Vegan Two-Week Test: The Conclusion

Woo hoo! My Two-Week Test for the Born to Run 2 program is over! In case you've missed it, I've been on a super-duper low-carb diet for the past two weeks (well, almost ... but we'll get to that in a second) as part of the Run Free program from Christopher McDougall's new-ish Born to Run 2 training guide. It's basically a follow-up to his best-selling Born to Run book, and it helps you transition to more a more minimalist style of running with a focus on foot strike and cadence. 

But for the food part, you follow Phil Maffetone's Two-Week Test and eliminate most carbs for 14 days. And then you slowly add them back in to see how you feel on different kinds of carbs. As a longtime vegan runner, I've always felt great on carbs, but I was still curious to see what I would learn — if anything — from this. You can see my last few posts for some ideas of what I ate, and here are a few things I had over the past couple days. 

I made these awesome Raw Beet Burgers in the dehydrator last week. I loosely followed this recipe but added some walnuts. I grated beets, zucchini, and carrots, added about four tablespoons of ground flax mixed with a little water (to make a paste), a handful of walnuts, a handful of pepitas, a handful of sundried tomatoes and some spices. And then I pureed it all in the food processor and made patties that I dehydrated for about 12ish hours. I had roasted broccoli with cashew cheese on the side and drizzled on cashew cheese on my burger, too.

Yesterday, I attempted to make Coconut Flour Pancakes, but well, I made scrambled pancakes. Haha. Turns out pancakes don't flip well without some gluten. They still tasted good though, so I drizzled these with tahini.

Now, about that "almost two weeks" part. The test was supposed to end Sunday evening. But I got invited to a Memphis Hash House Harriers run on Saturday, and if you know anything about hashing, it's basically a running and drinking party. Run a bit, drink cheap beer, run some more, drink more cheap beer. And another big tenant of the Born to Run 2 program is fun! And I figured fun was most important. So I ended my test on Saturday, and my first carbs were from Busch Light. HAHAHA. Not the tastiest or classiest, but the run was a blast.

This week, I'm slowly adding one type of carb each day. I started with beans on Sunday, and I'll post about that tomorrow. But by week's end, all of my carbs will be back. Yay! Here are a few things I learned on two weeks of essentially vegan keto:

1) I felt like trash the whole time. My energy was super-low during the Two-Week Test, and I felt sluggish during my runs. My normal easy pace felt hard most of the time. 

2) It's far too easy to lose weight on this plan. Now, some people may want that, so it might not be a bad thing. But I lost six pounds I didn't want to lose. That said, I'm not too worried because I'm sure those pounds will bounce right back on carbs this week.

3) It's really hard to get enough protein on the Two-Week Test if you're vegan. I relied solely on Complement protein powder, nuts, seeds, and the occasional Not/Beyond Burger. If I were to do this again (I wouldn't), I'd probably make some exceptions and allow tofu and some low-glycemic beans, like chickpeas. Protein shakes get old fast.

4) The Two-Week Test is a very high-fat diet. And I found that on days that I had a very large amount of fat, like say, two avocados and 1/2 cup of nuts in one day, I would get a stomachache. My body is fine on moderate fat, but too much fat doesn't sit well with me.

So yea, I didn't have a good experience on the Two-Week Test. But carbs are back now, so I'm feeling better already. I'll check back in with how each carb re-entry goes this week.