Becoming a Vegetarian

I decided to become a vegan in the beginning of January after reading many books about the topic. The abuse of animals and the thought of how much crap goes into our meat made me feel sick just by looking at it, yet alone eating it. The health benefits that came along with this also perked my interest. Working full time and going to school full time does now allow me to have the perfect exercise program that I would love, and so going vegan allowed me to control my body and weight more through what I ate than by how much I exercised on a daily basis. Going vegan was not a hard thing to do, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved learning new recipes and having a goal to work towards. However, going vegan does not give you much choices for "on-the-go" food (which is crucial for me on my schedule, and apples get old after a while), and my body was exhausted and had no energy.

A couple months of being a vegan was great, but not worth the headaches and exhaustion I was getting from it. I'm not the type of person who takes naps everyday, but this diet required me to. It took everything out of me.

I didn't want to go back to eating how I previously was, and still have no appetite for meat. I decided to incorporate cheese back into my diet to see if it made a difference, which it did. This made me incredibly happy knowing that I could eat cheese on my Pizza now! :) After a couple weeks of having cheese (and other simple dairy products) I started to feel more like me again, and a much more healthy me at that. Not only that, but I had a MUCH bigger variety of foods I could eat too. You would be surprised on how much that opens things up.

So, here I am today. A Vegetarian. A happy one too! I'm amazed at how easy it is (besides when going out to a restaurant or out of town) and how much of a difference it makes on your body by just cutting out meat. I have grown and opened up so much as a cook as well, and have had to get quite creative through this all. I never realized how many unique fruits and veggies are out there, and how good they are. You really learn to appreciate the real food without having so much sugar and preservatives. Its great!

Ill be posting some recipes I love at some point. And don't worry, I don't make or eat anything that has the word "fake" in it. Like fake meat, fake hot dogs, fake cheese, so don't worry about that. "Fake" anything grosses me out. Also, my husband totally approves of all of this too! He loves it for the most part and follows me with this whole diet at well. I feel sorry for him sometimes because I know how much he misses meat. But, he also knows how important this is to me and I appreciate his support with all of this. He is an amazing guy!

Well, its my day off, which only means one thing. I get to cook ALL DAY! Woo Hoo! I have already made a batch of homemade hummus and pita bread, and am then on to make some vegan banana bread (my hubby's favorite)!