A Day in the Life of a Former Vegan

Sarah McMahon
5 min readJan 10, 2021

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

This will only be interesting to you if you care about food and/or enjoy thinking about food. But I used to be vegan and now I’m not and I’m tired of explaining myself, so here we are.

I gave up veganism last January, but I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell anyone because I was embarrassed and ashamed that I couldn’t make veganism work for me. Veganism isn’t just a diet, it’s a “lifestyle,” as you’ll hear many vegans say. Luckily, I wasn’t too deep in the vegan community or culture so I didn’t suffer the backlash that some former vegans, like Alyse Parker or Yovana Mendoza have. Turns out, there are benefits to relative anonymity.

I stopped being vegan because my body was craving meat. It’s that simple. It started with cravings for salmon, which was the first animal-based item I started eating. Soon I was incorporating eggs, then chicken, and an occasional cut of beef. I run between 40–60 miles a week, lift weights twice, and compete in ultra marathons. After a grueling 100k in February, my body was craving chicken. Chicken was all I could think about, so I bought one, roasted it, and ate it all within a few days post-race. My dietitian told me my body needed protein to rebuild because blah blah blah, science. I just know my body needed meat, stat.

I’ve also struggled for years maintaining adequate iron levels and it’s no secret that plant-based iron sources aren’t as easily absorbed as animal-based ones. Iron is a major…

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