Day 6: Getting Easier

Today is day 6 of going vegetarian and it’s getting much easier as each day passes. I never realized just how much chicken and turkey I was eating until I cut it out. I feel awesome! I have been limiting dairy and so far have switched over my ranch dressing to vegan (Daiya) and almost my coffee creamer, I am using Silk Caramel Almond creamer but saw there was sugar in it… so I plan to pick up the pecan caramel almond creamer by Califia this week to try, which I saw was vegan.

Slowly transitioning has been very stress free for me so far. Last time I tried to go vegan I became very overwhelmed and panicked as I went vegan overnight and was not prepared at all to change. I literally ate rice for two days straight, I kid you not!

Cravings… I really don’t have any cravings for chicken/turkey at all right now. I have been off red meat and pork for several years now and those cravings have been gone for a long time, in fact both meats gross me out now. I have caught myself a few times thinking ahead into the future and started to worry about “what if I want this, I can’t have it anymore… or I’m going to miss this item…” but quickly stopped myself. Why borrow trouble and worry now when it’s not in front of me?

I keep telling myself that I’m not “giving stuff up” but instead I’m simply “changing things up”. Will I want sour cream or real cheese in the future, absolutely! Am I going to worry about how to deal with it right now? No, why stir up trouble right now.

This adventure has taught me two things so far:

• Live in the moment – don’t worry about what is to come or what passed
• Food is fuel – I am a food addict, this has been eye opening!

I’m excited to see what this week brings me and what things I learn! I started reading The 30-Day Vegan Challenge book last night and I love it! So much info and I love how it is written, will be picking up more books by this author in the future!

 

Let’s do this!

Today marks “day 5” of going vegetarian and I feel awesome! I didn’t plan to transition to vegan for a while but I decided to start switching over my dairy through this month, I will switch off dairy and then work on the next things to change. A friend of mine had a book sent to me from Amazon and it arrived today, she said it was her absolute favorite and I can see why! This book looks fantastic! I am about halfway through Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, which I’m loving.

The book she got me is The 30-Day Vegan Challenge by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and it’s packed with info!

Some of my meals today consisted of a big breakfast smoothie, a Cliff PB filled bar, tons of fruit, bagel, and so on. I’m royal stuffed, just finished up a handful of clementine’s too!

I ran by the store this morning and picked up a few things, including Daiya’s ranch dressing… it’s amazing! I’m a big ranch lover so this was a pleasant find, will make switching to vegan ranch easy! Also going to make seitan this weekend with my husband! I want to try it in smaller pieces with BBQ sauce over basmati rice (one of my favorite combo’s that I used to make with chicken).

Today went great though! I’m trying to pick vegan options more, especially with snacking. My afternoon snack was 100% vegan, I packed freeze dried strawberries and Boom Chicka Pop popcorn to munch on while I wait in the parent pickup lane at my daughters school. Lunch would have been vegan if I didn’t have a bagel and cream cheese, will have to check if these bagels are vegan or not… I think I remember looking them up and they were, but I could be wrong (Chompie’s brand). Dinner wasn’t vegan, but it also wasn’t good either lol! We made fettuccini alfredo and the sauce was just blah. I’m actually glad it was bad because now I have zero craving for alfredo sauce after that even though I rarely have it in general.

Here’s to day 6 tomorrow, getting closer to having a full week under my belt!

Hello, welcome to my blog!

Ahhhh, the first post on the blog! So much pressure on writing this post so I’ll make it short so I can get to blogging!

I’m Jess, a 30-something year old living in Arizona with my husband, daughter, and Golden Retriever, Maggie. We have a house with an awesome mini food forest growing in our backyard filled with fruit tree’s and container veggies.

I started this blog to document my adventures in going vegetarian while working my way to veganism! Right now, I am considered a lacto-vegetarian since I still eat dairy currently. I’ve never been into fish or seafood so that was an easy elimination… there was none to eliminate haha! I cut out red meat several years ago, then later cut out pork, and very recently cut out chicken/turkey (on day 4).

A while back I tried to go vegetarian but only made it to day 2, then gave it up since I became overwhelmed because I kept thinking I should just eat vegan instead of just vegetarian. I quickly learned that I need to go slow and not change things overnight, so I’m doing just that, slow and steady.

I’m not going to go on and on with this post, just wanted to do a quick “hello” and kick off the new blog!