So, hubby and I just did our first full week of being semi-vegetarians (we’re still eating/going to eat) chicken, turkey, and fish, but incorporating a lot more plant-based foods.
How did it go?
Let’s break it down by the pros and cons:
Our grocery bill became much nicer! We were spending upwards to $200 a week on groceries (yeah, no lie). So, our first week’s bill shrunk all the way done to $140 and some change. A significant difference. I imagine next week’s bill will be even cheaper.

We have a lot more energy! When we’re replacing snacks and foods with healthier options, we’re not so dependent on sugars, animal proteins, and other unhealthy stuff to get our energy fix.
We’ve lost weight! Not much. Only a few pounds between the two of us, but hey, we’re a few pounds lighter than we were even a week ago!

Going to the bathroom is a lot easier. I’m sure some were wondering about the gastric portion of this. We do ‘go’ a lot more and that’s just because we’re consuming a whole bunch of water, but there’s no strain.
Of course, every pro has its con (sing it with me…every rose has its thorn…I’m ashamed I know that shit.)
Meal planning has been a challenge. I usually look for chicken or turkey options with a couple of red meat dishes thrown in. Once we took out the red meat from our diet and my husband decided he didn’t want to eat too much chicken or turkey (or any for that matter), it made meal planning a bit tricky. But thanks to yummly, allrecipes, and just plain ol’ Google, I’ve been rather successful!
I did find one amazing tofu-broccoli recipe. And this honey-soy salmon is always a hit in our home.
We both realized that going cold turkey (at least for him), probably wasn’t the best idea. I think our approach to a mostly plant-based diet would’ve been more inclusion of plants and gradual meat separation. The weekend was a challenge to find vegetarian options for Maks and also non-red meat options for me. Still, we didn’t succumb to the red meat. And Maks has held steadfast in not eating any poultry.
Bear has never been a big red meat eater and he doesn’t eat that much poultry. So yeah, our son was doing plant-based since birth. I wouldn’t call his diet vegetarian; he can tear up some salmon.

Even when I drink a ton of water, I’m still rather dehydrated. Which is a surprise. Now, in all fairness, it was pretty damn hot in L.A. these past few days as summer wound down. I don’t know if this is a direct correlation to eating mostly veggies and ‘going’ so much, but I can’t help but to think there might be a link. I will definitely need to increase my water intake for sure. I’m already logging in around 8 glasses a day so I need to up that to 10 glasses.
We both decided veganism is probably not for us. While we don’t consume that much dairy, I tend to use quite a few eggs in my recipes (baking). Maks really enjoys his hard-boiled soy eggs. Like I’ve mentioned in the last post, I’m not giving up my new car with the leather seats (review of that coming soon, I just need to drive it a bit more to test reliability).
Plus, we both love honey. So, this is not necessarily a con, but I’m hesitant to call it a pro.

So, that’s it for week one! For those curious, I don’t consume any chicken or turkey when I’m around Maks out of respect for him and I haven’t encouraged him to start eating any. Looking forward to what the next week will bring!
I also have more posts coming this week on natural products I just bought, starting with bath and hand soap! Very excited about reviewing those!