12:17 PM

The Flexitarian Diet

So The Reluctant Vegetarian posted this week about The Flexitarian Diet. Given that I've been on this new eating system for just over four months now, I found it interesting.

The premise is that you become "mostly" vegetarian. Me? I'm "mostly" vegan - or as I regularly refer to it, "veganesque". I eat fish once or twice a week (though I think this volume is actually falling as I better and better learn the art of vegetarian cooking). I also don't go pure vegan in that I don't avoid products that have egg/dairy/etc. as minor ingredients in 'em.

Why not go full-force? First off, I'm just not super strict with myself, as I'm a pretty relaxed sort who's just trying to be better, not trying to be perfect. Secondly, I do a fair amount of client entertaining, which involves a lot of taking people for lunch and dinner. It's already next to impossible to find decent non-meaty meals in restaurants to begin with - particularly when you eliminate the cheese, creamy dressings, etc. I am simply not able to fully cut my need to eat out a few times a week given the job construct. I am okay with this. Overall, cutting out that stuff has been good for my health and has also reduced my footprint. It doesn't need to be exactly per some magical script. It's good and I'm happy about that.

So I'm not physically flexible, but indeed dietarily so! Har.

(In other news, I noted in that article that vegetarians are allegedly 15% lower on average in weight than non-veggies. How is it that I have yet to become 15% lighter care of my meatless/cheeseless agenda? Ridiculous!)

So how flexitarian are you?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm flexitarian, although recently I've become more vegetarian again. Basically: From age 13 to 24 I was full vegetarian, but at age 24 I added fish back into my diet. Then last year I started eating poultry on occasion. However, since moving to TO the husband and I have moved back towards being veggie. These days I eat veggie at home, and veggie most of the time when dining out. When travelling I do allow for a bit of fish or chicken if necessary - some places aren't super veggie friendly, or sometimes the local specialty is fish, so hey, I've got to try it!

My weight hasn't budged in years, even with going back to being veggie. I'd love to be 15% lighter, hah!

The husband went from eating anything except red meat to almost 100% veggie recently, and has lost a bit of weight. Damn men and their ability to lose easier. ;)

Foxy Renard said...

Oh, I know! I am sure that Dave has dropped pounds since I've been reducing our meat intake. Typical! Hah.

Paige said...

I have gone through food phases time and time again, and I definitely went through a strong flexitarian phase (first it was fish, then poultry came back too).

Now I've dropped all of that and am back to being a fairly strict vegetarian. Not vegan (yet), but no meat products at all for me (although I'm not as careful as I could be about things that are cooked in a chicken broth).