Vegan Reset: The 28-Day Plan to Kickstart Your Healthy Lifestyle

by Kim-Julie Hansen

A 28-day plan for new vegans or anyone looking to get their diet back on track, from the wildly popular creator of Brussels Vegan and Best of Vegan
 
No matter what diet you practice, a reset is a way to jump-start or refocus healthy habits and get your body to a state of optimum health. Here, blogger and Instagrammer Kim-Julie Hansen of Best of Vegan and Brussels Vegan offers a practical and easy-to-follow program, laid out day by day with meal plans, prep, shopping lists, recipes, and personal tips and inspiration. If you want to become a vegan and don’t know where to start, this is the ultimate guide. But it’s also invaluable for anyone (vegan or not) looking to kick-start healthier habits, whether to lose weight, become fitter, or simply cultivate a more balanced lifestyle. Kim-Julie introduces you to the benefits of a reset; guides you through the 28-day meal plan; and finishes with additional recipes to carry you beyond the reset—all brought to life with her gorgeous photography throughout. With its emphasis on satisfying plant-based foods and its achievable 28-day plan, this program is a great way to meet your goals of health and well-being.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Cooking, Vegan, Health

304 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 2018

About the author

Kim-Julie Hansen is the face behind the vegan brands Best of Vegan, Vegan Reset and Vegan Challenge (also called 7-Day Vegan Challenge), as well as the blog kimjuliehansen.com. She became an ethical vegan in 2011 and soon also discovered the many health benefits of a plant-based diet. In 2013, she started sharing her passion online to show people how easy it can be to adopt a vegan lifestyle, no matter how challenging it may seem at first. She is the author of the book Vegan Reset: The 28-Day Plan to Kickstart Your Healthy lifestyle, and is now a full-time online entrepreneur and blogger.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are not vegan already I think this diet will be extremely difficult to follow. (We have been vegan for more than 3 years and frequently make food using WFPB books like how not to die and china study.) The layout and design with great pictures is all easy to follow but the diet itself is very rough. It is mostly all whole foods plant based which is great but a huge transition if you are used to eating a diet of mixed food as it has basically no added sugar or carbs. A lot of the recipes are bland and not very exciting. I also felt the measurements were hard to gauge. The book does not give any directions as to how many people the recipes feed. We came to the conclusion it was for a single person and then we doubled the shopping list. Week 1 cost us almost $200 for 2 people which is steep considering we already had most of the pantry ingredients. IDK in what world 2 oranges and a 1/4 of a watermelon makes a good breakfast but not in mine. I was starving almost the entire time during this diet which is fine because its an adjustment to your diet but it didn't even make sense to have a breakfast of entirely only fruit. 1/4 of a water melon is an example of the awesome measurements described in this book. I know the shopping list described a "small watermelon" but I think measurements would be helpful because my small watermelon and yours is not the same. You are told to prep your recipe and that it makes 2 servings with no other description of what a serving is IE a cup of veggies or 1/4 cup of tomatoes etc. The veggie mixes ended up being way more than needed because of the vague measurements. By Day 3 we had already decided there was no way we would go past week 1 and we only stuck with it because we had spent so much money on it. I am not saying this book is bad but I have to wonder if they gave this book to anybody to try out before publishing because it has a lot of problems where I really think it could have been great. Sidenote: All the smoothies were really good even the one with zucchini and kale which I was expecting to be gross because I am not a kale fan.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I notice there are quite a few high ratings for this book; but has anyone actually tried the recipes? I was so thrilled to purchase this book as I loved the layout and meal plans. The photography is stunning and mouth watering.

I prepared the meals in page order for the first 12 days. The preparation was easy, and items were available at my local grocery store. Even though each day's plan is for around 2000 calories (which I thought was a lot if a person wished to lose weight); I found that I ended up not eating the full amount prepared and naturally cut back on how much I ate, while still feeling full and satisfied. This surprised me, and I actually lost several pounds!

The only part of the recipes that I had a tough time with (maybe it is just me) is that they were so bland! Very few spices, herbs, vinaigrettes, or even salt and pepper used. In desperation I used fresh lemon to add some sort of flavor to the meals. I actually became turned off eating because all I was tasting was bland vegetables. I started adding my own creations to the meals including herbs, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, citrus, and packaged spice mixes. Perhaps the author likes her food bland and doesn't care for spice or flavor.

Once you finish the 28 day plan you will find all kinds of delicious looking recipes at the end of the book, which I definitely intend to try as they seem to be a little more spiced. This book is very helpful for anyone wishing to go Vegan who does not know where to start. Yes, you will lose weight as well!

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is awesome! There is no down your throat veganism. It was well thought out for those who don’t know where to start. Complete with grocery lists, food prep days, and then your daily recipes with pictures.

[Patrycja · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Vegan Reset: The 28-Day Plan to Kickstart Your Healthy Lifestyle” by Kim-Julie Hansen is absolutely amazing book!

It is not only recipe book, but meal-plan and compendium about vegan, eco-friendly, holistic life style as well. This book will help anyone to become vegan or stay vegan. So it is for everyone. I am a vegan for many years, but I still find many great ideas and tips here! Not to mention the recipes.

I absolutely love the whole idea of this book. It is designed beautifully. You can even find words of wisdom and citations on the pages. They are tips on meditation, self-reflection and even journaling.

The 28-day meal plan for each week, begins with a shopping list. It is very helpful and useful. This way we can plan ahead and even buy in bulk to save money. Daily menus include recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.

Recipes are easy to follow, colorful, healthy, delicious and they don’t take a lot of time to make. Especially if you prepare some ingredients ahead of a time and than you can use them for the next few days. F.ex. after cooking sweet potatoes, quinoa or rice, we can store it in the fridge for few days. It will make easier to prepare our next meal. I need to also call out, that most of the recipes are naturally gluten free, and if the recipe calls for bread or pasta or soy sauce-it is super easy to just use gluten free version instead.

After the 28-day meal plan, there are more tips and thoughtful insides into vegan life style. Author even share how to create own vegan, cruelty-free, beauty and skin care products.

The last part of the book contains even more recipes. You will find recipes how to make your own infused water, infused drinks, hot drinks, or coffee based drinks. There are also recipes for juices, smoothies, and even own plant based milks! You will also find recipes for vegan ice-cream, dressings, and all kind of baked goods.

The book is filled with many, beautiful photos of the dishes.

This is really incredible book

[Rosie Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am more of a recipe-googler than a cookbook-reader but I found this was a really helpful guide for beginning veganism (would also be suited to someone just dabbling in veganism). The vibrant photos paired with the shopping lists and breakdowns of what staples you should have in the cuppboard makes this recipe book a really ideal guide! Highly recommend for somone looking for some guidance or just great recipe ideas.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this, and will likely still get a lot of use out of it, but I find it hard to adapt if you have allergies (to be fair, the allergies that I’m working with are my husbands, which include mango, basically all legumes, and cashews—that makes a plug-and-play vegan plan hard to work with). I also wish the calorie goal for the day wasn’t 2,000–way too much for me, and I do feel that the creativity in flavors and spices could be stronger. The recipes for any of the grain bowls, soups, and smoothies look excellent though and I’ll certainly give them a try, just sadly not while being able to do the plan. :(

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it for the awesome healthy recipes!!

[Dawnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

sich a great book with super ready recipes and one if the best if you want to give plant based eating a try since there such a huge mixture of everything it has to offer in this book as well as offering the knowledge of plant based portion sizes.
wonderful book!
highly recommend!

[Sophy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the recipes in this book!

The combinations were surprisingly filling and tasty. What was especially useful was that all of ingredients were familiar to me AND AVAILABLE at Trader Joes. So I was especially pleased to find a book that finally brought together all my favorite staples and made it all very very palatable. Key to the dishes include the sauces, dressings etc, which make use of, you guessed it, ground flax seeds, cashews and nutritional yeast! I wouldn't be surprised to see tahini in the recipes for the upcoming weeks too. Wonderful too were the texture combinations. That's always a plus.

PS. Mini Disclaimer - I did in fact have to make the occasional ingredient substitution, change some ratios, reduce portion / serving sizes, added in some of my favorite ingredients (ginger!). But overall, this is still one of my favorite, approachable "healthy" cookbooks, ever :D

[Sarada · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to write a lot of cookbook reviews on Amazon, so I thought I’d start writing some here as well. This book is a great resource, but I wouldn’t use it exactly as written. I see it as a useful guide to use if you want to buy a few ingredients on the weekend and then use them throughout the week for lunches and dinners that you don’t have to think too hard about. However, you need to amp these up with your own preferences because many of them are virtually unflavored. I also heartily recommend doing your own thing for breakfast and snacks, because their suggestions are downright bizarre. Personally, I’m not a breakfast person. I was not using this book for weight loss but if I’m going to have a 500-calorie breakfast it’s not going to consist of a quarter of a watermelon and two oranges. I can’t imagine anyone being able to eat that much fruit in one sitting (how does that even add up to 500 calories though, how much watermelon can a person eat?), nor would I want a “half a pineapple” as a casual afternoon snack. Since I don’t eat bananas and don’t like peanut butter, basically I go my own way with breakfast and stick with some granola or a piece of avocado toast for breakfast and a normal human amount of fruit for a snack. In general I'd say skip the breakfasts and do your own thing. There might be one or two in the book that you want to adopt as regular things.

Okay, now about the recipes themselves. I honestly think it’s a brilliant book in terms of meal planning. I made some very thrifty purchases at Aldi—like a bag of sweet potatoes, so I have twice as many as I need, allowing me to stretch the first few recipes. The first three days worth of recipes actually lasted me a good five days because I had those extra sweet potatoes, and the sauce they suggested for the “boats” is actually a really great smoky, cheesy sauce. The first four or five days worth of recipes can easily last you the first week if you have a couple extra vegetables to work with.

Looking ahead at the rest of the book, I’m excited about a lot of the recipes. However, aside from that cheesy sauce on Day One, they are incredibly bland as written. There’s a “power bowl” that is just basically a bowl of random unseasoned vegetables that have no real reason to be in a bowl together. The peanut tofu in it has flavor but nothing else does (and not everyone can eat peanuts). So I'd say: find a good dressing that works here, maybe a peanut or sesame dressing. Similarly, the chickpea tacos are just "chickpeas in a tortilla." Okay, no. We need to add some flavor. That's up to you, but maybe you have some smoky spices, some cumin and lime or maybe drizzle some avocado sauce. Spices don't detract from nutritional value so I can't imagine why they didn't suggest a few. Still, with just these things: sweet potatoes, chickpeas, corn, tomatoes, red cabbage and some other crunchy veg, you can get a lot of mileage and if you already have a good pantry of staples you can do this pretty cheaply.

I haven’t gone through the whole book yet, but I think it’s a great way to inspire yourself if you’re willing to customize and work with it. I would absolutely caution against following it exactly, though. But if you’re using it as a way to help you prepare lunches and dinners during the week by doing some meal prep on Sunday, this is a good approach. I’d say to definitely extend these a bit though so you don’t have to make a whole new set of prepped items on Wednesday night. You can get two months out of this 28 days if you extend each 3-4 day cycle to a full week, and definitely use any options you have for discount/bulk shopping. But please, don't make yourself sick on eating a watermelon first thing in the morning.

[Devin Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite cooking instructional. It reads like a guidebook for beginners to vegan lifestyle, which I am not, but I wanted to come at cooking in a new way. My hope in the new year was to do more meal prepping for the week and less intensive cooking daily. This book was perfect because it provides a lot of handholding. It includes detailed grocery shopping lists and takes you through 3 meals a day (plus snacks) of recipes for 28 days. That's a relatively short reset, but 28 x 3 is 84 recipes and I committed to them all.

A lot of basics including things like overnight oats and smoky ketchup. Complex recipes made easy through prep.

I also appreciate that Hansen does not spend the beginning of the book trying to win me as the reader over to veganism. She jumps in relatively quickly to the month long reset. I have moved on to other prep vegan books to help me transition to this change as a lifestyle. I will definitely circle back to the recipes of this book and there is a plethora of recipes of juices, smoothies, milks and dishes that I will be referencing for the rest of my life.

[Colleen Marie Zukowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was informative and not daunting, as some books on a vegan diet can be. I already don't eat meat so the things this book explains are easily doable for me, but I feel like everything is explained in such a way where even someone who eats meat could follow a vegan diet for 28 days. The author never comes off pretentious and doesn't preach that eating meat is wrong. She gives a few stats on the meat industry but there is no shaming involved. The recipes provided in the book sound really good and the shopping lists are super helpful. One of my favorite things was towards the back of the books where she gives alternatives for beauty and household products that you could make at home. The "diet" in this book is not strict as it gives many recipes and you can customize going vegan for 28 days in whatever way you want. And even if you don't want to do the 28 days in a row this book is still helpful in providing recipes and alternatives to help you go vegan occasionally.

[allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is great for beginner meal prep and it's easy to alter to your liking. other than food recipes, their are also alternatives to modern day cleaners and household products, from soap to skin care, all using natural ingredients that are most likely already in the kitchen. the portion on juicing and smoothies were incredibly informal on micronutrients and establishing the importance of incorporating vitamins into everyday diet. the author gave great perspectives on animal livelihood which is always awesome to see in a world of plant based books centered only on health benefits rather than the sentient beings whom we do it for. love this book.

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

The recipes are delicious and it made my transition to Veganism much more organized and easier than I had expected. It also helped me remove processed sugar from my diet, something I’ve been trying to do for years. More cookbooks should be designed this way. The author not only gives insights and journaling reflection prompts, but she also designed each section to include a shopping list and meal prep for the week. Another aspect that impressed me was the design of each week and how the recipes built off of one another to avoid wasted food. Such a well thought-out plan!

[nevrstopsmilin · Rating 4 out of 5]

while i’m not looking for a reset/detox for my way of eating there are still some recipes i want to try.

p46 raspberry peanut butter shake
p50 pink and orange layered smoothie
p52 rice noodles w veggies and peanut sauce
p62 kale lemon salad
p74 tropical creamsicle smoothie bowl
p106 coco mango froyo
p108 chocolate granola
p162 hot chocolate
p178 soul shine smoothie, coconut lemon cheesecake
p180 sweet peanut butter cup, chocolate mousse
p264 chili lime cauliflower bowl
p274 chocolate sauce

ps...the cover is beautiful 😍

[Angie Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found a few recipes to try but a lot of them depend heavily on nuts which I rarely use because A. I'm the only one who will eat them, B. They are expensive, even in small quantities, and C. My daughter is allergic so I try to be really mindful of cross contamination. I'm looking into a plant based diet for health purposes and, while the author touches on this as a driving force for some, I felt the vegan-for-ethical-reasons was a bit heavy handed in places.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that we are empty nesters trying to live more simply, this is right up our alley - vegan, prep ahead, for two people. What I like: the shopping list is not weird stuff but it is printable. The make aheads on day 0 and day 4 do not take up too much time. I borrowed this from the library but I am buying this which as good a review as any.

[Julie Palmer Teets · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use this as a loose guide to eating vegan in my life. If I don't have the exact ingredients in one of the recipes I substitute it with another. I love the layout of this book. The way it is formatted is helpful. The pictures are delightful. It's an overall beautiful book that inspires one to eat well.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very comprehensive whether one is new to veganism or long-term and looking to get out of a rut. I love that the 28-day plan utilizes meal prep. It's a time and cost saver, and the recipes are delicious.
This is the only vegan cookbook you'll ever need!

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recipes are overly simple and without much seasoning. But an interesting way to plan vegan meals

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely photographs. Summary of ethical reasons for veganism. Nice 28-day plan for resetting intentions or trying veganism.

[Ryan Juno · Rating 5 out of 5]

so beautifully laid out

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple plan with meals 15 minutes or less to prepare. No crazy ingredients. Simple, healthy meals. This is a great meal plan for a beginner into eating plant based or vegan.

[Maura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that this book has grocery lists and day by day what you are to eat for the 28 days. Would love to put it in my books I keep at home.

[Cari Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good recipes!

[AnnieM · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was so good i bought my own before I returned the library copy. Tomorrow I start the plan.

[Shana Market · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't follow the rest (I could never go completely vegan and I would be hungry if I followed this diet), but I love the recipes. They are so healthy, beautiful, clean, and full of fresh flavor.

[Samantha Thomason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought! Love the format - simple and easy to follow to prep weekly menu.

[Thomas Zegray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll keep this book on my journey forward, no matter how long it takes.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not a fan of grocery shopping and the lists are enormous. The recipes were not clear and hard to follow.