If you got raised to eat dairy, eggs and meat, becoming a vegan for sure is a change. The shelves at grocery stores are packed with animal products, and the first few days it all might seem overwhelming and too much – or too little to choose from.
However just like everything scary new, those “problems” will settle and soon you feel like there’s nothing easier than living a vegan lifestyle 🙂
Ways of getting started
Some people claim veganism is way too extreme and it would be too hard to make the switch. But you know; you don’t have to adapt to a vegan diet overnight. If you’ve been used to a certain diet for your whole life, it can be difficult to just stop eating the way you used to – not everyone can fit this lifestyle into their daily life from one day to another.
But nobody hurries you; take your time and make small changes. Get some books, get information off the internet and try new recipes. Start fitting in vegan days or vegan meals and simply discover the huge amount of foods and meals a plant based diet offers. And one day it will be just normal and so easy to leave out all those animal products.
Some other people on the other hand just completely stop consuming anything animal related from basically one hour to another. For me it had been that way. I finally educated myself on why people would give up eating dairy and eggs (which I honestly never understood) and couldn’t believe I supported and contributed so much cruelty all along. I was so shocked and disgusted that past that afternoon I never ate any animal products again.
Yet this whole thing should never be something you feel like you are forced into. Never ever forget that life is supposed to be fun. Get your pals together and run an experiment: Try a plant based diet for let’s say a month just to see what it does and how it feels. I guarantee, you will notice a change 😉
If you have your friends supporting you on this, it is so much more fun. It makes it a lot easier to still go out if all of you eat the same new diet. You could have movie nights with self made vegan dinner feasts. I am sure this challenge will bond you all together and will be a fun thing to try!
In the end it doesn’t matter if you carefully dare the vegan diet or if you are in completely and utterly. Every step you take towards veganism is a good one, no matter how big!
Keep going
Once you’ve eventually decided to ditch all animal products it now is time to think about what’s next. Questions like “what will I be eating now”, “is this lifestyle healthy”, “where do I get recipes from”, “where can I buy vegan food” or a need for inspiration may arise.
I’ve put together a little list with places to seek help and information from in those situations:
Recipes
To find vegan recipes nowadays is no problem at all if you know where to find them. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with the huge variety of delicious recipes I have to draw lots to decide what I will be cooking 🙂
1) One great place to hit pay dirt is Pinterest. I’ve created a few boards with my favourite recipes which continually keep growing.
2) Before I started this lifestyle I didn’t know there were already so many vegan cooks and chefs who all together have published a ton of vegan baking and cook books.
Just to name a few:
Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life
The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-SavingWhole-Food, Plant-Based Diet
3) Of course there are also digital cook books set together, also known as eBooks 🙂 Last year I created my very first own recipe ebook – The Veganning. I put all of my heart and energy into it. It features 90+ delicious, easy, vegan and gluten free recipes. I set it up as a supportive “guide” that will be able to support and provide recipes for your first month on a vegan lifestyle.
Health info
If you are really curious about what a vegan diet does to your health, Forks Over Knives is a great movie which provides many reasons why a plant based lifestyle is much healthier.
Inspiration
I generally like to start off my days with some food inspiration. As soon as I see nicely set up plant based meals I can’t wait to get in the process of preparing food myself.
- Actually the first thing I do in the morning is to check my Instagram to look at other people’s nicely arranged vegan dishes. You can easily find such pictures by typing #vegan into the Instagram search bar.
- Another great source of food inspiration is YouTube. There are so called “what I eat in a day” videos in which the YouTubers show you – hard to guess but – what they ate that day. Some great vegan YouTubers are Bonny Rebecca, Ellen Fisher or Tess Begg.
Food
Now it’s all great if you’ve found recipes and are inspired but have no food. Well don’t worry.
- There are vegan options for literally everything in all grocery stores and supermarkets. You don’t even need to go anywhere fancy – just keep your eyes peeled on your next shopping trip and you will be able to return with plenty of bags brimmed with vegan food.
- However if you aren’t that much of a cooking person or are simply concerned you won’t be able to eat out with your friends anymore, let me tell you there is no need for worries. Vegan restaurants are everywhere! You can find places to eat out in your town with an app or website called happycow. And if for some mysterious reason there are none, almost all “normal” restaurants will prepare something without meat, dairy and eggs for you. It couldn’t be easier.
The main thing is to keep going. And if you feel like going back to your old diet, remember why you started originally. Take it as a challenge of personal growth and push yourself.
And if any questions about this lifestyle come up, please don’t hesitate to contact me; I’m happy to help.
I just want this to be very clear: I do not want to attack anybody personally with any of my blog posts. My intentions simply reside in educating and opening eyes to what really is going on. I wish I stumbled over stuff like this years ago and changed my diet earlier, so I’m simply trying to do my best in providing such for others.