How am I doing as a vegan?

It has been over 1 year and 4 months since I became a vegan. I noticed myself I don't get sick/cold easily any more and all the breakouts used appeared on my jaw line and my back are never coming back. When I skip exercise, I don't gain weight easily though, when I visited Japan last Summer I lost 5lb! I guess because we walked everywhere we went. (I refused to drive in my country because I wasn't confident enough to drive tiny streets!) I ate and ate and ate all Japanese vegan goodies, still I could loose some weight! What does that tells me? I don't have enough physical excise my ordinal days being here. I've got another Groupon deal for a nearby yoga studio, hope it keeps me motivated and I decided purposely park my car far at campus like 13 mins away from my class room so hope it gives me at least minimum exercise I need. Wish me luck!

To be honest, I do feel fatigue once in a while, but it did not started just because I converted be a vegan. I experienced same symptom before and it turned out to be not having enough iron back then. I looked up how to intake iron efficiently and found out that having tannin contained beverages such as tea and coffee, right after a meal can cause iron deficiency. ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1168162 ) So I have been paying attention WHEN to have my coffee or tea, and trying to have a little more steel cut oats or some nuts and green veggies and adding molasses to my diet hopefully works for me.

I found interesting article Is a vegan diet healthy? on Jamie Oliver's Facebook page and I thought it is important to keep reminded myself to not forget to intake "calcium, vitamin D, iron, vitamin B12, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids." We found Flax Milk from Good Karma Company has pretty good balance on Omega 3s and of course, good source of calcium, vitamin D and B12 as well.

Another ingredients I started enjoy being a vegan is "Chia Seeds" and "Nutritional Yeast"

Bob's Red Mill Large Flake Yeast, 8 oz

Bob's Red Mill Chia Seeds, 16-Ounce Bags (Pack of 4)

Sorry, can't get pictures of them shows up but this Chia Seeds is the best deal I've seen so far. $27.96 on 4 16oz bags, total of 64 oz! As of today, 25th, Sep 2014.

As for zinc... I haven't thought of this just yet but it was a good reminder to look it up! However, it turned out be 7 out of top 10 of Top Foods Highest in Zinc was plant based anyways.  They are wheat germs, spinach, pumpkin and squash seeds, nuts, cocoa and chocolate, beans, mushroom. I don't think I have to worry about zinc, but speaking of cocoa, I usually have dark cocoa such as Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Cocoa, 8-Ounce Cans (Pack of 6) handy because it contains a lot more iron (10%) than normal cocoa(2%). As I looked up benefit of dark chocolate/cocoa and found many articles how dark chocolate/cocoa can benefit people like me! So I shall eat more dark chocolate without feeling too much of guilt!

Go Vegan!