11 Tips for Going Vegan
I recently went vegan...again. I've been vegan several times in my life, once for about 3 years. That was a long time ago, and now that I've made the transition again I wanted to document some of the key things that make the transition easy and painless. When I've read about the transitions made by others it can often sounds easy, like a person just went vegan after some big event in their life - a health scare or a realization about factory farming, or they just decided and that was it. That was how I went vegan originally, but this time it was different. It was just a desire to eat better, lose some weight and get in better shape, but the truth is that none of that made it easy like the first time I did it.
I hear people say, "Oh I could never do that it would be so hard." In reality this time it was easy, but it was about my 10th attempt to really make the transition so I've learned a few things about how to make it easy and how to fail in the transition. I wanted to share my tips in case they are useful for someone else trying to make the transition to a plant based diet.
1) Have a goal. Have some reason to do it. Like I mentioned before sometimes the reason comes suddenly and other times it has to be self-generated. If you haven't been struck with a sudden reason that has made your transition obvious and easy, you may need to come up with something. In my case I picked an ultramarathon that I want to run. It's a really compelling goal for me and I hadn't been making much progress. I linked going vegan with the achievement of the goal and it became much easier.
2) Attack all your addictions at once. For me I've been a strong 6 Coke-a-day guy for a long long time not to mention the bag of M&Ms that goes with each Coke. The running joke around my house is that it's easy for me to quit soda and caffeine because I do it multiple times every single day. Unfortunately I started again just as many times. This time I gave it all up together. Drinking soda for me leads me to vending machines or fast-food restaurants and all manner of unhealthy cuisine. Giving that up takes away the temptation to go to those places. I've found giving up all the unhealthy habits at one time is actually a lot easier than trying to do it one piece at a time.
3) Prepare for the transition. While I do say attack all the addictions at once when you really commit, it was very helpful to me to practice for a month before I went 100% vegan. This meant that I could eat whatever I wanted, but whenever possible I had to try to eat vegan. This was great practice at just doing the mental exercise of thinking of good choices and choosing to drink more water rather than a soda every time. In order to have a vegan lunch for example I had to think about it and prepare for it. This required more effort. It's much easier to go through the practice when there is no pressure to stay 100%. If I made a non-vegan choice it wasn't failure just a chance to improve before I made the big leap.
4) Eat green. The easiest way to break sugar addiction is eat a lot of greens. I don't know exactly why this works, but every time I've ever been able to break my sugar addictions it has been preceded by a dramatic increase in consumption of greens. The easiest and most effective way to get a lot of greens first thing in the morning is to make a green juice. My favorite is a simple green lemonade (will post recipe later). It's a bit of an acquired taste, but is pretty good once you get used to it. I recommend eating more greens later in the day as well in either a salad or a green smoothie. If you can find a couple chances a day to get some serious greens into your body, breaking food addictions will be a lot easier.
5) Prepare everyday. The best thing to do to stay on track is to know what you are going to eat before you start the day. If you are deciding something vegan you can eat as you are running out the door late for work, it's going to be tough. Next you might get some blood sugar issues, followed by cravings, and then you are off track. If you already have food with you or you know where you are going to grab food things are much easier. Plan the night before and everything gets much easier. Also make sure you have some quick emergency snacks handy in case you get hungry. A bag of raw nuts or a Larabar within easy reach is really easy.
6) Stick to a routine. My personal opinion is that you need to limit variety as much as possible. The fewer number of times you have to make a decision of what to eat the better off you'll be. I might go for a couple of weeks eating pretty much the same thing for each meal. I might have green juice every morning for breakfast (24 oz.), then a mid-morning snack of nuts and seeds, lunch might be quinoa with either steamed veggies or sauteed veggies, a Larabar in the afternoon, and a green smoothie at the end of the day. This is a basic structure I use and I can cook the quinoa and veggies on a Sunday and just have them available for lunches for 2-3 days. Then I refresh that mid-week. So I basically cook 2 days per week and then just make a quick smoothie and juice each day. This takes no less time than cooking normally and is only slightly more time consuming than grabbing fast food.
7) Find other people. Find a few people online that are vegans doing something similar. I'm pretty sure they are out there. For my goal finding ultramarathoners who are vegan is super easy. Reading their twitter posts is inspiring and keeps me focused, plus I get great new ideas each day. This also keeps me focused on my goal.
Don't let it get boring. I said above that you should stick to a routine. While that can really help you should find ways to mix up the routine every 2 to 3 weeks. This might mean finding some great vegan cookbooks. There are some seriously awful ones out there, but also some great ones. My favorite one is currently the Jaiseed cookbook. I love that book because the food is extremely flavorful but also simple. It's easier for me to keep to a super simple routine most of the time, but every couple of weeks its awesome to cook up something super flavorful and savory. You really don't need to try to be cooking new recipes everyday, that's way too much work.
9) Eat live food whenever possible. Some would call this a "raw vegan" diet, but really what we are looking for is food that has its natural waters in it that still tastes alive and that hasn't had all the nutrients cooked out of them. When I eat a lot of cooked food I find it much easier to slip back over the line -first a bit of cheese, then some food made with eggs, etc. Pretty soon I'm back to my junk food diet. When I'm eating a "high raw" diet there is really nothing in the animal world that really compares to a fresh strawberry or fresh spinach and I think this sends my brain the signal that I'm doing something distinctly different - the line is very distinct. On the other hand, my body also at times craves food that is warm or crunchy and that can be a bit more work to replicate with raw food. For this reason I try to eat 2 meals a day that are made with fresh fruits and vegetables (e.g. juice, smoothie, salad, etc.).
10) Don't make it forever. Thinking about never being able to eat a steak again might seem really great after you've been vegan for a while, but going into it that might seem extremely limiting and if you are like me your brain seems to rebel against that thought and decide to make sure you still have choices available. Try setting a deadline to try a vegan diet until the end of the summer. Make it 2-3 months so you are really feeling all the benefits, and when your deadline comes up you can make a decision about whether to continue or not. In reality every day, every food choice is a decision about whether to eat a plant based diet or not, but by putting a finite time on how long you are going to limit your choice to a vegan diet will make your brain so much less rebellious.
11) Transition over a long weekend of holiday. I always find it easier to make these changes beginning on a Friday before a long weekend. This way you only have one day to deal with your normal weekday routine and for most people the weekend provides more flexibility. If you are dropping caffeine, trying to be productive with a bit of a headache might not be a lot of fun. If you can do it over a long weekend, most of the painful part of caffeine withdrawl can be kicked in 3-4 days. If you a fueling yourself with tons of greens then you will already be squashing the major cravings.
Well those are the 11 key things that I think have made the transition for me feel very easy and natural. I'm feeling better than I've felt in a long time. Good luck with your transition. If you have any other tips to add please add them in the comments.
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