It's not that weird, but I stopped eating meat during lent a few years ago. I'm not religious, but here in Austria, many non-religious people abstain from something during lent (sweets, alcohol, cigarettes...), so I tried it for myself.
I actually didn't expect much to happen, but it completely changed my diet.
It was the first time I actually had to think about what to eat, and it turned out, that I ate a ton of meat, and not a lot of vegetables.
For the first few weeks it was pretty hard to find something to eat, but it got easier. Over time I discovered more vegetarian recipes I actually enjoy.
I'm not a vegetarian, but nowadays I hardly eat any meat, and still do the meatless lent every year. I lost about 15kg in the year after the first lent, and held this weight every since.
A colleague of mine decided to do an orthodox fast like his Romanian mother. In whatever how many weeks it was, he ended up losing 6kg and dropping his total cholesterol by something like 100 points.
the blue zone diets are all really interesting because it really makes the point that, while what you eat is important, there are huge variances. Like that Japanese blue zone that eats spam
I actually didn't expect much to happen, but it completely changed my diet. It was the first time I actually had to think about what to eat, and it turned out, that I ate a ton of meat, and not a lot of vegetables.
For the first few weeks it was pretty hard to find something to eat, but it got easier. Over time I discovered more vegetarian recipes I actually enjoy.
I'm not a vegetarian, but nowadays I hardly eat any meat, and still do the meatless lent every year. I lost about 15kg in the year after the first lent, and held this weight every since.