Why

I've been an addict to the rotisserie chickens you can get at grocery stores around dinnertime for a long time. I'm big on eggs and an absolute Greek yogurt addict as well. Recently I've taken a loving to making my own butter. And let's not get started on the virtues of bacon. Not to mention that I have a cake business on the side and worship all things baking more than any other cooking category.

So what am I doing planning to go not just vegetarian, but flat-out vegan, for 31 days?

While I was in high school my parents decided to send me to the United States for 2 summers. The plan was for me to get used to life in the States as a way to "prep" me for coming here for college. The first of those summers was after my high school sophomore year. I attended Choate Rosemary Hall prep school in Wallingford, Connecticut. Another classmate and very close friend at the time also went with me.  However, prior to us leaving for the summer, there was the matter of some training her mother was to give me regarding my classmate.  It was my first introduction and first-hand experience with the "D" word: Diabetes.

My friend had juvenile diabetes and would require daily insulin shots. Since you shouldn't repeatedly inject at the same spot to avoid soreness, she would need to do so all over, some areas not being within reach to her. That's where normally her mother would come in to help, so I was to take the place of her mom when it came time for my friend to need those out-of-reach insulin shots. Her mother trained me on how to properly pinch the skin, how to insert the needle quickly and perfectly perpendicular to the skin (not at an angle), and how to properly hold the syringe while pushing the plunger. I learned how to give insulin shots to my friend.

Off we went to have a grand old time at Choate. What an experience that was! And on the days when she wanted to inject on the back of an arm, or a butt cheek, I loyally helped. I felt so important, and so wonderful in being able to help her in this way.

My friend was never one to follow a strict diabetic's diet. I distinctly remember her love affair with Cheetos. I also distinctly remember her "class clown" personality. She was the type that was friends with every single person in the class. She was extremely funny and witty in her Venezuelan accent, and such a lover of life. I always thought about how could you make someone with her "joie de vivre" have to follow such strictness in terms of diet. She was a free spirit, not one to take well to strictness about anything. That would be like caging a peacock.

It was with much devastation that I learned during my early graduate school years that my friend went into a diabetic coma and didn't make it. We were in our mid-20s at the time.

I never met my grandfather on my dad's side. He died of a heart attack before I was born while he was in his 50's, I believe. He was a diabetic.  On my dad's side, 2 out of 2 of his sisters are diabetic - one died of a heart attack. Of his 3 brothers, 2 are diabetic - one died of a heart attack. And my father is diabetic and had a triple bypass 13 years ago.

Dad's main battle with diabetes has been neuropathy. He can walk only very short distances before he has to stop; the pain becomes too much to bear. He has also had issues with swollen legs and vision.

I have been a "clone" of my dad ever since I can remember. I look a lot like him and I think a lot like him. I have a very similar assertive character, the type that drives us both to love to fight and stand up for what is right. We're both very sentimental, very serious about our work and love education. However, there is one thing I sincerely do NOT wish to share with my dad: diabetes. Although I don't live at home, I've followed in the struggle with which this disease has burdened him. Countless of times I have heard him warn me about it, tell me to watch my weight, to watch what I eat so I don't get it. "You have to take care of yourself" is something he has advised me time and time again. 

This past Spring I was symptomatic for gallstones so my doctor sent me for bloodwork along with imaging. Several days after these tests, I received a phone call at work from my doctor's nurse. I was told that my A1C was too high, and that according to my doctor I was "pre-diabetic". The nurse said my doctor was advising serious diet and exercise because if I continued my lifestyle as it was, I would become diabetic and would have to go on medication. All I could do was hear my dad's repeated advise to take care of myself so I didn't get diabetes.  All I could envision was that last time my parents visited me, and how dad was in so much pain we couldn't go anywhere. All I could think of was how all along I have been hoping and hoping that I never get this dreadful disease. And here I was, being told I was "pre-diabetic". After I hung up I went straight to the bathroom at work... to cry.

Being told I was "pre-diabetic" has been a serious turning point for me. The reddest of red flags, the strongest of warnings, the loudest of wake up calls. I've been filled with a determination to ward off this disease for as long as I possibly can. For as long as I can influence this, for as long as I can control it, I refuse to be diabetic. I will not be one of those people that goes "As long as I take my pills, I'll be OK". I don't want lab chemicals. I don't want medication. I want to avoid diabetes and push it away for as long as possible.

I've been working on lifestyle modification already. Nothing fried, very minimum to no candies, greatly reducing products made primarily with refined, processed flours and/or sugar. Low carbohydrate, low fat, high protein, and exercise.  I even got a Breville juicer, with which I've fallen madly in love. Meanwhile, I had to have my gallbladder removed to correct the gallstones problem. But lifestyle-wise, I feel I need to be doing more.

Recently, on the same day that a friend told on Facebook about how great she felt after her first month as a vegan, I was watching Oprah's "OWN" network late at night, and they reran an old episode about going vegan. They put several people and their families on a 1-week vegan challenge. They video-documented their trials and tribulations with the change from eating meats and junk foods to switching to fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and meat substitutes. But these people also talked about how much weight they lost and how much better they felt.

Being one to take things like this as "signals" and not ignore them, the fact that I have a friend exulting the virtues of having gone vegan then on that same day watching that Oprah show on going vegan got me in a "what if" mode. At first it seemed like an overwhelming thing to do - so much homework, so much research to make sure I get complete, balanced nutrition, plus figuring out which stores to go to to get what. Then there's saying goodbye to Greek yogurt with clover honey, cereal with skim milk, mozarella cheese on my homemade pizzas, hard-boiled eggs in my salads, grilled chicken, baked goods with butter, milk, cream, eggs... But at the same time it sure sounds like a novel, healthful, beneficial challenge to undertake. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

I have to say that my vegan challenge is going to be strictly of a dietary nature. At least at this point I am not planning to extend that to the vegan lifestyle exhorted in multiple vegan books and websites where you don't ever buy any leather products or never use personal hygiene items tested on animals, for example. I especially want NO association whatsoever with PETA. In my opinion PETA is the "Al Qaeda" of the animal lover's world and never have, nor will I ever endorse what I consider to be their intimidating tactics, extremist mindset and destructive behavior. 

So here I am, T minus 50 days until January 1, 2012, the date that I have set as the start of my 31-day vegan challenge.  Will I get sick of it? Will I be so hooked that I'll want to continue beyond 31 days? And what to use as endpoints to measure "progress"? I cannot wait to get started.