Love lost

It's now been 2 1/2 weeks since I started this vegan diet experiment and it is going great. I've lost 5 pounds and am now wearing a green skirt that I've been wanting to wear since March.
Should no longer call it an experiment because it is something I think I can stick with. My energy is good, my workouts at the gym haven't suffered at all. In fact, I had 100 pounds on the leg press on Monday.

The main reason I think I can stick with this new way of eating: my taste for dairy has diminished. I was at a lunch meeting yesterday on campus and had the veggie wrap from a campus cafeteria where I often grab lunch. Their veggie wraps are usually always hummus and occasionally have a balsamic vinegar/oil dressing in place of hummus. I took a bite and could immediately tell it had a heavier "off" flavor and sure enough looked at the label (in about 5 pt. type that one over 50 certainly has a difficult time with) and it had a cream cheese/pesto spread. And it didn't taste at all good. This is good news as I thought dairy would be the hardest food item to give up--my love for cream cheese and butter was evident in nearly every birthday cake I've baked for the past 20 years. But like bad boyfriends (not that I've had any experience in this category for 28 years) they can be replaced.

Luckily vegan food is fairly easy to find in Austin, especially around campus but for venturing out in the world, I've decided it is always good to take a Lara bar with me. These are great--the apple pie flavor is very good. They also have cherry pie flavor, cashew, peanutbutter cookie, and chocolate. The only downside is they are high in fat due to all the nuts used to make them. Since they have no flour, ground nuts are what binds the fruit and other ingredients. But the nuts also make the bars fairly high in protein. Another "find" which I just found yesterday is Simply Delicious soy ice cream. Again, relatively high in fat and calories--lower in fat and calories than Blue Bell or HagenDaas however and 0 cholesterol. I picked up the Chocolate Almond Brownie and it was GREAT--so good that throughout the course of the evening, I ate the entire pint. I'm surprised that green skirt fit this morning! Won't be buying that again for a while.