Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I can now mark one of my New Year's Resolutions as complete. The first resolution was to go vegan for 6 weeks. Well today marks 7 weeks and I am still going. Although I need to put an asterisk because I would say there were about 4 occasions where I gave in and had a cake ball or a chocolate chip cookie. I have no regrets though.

At the beginning of January, I started a competition with my Mom and Sister to see who could drop 12% of their body weight faster. We all started this new vegan lifestyle and what's awesome is that we all dropped at relatively the same pace. This morning I just happened to hit my goal first. Within the competition I went from 185 to 160.8. When I started dropping weight, I was at my highest of 191 back in December. It should only take them one or two more weeks to hit their marks as well. It's so encouraging, I love seeing it.

One thing I've noticed the most about dropping weight is how low my blood pressure and heart rates are. My resting heart rate used to always be around 70, and now is consistently around 50. While running over the last couple weeks, I have recorded heart rates far lower than what I used to run at. For example on Monday, I ran a half marathon just under 2 hours while keeping my heart rate below 132. I feel like this is a change for the better and can give me the boost I need to get faster.

So the big question is, will I continue to be vegan now that I've hit my goal? Yes, but realistically? Not without some exceptions. For example today we have our baby shower and I am going to have a slice of cake and try whatever other goodies are there. But I think long term I can maintain a vegan diet 90% of the time. It's just those special times when I'll say 'who cares', and enjoy what I want to.

When I do something, it tends to be all or nothing. I am either gung-ho, or I don't do it at all. So hopefully I can do the 90% and not just say forget it all and go to 0%. Just the thought of running races feeling like there's nothing more I could have done to prepare, should be enough to keep me going. At least that's the hope.