I went meat-less last April. When I checked my cholesterol a couple years ago, the total number was about 230. I cut out cheese, egg yolks and all ice cream. ( love me some ice cream, yes I do
). After a little over a year, I went to my work's education center for some training ( I work for GE Healthcare ). There's a Wellness check nurse there so I had her run my numbers. It had dropped only 10 points. I'd expected a bit more of a drop. We discussed my diet and quite frankly, I was eating a lot of meat. Hmm, ok.
The ed center cafeteria is managed by Marriot. Folks from all over the world are there all the time and the food selections are very diverse and they'll prepare just about anything requested. Lots of vegetarian options and I was going to be there 2 weeks so I figured what the hell. I ate plenty and was never hungry. Two weeks later I'd lost 4 lbs and felt great. No food comas like Vash pointed out, felt lighter, more energy, blah, blah, blah.
Gave it some serious thought on the flight home and and decided to stick with it for a while.
I noticed almost immediately that I enjoyed eating cheese far more than I missed eating meat.
I do eat fish. Usually ditch egg yolks, depends on the dish. And rarely have ice cream.
I have some of the meatless items from the frozen section, i.e., meatless breakfast patties, veggie burgers, black bean veggie burgers, etc and it's going well.
I'm down 15 el bees, but weight loss was never my intention. I can run longer, faster. My workout recovery is better and sleep has improved.
Over Labor Day, I went to Hawaii with some veggie friends for the Kauai Marathon. There were 3 other friends there that were meat eaters and they had rib eyes after the race. They were teasing me and bragging about how good they were. Kept offering me some so I had a few bites. Full disclosure, rib eye is my favorite steak. I know it's fatty, but in a good way.
While it was delicious, I couldn't get past the fat coating my entire mouth. I said nothing to my buddies except "Yum, delicious, thank you!". But I knew then my meat eating days had changed. But for the better! While I'm certain this won't last forever, ( I'll get my numbers checked soon and report back ) I'll prob never go back to my old way of eating meat.
The most positive thing thus far, is my 15 year old son is open to the idea. He sees the benefits of eating less meat and more of some healthy options. He still has plenty of meat, but has cut back.
I'm digging it so far.