Here I Am

Sorry for the delayed post all, I had a paper due on Monday night, a conference all day Monday, and precious little extra time (but enough time to go see The Hunger Games!). I didn't make it to my meeting this week, which I wasn't thrilled about, but I did weigh myself at home and I maintained this week. I wanted to get to the meeting for the sake of the meeting not for the weigh in though. I radically altered my diet last week and am "leaning into" becoming a vegan.

I'm not going to proselytize, it's a personal choice. I'd be thrilled if my friends and family decided to become vegan too, but I'm not going to be pushy and preachy about it. So how did I decide to become vegan? I read a book. I happened to be working from home one afternoon and Ellen had a guest on, Kathy Freston. Kathy is the author of Veganist. She discusses weight loss as a side-effect of a plant based diet, but that's not why I made the choice. I got behind her story, the information put forward by doctors, and the stories of others. She talks about how she became vegan. Kathy calls it "leaning", slowly eliminating those parts of your diet that are animal based (dairy, eggs, meat products) and substituting alternatives. She started by eliminating chicken, then red meat. I already steer clear of milk and eggs, and I'm not a huge meat eater, so eliminating those from my diet isn't hard. Cheese? hard. Very hard. But at the end of the day, I believe in the health benefits more than I love cheese, so I can let it go. Ice Cream. So so difficult, oh my stars. But again, you are what you eat and I don't love ice cream more than I love me, so it will have to be sorbets and tofutti cuties when I need that fix.