Testing out the Pareto Diet: 30 day Vegan Challenge Results

The Pareto diet is a nutrition centric rather than food centric approach to healthy eating that I have been promoting as part of the Pareto series. It emphasizes the importance of total caloric intake, macronutrient composition, and adequate micronutrients over all other factors.

I took a Vegan challenge in November, where in I changed from an omnivore, primarily animal based diet to an entirely plant based vegan diet for 30 days. The results are in line with my expectations based on the pareto diet systems that I have outlined on this site.

Part of my motivation is to move away from a source centric view of nutrition (like most diets) to a nutrient centric view (pareto-diet)

Aside from changing the source of nutrients, I strove to keep the ofter factors fairy consistent.

Macro Nutrients Composition vs Dietary Source

As you can see below, the dietary sources of my food before and after the challenge are vastly different, however I kept the macronutirent composition of the food relatively that consistent throughout the challenge,

Before and After

Overall Results

Overall I think the pareto-diet philosophy of focusing on total calories and macro-nutirents over dietary sources of food has been vindicated. I was able to make significant progress at the gym even in the complete absence of animal protein in my diet.