It’s Way Easier to be Vegan (and way more worth it) Than You Imagine

And it all comes down to transitioning to veganism in a way that works for you

It’s sometimes funny being a male who is vegan. My wife is not vegan, which works as she’s not a big meat, dairy, nor egg eater anyway, and when we go somewhere and get burgers (I get a vegan one and she does not), our server often brings her the vegan burger and brings me the big meaty burger as if she must be the one who’s vegan because she’s a woman and I must be meat eater because all men love the taste of meat and enjoy hunting and carnage (The hunting and carnage part may be an Idaho thing as being I don’t remember being given the meat dish often in New York). And I freaking love being a vegan. Out of all of the choices and decisions that I have made in my 36 years on the planet, hence probably upwards of a few million decisions and choices, choosing to be vegan seven years ago was and still is one of the best choices that I have ever made.

A lot of people ask me, “Why did you become vegan?” Some people are genuinely curious, some people are perplexed and others are thinking why the heck would you do that. Each person’s reaction is fine and none of them bother me in the slightest. I am vegan, I am f’ing thrilled about my choice, I will be vegan for life, and my goal is not to convince you to be vegan or tell you how bad you are for eating meat, dairy, or eggs (fish is meat by the way, I won’t expand on why in this blog post and if you ask me I will be glad to share why fish is meat). 

To answer the question of why I chose to be vegan, is quite easy for me. I chose to be vegan for my health. I have a really long explanation as to what lead me to make this choice and I will leave it at this — I don’t know about you and I’ve never heard of anyone getting cancer, having a heart attack, or having diabetes because they ate too many vegetables and I don’t ever expect to run into someone who has.

A lot of people think being vegan is hard and scary and trust me when I say that it is not. Prior to being vegan I ate meat, eggs, or dairy at least once a day if not twice a day. I experimented with being vegetarian when I was 24 and I did not succeed at all. Transitioning to veganism was easy for me and here is how I did it:

I created a plan that was designed to hav me reduce my meat, dairy, and egg consumption slowly and increase my potato, bean, leafy green, fruit and vegetable consumption slowly as well. 

I started off by eating meat, egg, or dairy products once a day for a week. That wasn’t too hard at all and then I scaled back so that I was eating one total serving from the meat, dairy, and egg group 5 days of the week. I stuck with this for about 3 to 4 weeks and once this became easy, I scaled back and consumed one total serving from the meat, dairy, and egg group 3 days of the week. I pretty much cut out dairy at this point and did this for another 4 or 5 weeks. I then scaled back and consumed one total serving from the meat, dairy, and egg group 2 days of the week. I did this for two weeks and once again it was easy. The next step in my plan was designed to have one day fo the week where I consumed either meat or eggs once and doing this two days a week was so easy that I skipped the once time a week part of the plan and completely gave up milk, dairy and eggs.

And here I am 7 years later. One thing that may have helped me is that I have never and will never deny (to myself or others) that things like bacon smell amazing, or ice cream tastes amazing and what I tell myself and others is that I choose not to eat these foods. A lot of people think that vegans suffer and being a vegan is pure suffering. I am here to tell you that it is not. I eat vegan fake meat substitutes once, maybe twice a week. I eat tofu maybe 6 times a year. I dislike seitan. I don’t eat fake eggs and I have plenty of great food to choose from. 

And if you do choose to be vegan, you will need to be prepared for the following things.

1. You will be cooking more
2. You will have to plan ahead
3. You will need to research places to eat in advance
4. Starch is your friend (I know that the is counterintuitive to almost every piece of dietary advice and starch is your friend when you’re vegan)
5. Fat is also your friend 
6. Protein is mostly overrated (Unless you are a highly level athlete or workout intensely four or more times per week)
7. People are going to ask you a lot of questions
8. You will need to buy and keep a jar of nutritional yeast in your refrigerator at all times (Nutritional yeast is the vegan B vitamin source and B vitamins are not something that you need to get every day)
9. You will definitely be gassy for the first few months 
10. Food tastes better when you’re vegan (This is so true)
11. You will need to pay better attention to your body as your body will tell you exactly what you need when you are vegan and you will want to listen to it
12. And most importantly — As long as you eat a balanced diet of leafy greens, beans, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, other fat sources (think avocados and coconuts), starches and steer clear of eating too many processed foods your health will reach extraordinary levels (I haven’t had a Primary Care Physician since 2010 and the last time that I got blood work done was 2014. In that visit the Doctor that I saw said that my blood work was the best that she had EVER SEEN in her 10+ year Medical career)

Being vegan takes some experimenting upfront and is difficult at times. The difficulty is worth it though when your health is skyrocketing, you feel great almost all of the time and you know that you are doing the right thing fr you mind and body.