Taking Stock: January

Today is the last day of my first month of being vegan and I'm using it as an occasion to reflect on what's come to pass over the last thirty days in my training, my body and my kitchen.

Let's start with training. I have accomplished what I hoped to accomplish in this arena: I've reestablished the habit of training regularly, albeit in small bites, and have moved past the initial discomforts of doing so. During the course of the month, I snowshoed for 9.5 hours, run for 8.5 hours, biked for 4 hours, cross-country skied for 2 hours and swam for 40 minutes (a small but meaningful triumph), for a total training volume of 24.5 hours. It doesn't look too bad when summed like this, but pales in comparison to the training volume of 80+ hours that I will carry five months from now.

It's worth noting that I have avoided doing any exciting or dramatic training this month for two reasons. Firstly, it's never, ever a good idea to introduce, or reintroduce, physical activity levels in a manner that amounts to a shock for the body (for the soft tissues in particular; this is one of the main reasons that joint injuries come to visit later in the season). Secondly, in the interest of monitoring my body's reaction to the major shift in diet, I aimed to modestly control other variables. Embarking on a hard training program always leaves one feeling a little pooped; I have sought to evaluate any indication of tiredness or lethargy, independent of the reintroduction of regular training. In other words, I have tried not to blur the lines of causality.

Which brings me to how my body has responded. I have listened to it during and after workouts, while waiting to fall asleep at night, and on waking in the morning. I have listened to it when climbing stairs, walking the hilly streets of Lausanne and after making a mad dash for the train. Now, while I wouldn't describe my previous self as a crazed steak-eater, I did eat chicken, fish and dairy products on a daily basis. I rarely started my day without yogurt or cottage cheese with fruit. So I was expecting some sort of adjustment period, some sort of withdrawal or - that great euphemism for withdrawal, cleansing - to happen in the wake of 'going cold turkey', as it were. So nobody will be more surprised than me at the report that my energy levels have steadily increased over the month. I am equally surprised that I have not lost a pound of weight (and have not quite made up my mind as to whether this is a good or bad thing).

There is one other physical response to note from this month: I am sleeping in a little later than usual. Typically, I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5.30am, but lately I have been sleeping in till the late, late hour of 7.00am. I feel like I've missed half the morning when I look at the clock through bleary eyes. Michael, on the other hand, is taking this as a great silent blessing, rather like a parent who's child has begun to sleep though the night for the first time, I imagine. My body's somewhat unusual wish to sleep-in is not something I am giving much mind to; I think I've experienced this in previous January's (and as some wise person who lives above the 49th parallel once said: if you sleep through January, you haven't missed much) and I'm expecting it to pass as the days lengthen.

Into the kitchen. The kitchen has become a place of unbridled experimentation; a cross between a science lab and a sandbox, the only rule in place being that things have to taste good. Over the course of this month, I learnt how to squeeze milk from almonds, how to grow my own sprouts, how to bake without eggs or butter, and how to prepare dishes that are native to countries I have never visited. My emerging cuisines of choice from January are Moroccan, Indian and Lebanese. I now have spices in my cupboard that I had previously heard of, but never cooked with: cardamom, turmeric and garam masala to name a few. On a fine tuning note, I learnt that the order in which these are added to a dish when cooking actually matters. Who would have thought.

The report from the kitchen brings me to one final item, completing my round-up of the month: the vegan recipe that won my highest regard. I was certain that a particular dried fruit and nut curry, served on a bed of red quinoa, was going to be the winner. Even Michael endorsed it with his vote. But the final judge and jury (me) overturned the majority ruling. This judge has an insatiable sweet tooth, and thus, I have come down on the side of a dessert recipe (and it's worth noting that the final verdict was bolstered by the monumental discovery that coconut cream can be whipped like dairy cream, producing a whipped topping that is much more exotic, and quite frankly, better).

So without further a do, the following is a recipe called BerryBerry Couscous Cake, adapted from www.stevia.com:

Couscous Cake

* 2 1/2 cups water
* 1 cup couscous
* juice of 1/2 lemon
* 3 to 6 drops liquid stevia or a dusting of stevia extract
* pinch of sea salt

Bring water to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in couscous, lemon, and stevia. Turn heat to low and simmer for about 5 minutes. Spread the couscous into a 9" springform pan or shallow non-aluminum baking dish and pat down firmly. Allow to set; about 1 hour.

Berry Topping

* 1 1/2 cups mixed berries, fresh or frozen
* 1 cup water
* 3 to 6 drops liquid stevia or dusting of stevia extract
* pinch of sea salt
* 2 to 3 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)

Bring all ingredients except maple syrup to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Stir in the maple syrup and allow to cool, then spread topping over the cake. Refrigerate until set, about 1 hour. Once set, the cake will slice much like a baked cake. The reds and blues from the berries will soak down through the couscous layer, giving it a colourful marbled appearance.

Whipped Coconut Cream Topping (this part I made up)

Chill a stainless steel bowl and whisk in the fridge. Skim the cream off the top of a can of organic coconut milk, being careful not to include any of the clear coconut fluid. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and a touch of stevia, and whisk until stiff peaks form. Serve generously with couscous cake, and think of more tropical places.

And so ends January. I'm glad I didn't sleep through it.

In at the Deep End, And Some Footnotes on Procrastination

Sometimes inspiration can be found in the strangest places. I woke up this morning, made a sharp black coffee, packed my swimming gear and headed to the pool. I paid my francs, marched myself to the deep end, goggled up and jumped in feet first.

Once in the water, the inevitable happened: I was happy as a clam and I didn't want to get out. I put in 2 kilometers, and thanks to a synco swim team practicing in the adjacent pool, was treated to an upbeat underwater soundtrack as I paddled. While Gloria Estefan and Prince would not be my first choice of music to swim to, a remixed version of The Rhythm is Going to Get You helped me pick things up in the last 300 meters. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that during the daytime, the public swim lanes of this particular pool are largely empty (unlike my local pool in Vancouver: located in a downtown neighborhood called The West End, a pretty collection of pink midrise apartment buildings where everybody's grandmother lives, you need to be prepared to swim with a lot of silverbacks if you want to swim during the dayshift. I might add that these silverbacks were often faster than me in the water).

So, it turns out that I have been suffering from nothing more than some garden-variety procrastination about getting back in the pool. But what had me finally take the plunge when I have put off doing it for the better part of a month? I quite simply told myself that if the German government can muster the political will to tell their people it's time to dramatically reduce their meat consumption (see my previous post), I can get my toushy to the pool and swim a few kilometers.

Having broken the seal, I came home and cleaned the fridge, scraped the candle wax off the windowsills, made peanut butter cookies, organized my sock drawer, set up a miniature sprout garden in the kitchen (from a grow-your-own-sprouts starter pack I picked up a few weeks ago) and sent Michael an irritating series of 'can you remember to...' emails at the office. And all this before lunchtime.

Having settled down to eat cookies and write about my morning, I took a moment to reflect on the nature of procrastination, with a little help from Wikipedia:

Procrastination is a type of behavior which is characterized by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. For a behavior to be classified as procrastination, it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.

Wikipedia got that much right, but it doesn't take a stab at addressing why we procrastinate. What is behind this curious self-suffering that we enter into, especially when it relates to an activity which, once underway, we know we will find some enjoyment in?

Psychology Today, a website with the comforting subtitle of Here to Help, takes a stab at it:

Procrastination represents a profound problem of self-regulation...it is not a problem of time management or of planning...procrastinators actively look for distractions, particularly ones that don't take a lot of commitment on their part. Checking e-mail is almost perfect for this purpose. They distract themselves as a way of regulating their emotions, such as fear of failure.

Eek. While I wouldn't have described myself as a chronic procrastinator, I am a chronic email-checker. But this is a little more introspection than I was looking for over my tea and cookies, so I am going to enforce a modicum of self-regulation by closing my inbox and finishing the design of my training schedule, which will include regular swimming, for February.

This Just In

Talk about being ahead of the Zeitgeist!

Germany’s Federal Environmental Agency has issued a strong advisory for German people to lower their meat consumption, effectively asking the population to eat meat only on special occasions...more

I'd like to think that my bizarre behavior in German restaurants earlier this month had a small part to play in this.

The First Brick of the Season

Since my first day out on two wheels on that misty morning last week, I haven't been able to stay off my bike. The roads are still too icy to risk a slip-and-slide outing on my road bike, so my mountain bike and I have been exploring the trails that weave in and out of the empty cow fields, breaking through frozen puddles and occasionally getting stuck in the larger ones, each venture no longer than an hour. Besides this being the point when I begin to lose the feeling in my hands and feet, I want to make sure my legs are happy with the reintroduction of this neglected activity to reduce my risk of a too-much-too-soon injury showing up later in the training cycle. So far so good, and in fact, I snuck in an unplanned brick today. The sun was peeking though the clouds as I returned from a 45-minute ride, and I just wasn't ready to go indoors yet. So I parked my bike, counted all my fingers and toes to make sure they were still there, and pulled on my running shoes for an easy 20 minute out and back in the snowy vineyards. There was the usual dead-legged, are-my-legs-even-there sensation for the first 15 minutes, but all cylinders seemed to be firing for the last 5. Now all I need to do is add some swimming, and I have something that resembles an Ironman training program.

I do think about swimming, if that counts. I think about it every day, and then I think about how far away the indoor pool is, how overcrowded the lanes can be, how cold it will feel to come out with wet hair, and I think 'maybe tomorrow'. I was spoiled last summer: our tiny village of Chexbres has a 50m outdoor pool that's a 5 minute walk from my back door. I swam almost every day, clocking an average of 8 km a week at my training peak, and got a really good two-piece tan while doing it. My hair air-dried in the sun as I lay on my towel, reading my French grammar book ('je nage, tu nage, nous nageons...', 'I swim, you swim, we swim...'), eating fresh peaches and listening to the village children heckle each other to jump in at the shallow end ('si tu saute pas, je te pousserai, idiote!', 'if you don't jump I will push you, you idiot!). I learned a lot of useful phrases from those kids. Ah, the days of summer. Swimming in the winter just isn't the same; it calls for a herculean motivational effort that I haven't been able to muster this January, but I have big plans to get wet in February, really I do...

Speaking of heckling, I have been receiving a lot of off-line inquiries for recipes from a surprising number of closet vegans amongst my readership (you know who you are). I've been hesitant, mostly out of fear that I'll be mistaken for a Vegan Housekeeping columnist, but I suppose the odd recipe won't hurt. So, I will be posting the best vegan recipe that I discovered at the end of each month. I currently have two strong contenders in mind for January's recipe - one's a curry and one's a cookie - but they could both be toppled by the Spanish Vegetable Hotpot on tonight's menu (intriguingly called 'Buried Treasure'), which has a chardonnay from the winemaker next door waiting to be paired with it.

Is it any wonder that I am not losing weight as a vegan?

A Vegan's Grip Strength

It’s been a while since I sequestered myself away for a weekend to read scientific journals. The last time was over ten years ago, while writing my thesis (saying that makes me feel so old). My research began on Friday night, and lasted about ten minutes before I was sidetracked by some interesting anthropological evidence which suggests that Roman Gladiators trained and competed on a vegetarian, if not largely vegan, diet. This turned into a larger detour from my self-mandated task, as I cast my mind back to images of Russell Crowe’s not-so-wispy figure battling Bengal tigers and such in Gladiator and led me into a labyrinth of websites (doesn’t online research always go this way?) that depict some rather arresting images of what can happen when you lift weights and eat too many plants.

While scaring me just a little, this particular line of inquiry served to remind me how much I miss going to the gym. For the cost of a gym membership here in Switzerland, one could rent a small commercial space, buy a second-hand treadmill and some last-season dumbbells, and not have to share any of it with others. Prohibitive costs aside, the gyms here open after 8am, close early on Saturdays and are closed all day Sunday, which means they are open at precisely all the times that I do not wish to workout (which reminds me a bit of the Swiss grocery stores: closed at lunchtimes, closed in the evenings, and closed on Sundays, which is precisely all the times that I would like to grocery shop). All of this to say that I am not expecting to look like a the female counterpart to General Maximus anytime soon, but I do miss my morning workouts with the rest of the other Lululemon-clad sprites in my hometown of Vancouver.

I quit my research at this point, in order to go squeeze the milk from my puréed almond mixture for my cereal in the morning (there is something extremely satisfying about this process, and I’ve developed an addiction to the veritably sublime, frothy, creamy elixir that results from my efforts. Needless to say, the kitchen is beginning to look like a small-scale nut processing plant).

When I finally got down to the task at hand, I managed to round up all of the studies that evaluate how a vegan diet affects physical performance. This took me several hours, and turned up preciously…(drumroll)…one. Now I wasn’t expecting to find much, but I was expecting that there would be a slightly larger body of research than this; at least a couple of studies with an introduction to the effect of: “we took 50 vegans, put them on a treadmill with a carrot dangling in front of them, and increased the speed to 8.5 m/hour. Blood lactate levels, respiratory gas exchange values and RPE were measured at regular intervals to the point of voluntary exhaustion. The protocol was repeated with flesh-eating athletes…”

But no cigar. The one study I found is from 1970 (must have been a good year for the vegetable lobby). A group of researchers compared thigh-muscle width, pulmonary function measures, and cardiorespiratory response to submaximal cycle ergometry exercise in 14 vegan and 86 nonvegetarian women. Ventilation responses during rest or exercise did not differ between the groups, and thigh muscle width was similar. The authors concluded that the lack of animal protein did not impair the physiologic response to submaximal exercise. (Cotes JE, Dabbs JM, Hall AM, et al. Possible effect of a vegan diet upon lung function and the cardiorespiratory response to submaximal exercise in healthy women. J Physiol 1970;209:30P–2P.)

So a vegan diet was found to not impair performance at submaximal exercise performance. Big deal. As my previous post indicates, there are a substantial number of high-level athletes who are training and racing on vegan diets. With this amount of empirical data available, why is this not a focus of study using controlled experiments? Yes, it’s reasonable to assume that the vegetable lobby is a little lacking in funding and influence. But there have been a decent number of studies that have pitted vegetarian athletes against meat-eaters, so why not vegans?

For those interested, here’s a snippit of how vegetarians have measured up against meat-eaters in a sample of studies published in peer-revived scientific journals:

Fisher, Irving, "The Influence of Flesh Eating on Endurance," Yale Medical Journal

At Yale, Professor Irving Fisher designed a series of tests to compare the stamina and strength of meat-eaters against that of vegetarians. He selected men from three groups: meat-eating athletes, vegetarian athletes, and vegetarian sedentary subjects. Of the three groups compared, the flesh-eaters showed far less endurance than the vegetarians, even when the latter were leading a sedentary life.

Overall, the average score of the vegetarians was over double the average score of meat-eaters, even though half of the vegetarians were sedentary people, while all of the meat-eaters tested were athletes.

Ioteyko, J., et al, Enquete scientifique sur les vegetariens de Bruxelles, Henri Lamertin, Brussels

Dr. Ioteyko compared the endurance of vegetarians and meat-eaters from all walks of life in a variety of tests. The vegetarians averaged two to three times more stamina than the meat-eaters. Most interestingly, the vegetarians took only one-fifth the time to recover from exhaustion compared to their meat-eating rivals.

Astrand, Per-Olaf, Nutrition Today 3: no2, 9-11

In 1968, a Danish team of researchers tested a group of men on a variety of diets, using a stationary bicycle to measure their strength and endurance. The men were fed a mixed diet of meat and vegetables for a period of time, and then tested on the bicycle. The average time they could pedal before muscle failure was 114 minutes. These same men at a later date were fed a diet high in meat, milk and eggs for a similar period and then re-tested on the bicycles. On the high meat diet, their pedaling time before muscle failure dropped dramatically—to an average of only 57 minutes. Later, these same men were switched to a strictly vegetarian diet, composed of grains, vegetables and fruits, and then tested on the bicycles—they pedaled an average of 167 minutes.

Schouteden, A., Ann de Soc. Des Sciences Med. et Nat. de Bruxelles

Doctors in Belgium compared the number of times vegetarians and meat-eaters could systematically squeeze a grip-meter. The vegetarians won handily with an average of 69, whist the meat-eaters averaged only 38.

Bravo for the vegetarians. These are some impressive results, but as a three-week old vegan with a repressed desire for validation, I am feeling under-represented. The results of this final study are sending me back to the kitchen to see if I can't squeeze some bonus milk from my almonds.

The Dawn of A New Day, and Some Musings on Cows

Today represents a new beginning for many. While I strained the almond pulp out of my chilled raw almond solution before dawn (which produced a beautifully creamy, frothy milk for my coffee and cereal), the Obamas were arriving at their seventh inaugural ball in Washington. Talk about endurance capacity. Here in my time zone, as soon as the sky turned from black to grey revealing a misty but otherwise dry morning, I decided to have a new beginning of my own by pulling my mountain bike out of the storage locker for the first time in two months.

It was like I hadn't missed a day. My legs had more pep than I could beat out of them, in spite of picking the road that goes straight up and over the hill behind our village. It was beautifully still and silent in the farmlands on the other side, with shifting mists that hung over the fields, changing the landscape moment by moment. I caught glimpses of sunlight hitting Lake Geneva below, and as the mists began to rise as dawn became day, I caught a glimpse of a fresh blanket of snow on the French Alps where they rise straight out of the water on the far side of the lake.

When I ran and rode through these fields last summer, I always had company. These are grazing lands for cows in the warmer months of the year and I don't mind admitting that, over time, I developed a bit of an affinity for the cows. My initial encounters with them were a little hesitant; in spite of knowing that they are docile, I couldn't help feeling some trepidation as I approached one of the fenced fields and pushed through the turnstile for the first time. I was on foot this particular day, and once in the field, I kept my pace at a nonchalant jog, trying to maintain a bright and breezy composure while telling myself that the cows won't bat an eyelid at my presence. They did, in fact, do more than bat an eyelid. The herd not only registered my presence right away by collectively lifting their heads from grazing and staring my way, a moment later they erupted into a chorus of moos and to my horror, began to amble over my way. I froze in an instant, convinced that they were alerting one another to my position in the field and were coordinating an attack. Too far from the turnstile to turn back, I bolted to a patch of lightly forested high ground at the edge of the field, where I got myself on the other side of a tree for protection and readied myself to climb it if necessary.

The cows lost interest in me as quickly as they had taken it, and went back to grazing. I ate a cliff bar while surveying their behaviour from behind the tree, and still not convinced of my safe passage through the field, I retreated back through the turnstile and ran the long way around, turning a 3 hour run into a 3.5 hour run.

Michael later told me what common sense should have: that the Swiss government would not put public footpaths through fields with dangerous animals, and the herd had probably mistaken me for the farmer arriving with feed. After a few successful cow-field passages on subsequent runs, I came to realize that cows, especially young cows, are actually just very curious animals. They would come close enough to survey me, but were easily startled if I was moving with any sort of speed in their vicinity.

There were no cows in the fields today, which was a little disappointing since I was looking forward to feeling a particularly close bond with them now that I don't eat them (hey, when you work from home, sometimes you seek fellowship in ways you never thought you would). I can only assume they have been taken indoors for winter, or have now gone to the great cowshed in the sky. Either way, the fields felt a little lonely without them.

All these ramblings mean that I have not compiled the results of my inquiry into what studies have been done of vegan diets and athletic performance. In preparation for lunch, I have big plans to turn the byproduct of my almond milk, the almond pulp, into a batch of nut burger patties by combining them with flax seeds, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sea salt, then grilling them lightly on both sides (a recipe that I've modified from my most favourite cookbook, the Thrive Diet).

I will get around to reporting on some serious scientific data before the week is through, so help me God.

The Who's Who of Vegan Athletes

I decided to get crafty this morning by making my own almond milk. Almond milk is hard to find in Switzerland (quelle surprise), but I'm happy to make my own since it's simple to do.

My online recipe search took me on a red herring that I have not returned from when I came across a video clip of an ardent Carl Lewis in the kitchen, making roasted vegetable lasagna in what looks like some sort of taped home economics class from the late 90's.

It reminded me that I've been meaning to do a round-up of notable vegan athletes, so I've put the almond milk plans aside, done some research and checked and double checked the following list to ensure there are no sneaky cheese-eaters or whey-drinkers in it (the list of vegetarian athletes is much, much too long to include here).

So, here we have the round-up of the athletes of our time who are fueled by plants:

* Carl Lewis, Olympic Sprinter, Winner of 9 Gold Medals
* Dave Scott, 5 time Ironman World Champion
* Martina Navratilova, Former World #1 Womens Tennis Player
* Catherine Johnson, Elite Cyclist
* James Southwood, Savate Martial Artist
* Katie Coryell, Pro Surfer
* Kenneth Williams, Pro Bodybuilder
* Maria Vlasak, Elite Duathlete
* Molly Cameron, Pro Cyclist
* Scott Jurek, Ultramarathoner and 7 Time Winner of Western States 100 Miler
* Tim VanOrden, Mountain Runner
* Adam Myerson, Pro Cyclist
* Robert Cheeke, Bodybuilder
* Brendan Brazier, Pro Triathlete and winner of the Canadian 50K Ultramarathon Championships
* Jason Sager, Pro Mountain Biker
* Keith Holmes, Former World Champion Middleweight Boxer
* Sally Eastall, UK #2 Marathon Runner
* Lucy Stephens, Triathlete
* Pam Boteler, Canoeist
* Tonya Kay, Pro Dancer
* Christine Vardaros, Pro Cyclist
* Mac Danzig, Mixed Martial Arts Fighter
* Schulyer Love, Boxer
* Tim VanOrden, Mountain Runner
* Paul Chetirkin, Adventure Racer
* Ruth Heidrich, Six Time Ironman Finisher and Holder of the World Age-group (60-64) Fitness Record at the Cooper Clinic

For the athletes that I have done some further reading on from this list, all of them had their best performances after becoming vegan; most notably, Lewis won all nine gold medals after he made the switch.

So, is this good evidence that vegan diets are better for athletic performance? No, it isn't. That would be an example of poor logic. What this list shows is that a diet that includes animal products is not necessary for top physical performance (and for the less actively-inclined amongst us, I see no reason why this relationship could not be regressed to the conclusion that eating animal products is not necessary for general good health in the non-athlete; if I have overlooked something in my reasoning here, I welcome comments).

The challenge that this represents to conventional dietary thinking is, I think, enough to chew on for now. Once I have figured out how to make my almond milk, I might spend some time looking for studies that have tested the grander hypothesis.