Breaking the Vegan Streak - A Piece of Cake

After 10 days of hanging out with @yangyanje and 10 days of veganism ( no meat, eggs, cheese, milk or other animal products ), I was forced to break the streak. This morning, when I was about to have my second coffee, my mom offered - or, in fact, handed - me a piece of homemade coconut cake.

She made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

It was just a tiny piece of cake, in Dutch it would be called a 'muizenhapje' ( a little bite for a mouse ), but the cake had been made by my mom with one egg and butter. In other words, tiny or not, it wasn't vegan.

Long story short, I felt like eating it and she had already offered it to me the night before, so it was just too much to resist. I don't feel bad about it but it felt like an interesting enough topic for blogging.

The above was written two days ago.

After that piece of cake, I went back to a vegan diet again. I think I'm doing okay so far. Although cheese tends to tempt me every now and then, I can't say that I really miss meat, fish, eggs or milk. Kind of miss karnemelk ( buttermilk ) and yoghurt though.

My last couple of posts have been focused on health and I don't think that's a coincidence, as I've been hanging out with a guy who has been vegan for about 8 years now and I have been prepping ( mentally ) for having him around. I even bought vegan shoes a couple of weeks ago, as can be read in: The Day I started donning vegan shoes

Make sure to checkout @yangyanje 's posts too. He tends to take a lot of pictures and he manages to catch me on camera pretty often as well as to make me look pretty often ;>)

At a point in time, @yangyanje shared the story of how he got there ( becoming a vegan ). He ended up in a situation, where somebody asked him to chop off a chicken's head. That person literally put the bird in one of his hands and an ax in the other one, while a group of chickens in the background was going crazy. He told me that and other stories about hunting and killing animals. I surely get it. I can hardly harm a fly ( as Norman Bates character at the end of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho would remark ), so a situation like that could easily turn me vegan too.

Let's say that I have been focused on health for quite some time now. And not because I need(ed) to lose weight, in fact I could probably use a couple more kilos. From October last year to June this year, I tried a so called circadian diet ( more info about that in this write up ) aka intermittent fasting. Long story short, I was only allowed to eat or drink anything besides water, in certain hours. I can't say it made me feel way healthier. It was a nice test though and I discovered that I definitely have a healthy dose of willpower and perseverance.

It's now ten months after I started on the circadian diet and probably two months after I stopped sticking to it. Now @yangyanje has triggered me to make some changes, again. After a week of sleeping late and drinking a little too much alcohol, while keeping to a vegan diet (recipes can be found on his blog ), he and I made a switch to not drinking alcohol. Although I must add that the bunch of alcohol free IPA's that we've had since then apparently contain ( less than 0.4 % of ) alcohol. The switch was made on full moon, as yangyanje told me that that's a powerful moment to make changes. And let's be honest, it sounds better than January the 1st. Why wait till one of the toughest days in the year to make a switch?

For now, I feel that I still need an alcohol free beer, every now and then, as I already drink loads of water during the day and I hardly ever drink soda ( too much sugar and loads of other crap in there ). I'm also drinking enough coffee throughout the day to order that in a bar or restaurant. I might want to cut down on that a little bit, but you can't be a Zen monk from one day on another, right?

Talking about alcohol free beer... I had a glass of Heineken 0.0, two nights ago in Amsterdam. It tasted terrible. To be honest, I have never been a fan of Heineken - the most known Dutch beer - but this alcohol free one was way worse. It almost made me vomit. It was the only alcohol free beer in that bar though. I guess I learnt my lesson, haha!

Just now, my parents joined me at the table, to have lunch, while @yangyanje is prepping a vegan cake to bring to my sister later this afternoon.

How do you like this cooking team?


Let's see where this health journey is gonna go to. I feel I'm doing well enough and it's worth exploring a little further. One thing I could sure work on/ improve, is my sleeping pattern. The irregular sleeping hours and late nights aren't helping me with my attempt to sleep on my back, another health related topic that I wrote on recently. Find more about that here: The Night I Started Sleeping on my Back.

I also feel that a little more meditation - @yangyanje and I missed out on a couple of guided group meditations lately due to traveling and having other things to do, other priorities ) - wouldn't be a bad idea either.

What about you? Have you been making changes to improve your health lately? How is it working out so far? Feel free to share your story in the comments**

The picture above this post was taken by me on the beach of Scheveningen, Den Haag.