goodness. If you're one of them watching this right now, you're going to put so many thumbs down on this one and I probably urge you to do so. The worst type of person anywhere in life is someone who preaches or someone that gets someone else down because of their lifestyle decisions. Yes, we all know smoking is bad, yes, we all know drinking far too much is bad, and yes, I think we all know that eating animal products is bad. But let's be honest, no matter how bad it gets, people are still going to do it, people are still going to smoke, people are still going to drink alcohol, people are still going to have drugs and people are still going to eat animal products. I can't see that going away from that much longer. The trouble with being a preachy, negative and angry vegan is you're only pushing people away from you. People look at you and think you're absolutely mad and then they see other people. And I'm not going to try and I might trumpet now, but I know other vegans as well who are incredibly positive. They only show the positive sides of it. They also lead by example, so they're fit, they're healthy, they eat whole food, plant-based diet, they don't just sit their stuff in Oreos and colour in their mouths. Yes, they are vegan too. Whenever you're preachy, whenever you're negative, whenever you're angry towards someone, everyone's defences go up, which means they're going to reinforce their self-will against you. Negative number three and that's going to the supermarket and looking at every single packet on the back to see if it's got any sort of animal products in it. Yeah, probably within the last three years, there's been a few times that I've eaten something and you get halfway through and you think, this ain't right, something's not right. You go to the packet you've just been eating and it's probably got milk powder in and you just miss it on the back of the pack, even though you go around the supermarket and you look at everything. That, for me, is really annoying. But don't beat yourself up. I'm dyslexic. So for me, looking at something, reading something, sometimes I make things up in my head when I read things because my mind just looks over words and it just doesn't go in properly. If you mess up, learn from it, and maybe look over it again. If you've got someone else with you, just say to them, can you have a look at this for me? Negative number four. When I say that I'm vegan to other people, they automatically think I'm a left-wing, tree-hugging Corbyn supporter and that's furthest from the truth. I'm not going to talk about anything about politics on it here. I don't think my channel is designed for that and I don't want to. But when people think you're vegan, they associate you with being a lefty. Negative number five and that is cognitive dissonance of the other person you're talking to. So, for example, you're at a dinner party or a wedding, and the food comes over and you'll see your food and the waitress says it's the vegan option. And then everyone looks out at you, looks at you and questions why you're vegan, and then you go through this field of why you're vegan. And everyone's like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. It's really good. And you're leading by example. You look healthy and you're happy, and you're saving animals' lives, and you're doing things better for the environment, but then they just say, I can never give up stakes, and you know something's bad and, you know, ethically it's not correct, and morally it's not correct, but you still do it. And I can't get my head over that. Once my mind was open that you could lead a happy, healthy, thriving life on a plant-based diet and died without having to learn about animals, I thought that was an amazing thing. I didn't think that I was actually making a sacrifice. I actually thought I was gaining from that. And a lot of people don't understand that, that they're going to gain health, they're going to gain energy, they're going to gain and within the environment and within the animal's lives, everyone is going to gain from this. Leave a like on the video. Leave a thumbs down on the video. Leave a positive comment. Leave a negative comment. What are your five positives and what are your five negatives of being on a plant-based speaking diet? My name is Daniel Welstead, a plant-based vegan, personal trainer in Sevenoaks, and I will see you very soon.

Daniel Welstead - Plant Based Vegan Personal Trainer in Sevenoaks