Happy World Vegan Day!
I just learned, on social media as I learn most things these days haha, that today is world vegan day! woohoo! This makes my heart so happy as I have been vegan for a little over a year now & I was thinking about when would be a good time to write a blog post on the ever so classic questions of, “why are you vegan?” “when did you become vegan?” “what made you do it?” “where do you get your protein?” blah blah! So what better day to write this post than today!
I had been thinking about becoming vegan for quite some time because I had a few friends who had just transitioned and it was quite intriguing. I kept telling myself that there was NO WAY I could ever become vegan. I’m 100% Italian and my family has owned Pizzeria’s for as long as I can remember! So basically, my diet was cheese pizza and pasta with butter…the most UN VEGAN things EVER lol! However, it was nearing the end of summer 2016 and I was feeling absolutely terrible about myself. I was so unhappy with my job, that caused me to practically commute 4 hours out of my day, work 8 hours, & SOMETIMES make it to the gym. Those days that I didn’t go to the gym, I went straight to the drive thru and ordered ALL the food. All the unhealthy food for that matter. McDonald’s, Del Taco, Carl’s Jr. you name it, I was eating it. What is even crazier is the fact that fast food was never something I ate. I found myself in this unhappy downward spiral of just letting go for a few months and just not caring about myself. It was terrible.
Fast forward to the end of August 2016 in the airport awaiting my flight to Cancun with my family. A trip that I already wasn’t as excited for because I was unhappy in my skin. As I’m browsing through one of the airport stores awaiting my flight, I came across this book that was screaming at me to purchase it, this book was called, You are a Badass by Jen Sincero. Now, I talked about how this book changed my perspective on life and was the kicker to the start of my personal growth, you can read about that journey in my last blog post How I woke Up so for the sake of this post, I won’t get into to much detail all over again but that story ties hand in hand with how I changed my lifestyle to a vegan lifestyle.
Moving on, after reading that book from cover to cover in less than a week, I decided to start making little changes to my diet. Jen quotes in the book, “If you’re serious about changing your life, you’ll find a way. If you’re not, you’ll find an excuse.” & this resonated with me so much about the way I viewed my body and health. I kept trying to change it by going to the gym as much as possible during my crazy schedule, trying to eat right, but I clearly wasn’t doing it the right way. It was almost like I was doing those things to make the excuse that, “yeah, I go to the gym, I eat well, I’m healthy I don’t need to work on that to much and when I’m good I’ll reward myself with like 4 donuts”….no. not okay. My problem was that I kept telling myself this but I wasn’t changing up my workouts for any real progress, I literally was going on the elliptical and sometimes using the squat machine, & maybe 2 days out of the week I was ACTUALLY healthy. After reading that quote I realized I was just making excuses and I needed to find another way to get myself to be serious about the change I wanted in my life. Cue Veganism.
I started to do a little research on the topic and at first I was seeing a lot of health benefits and success stories from other people in this world who have transitioned to veganism. As I continued to learn about what animal protein and dairy does to your body, I was seeing this as more of a health concern and clearly didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. I knew it was going to be hard but I figured, what else do I have to loose? I decided to slowly cut out meat and try to integrate more vegetables in my diet. I honestly was never really a red meat eater (other than In N Out…that was my shiiiiiit! lol) so that wasn’t to difficult for me to do. However, I LOVE sushi and cheese…so I knew that was going to be the biggest challenge for me.
As I continued I started to feel really good. My skin was noticeably brighter, my energy was higher, my cravings were curbed, etc. I started to think to myself, if I can feel this great by just cutting out meat…I’m intrigued to see how I do going cold turkey & becoming vegan. So I decided to make that decision sit down and force myself to watch as many documentaries on the matter as I could. Here comes the infamous Netflix documentary, Cowspircy. This is what absolutely changed my perspective on the dairy and meat industry and what truly flicked that switch on in my brain that I needed to change.
I started this whole change in lifestyle mainly for my health in the beginning however, as I continued to sit through all of these different documentaries…the moral aspect of it all is what got to me the most. The more I learned about how these innocent animals are treated every single day was absolutely disgusting. I can’t even tell you how many times I balled my eyes out to raw footage of the slaughter houses…I’m in love with ALL animals, even before I became vegan so seeing this was so heartbreaking I don’t even have words to describe.
Not only did I start this journey more for my health…but this was quickly becoming a moral reason for me as well. After watching documentations like, Cowspiricy, Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead, Vegucated, Food Inc, & most recently, What the health.. it has truly changed my perspective on the way I eat, the way I view the world, how I spend my money, and what I focus my energy on. I decided to transition cold turkey. After about 2 months or so of doing my research and learning as much as I possibly could about the moral and in humane side of the meat and dairy industry I felt confident enough to call myself a full blown vegan. & it was truly the best decision I have ever made for myself.
If this is something that you have been thinking of doing but kept telling yourself there was NO WAY you would ever be vegan…I’m telling you right now there’s no way in this world that once you educate yourself on the truth of what is happening to these animals and what putting this type of food into your body does to you, you will change your mind real quick and wish you were never not vegan. This is coming from a girl who ate In n Out multiple times a WEEK and lived on cheese pizza….YOU CAN DO IT.
The amount of support there is in this internet world about becoming vegan and the amount of information that is just waiting for you to search for at your fingertips is amazing. The internet is this giant gift we have been blessed with where we can take absolutely anything in the world we want to know about and look it up and there will be facts, and books, and videos, and documentaries, YOU NAME IT for you to sink your teeth into. You just need to know what you’re looking for and be prepared to open your mind to what you are about to learn.
I had a lot of people in my family saying, “you’re vegan now? HA I give it a month”…look at me now…a little over a year and let me tell you, I’M NEVER GOING BACK. Don’t let others in your life discourage you from how you feel and the decisions you want to make for yourself. The world is waking up, veganism on the rise. Bigger than its EVER been. People are starting to see the harm in their bodies, their mind, and most importantly the poor innocent animals who have to suffer for our pure enjoyment…its sickening.
My advice to you, is to go with your heart. Do this at your own pace. Be the example and the exception to the rule from everybody else. A lot of people in this world tend to stereotype vegans as nasty people who will shun you if you eat a piece of bread with butter. For me, that’s just not the type of person I am. What has helped me the most, in which I hope this gives you the most advice, is to still live your normal life. If friends ask you to go out to eat, check up on the menu in advance of the places you guys are thinking of. Do the have options? no? do they have something you can alter to be vegan? maybe? Most places do! & that’s the beauty of it. I have no problem going anywhere with anyone (unless its McDonald’s cause there is literally NOTHING there for me) and I can find something I can eat. If I’m out eating with family and they order a burger, I don’t say anything. If the topic comes up, I announce my 2 cents in how I feel about the matter and I let it be. I have found that living normally and keeping to myself about my options and not getting in anyone else’s face about how they eat was the best for the people closer to me who were doubting me.
I found it easier to let them be and they let me be. Why would I come at anyone who simply orders a burger because they were raised to know its good for you and make them feel bad about what they’re eating. I would’t want anyone coming up to me shaming me for NOT ordering the burger. At the appropriate times when people become intrigued with my diet or my lifestyle is when I will interject with my way of life and throw in as much facts as I can in hopes that they may see where I come from, and I leave it at that.
You are your own person. Do what your heart feels is right. Don’t alter the way you feel like you should live your life, just to be appealing to others. Be proud that you are opening your mind to the idea of veganism and let that shine through! It’s not a weird thing to consider, its actually the more intelligent and compassionate way of thinking. & in this day and age, you can get absolutely ANYTHING made vegan! or there are recipes all over the internet for just about ANYTHING made vegan! It’s crazy. If any time is to do it, now is the time. Be apart of something bigger and make a change not only in your mind, body, and spirit, but for the world and those who cant speak for themselves and suffer most, the beautiful animals that innocently walk this earth with us.