How To Go VEGAN

The mysterious V-word. VEGAN.

No meat. No eggs. No dairy. No animal-derived products.

How. do. we. do. it?!?! It really isn't as scary as it sounds. There are so many good reasons to switch to a vegan diet. If you are interested in exploring the vegan life then here are a few tips to make it a seamless transition. 

1) Find your WHY. Knowing your reason behind the choice will make it easier to remind yourself to stay on track when it gets hard. The most common reasons for going vegan include: 

• for the animals 
• because it's healthier 
• for the environment 

2) Take it SLOW and take it one step at a time. I know too many people who decided to go vegan, rushed into it too fast and gave up because it was too hard. When you drastically change your diet without giving your body and mind time to adjust you are setting yourself up for failure. Your mind will be craving your old comfort food and your body will be in shock from detoxing. Your mind will play tricks on you and you will think that you are just not meant to be vegan; that your body doesn't like it and that it won't work for you.  Instead, transition slowly with baby steps. It will feel so much better physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

The first step is cutting out the animal products one meal at a time. Start with a meatless Monday dinner and work your way up to 7 days a week.  Instead of thinking of all the restrictions, think about all of your options! Make a Pinterest board of a bunch of rad vegan recipes you want to try. (check out my Pinterest here) Try them out and spend the next week or so finding new go-to breakfasts! Then slowly do the same thing for your lunches, dinners, snacks, and desserts! 

Now I will let you in on a little secret…If you mess up and eat a burger or ice cream, IT’S OKAY. Vegan police are not real, and if someone is acting like they are the vegan police then they are actually just haters.  Sometimes people will point out flaws in other peoples diets to justify their own poor choices. If you feel like you failed try thinking about how you just took 100 steps forward and only one step back. One meal does not make you a failure. Don’t let yourself fall apart and quit or ruin the next few meals because you have the mindset that you “already failed”. Instead, try to just make your next few choices even better! 

3) Stop Labeling. Stop trying to fit into a label like a pescetarian, vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, or raw vegan. I can’t speak for you but if someone tells me I can’t do something, then it makes me want to do it even more. I was vegetarian for years, then vegan for a few, then pescetarian, then vegan, then pescetarian, and now I am just the healthiest version of Kylan.  I believe in living a balanced healthy lifestyle. I eat 99.999999% vegan, however, if I want to have a bite of a non-vegan cookie my great-grandma spent hours making for me (because she still thinks eggs are vegan), then I will eat it! This style of thinking helps you stick with a plant-based lifestyle in the long run. Perfection does not exist! 

4) Listen to your body.  Figure out which foods make you feel good and which don’t. I feel AMAZING on a clean vegan diet, but when I “cheat” with sweets or something processed then I feel the negative effects of eating foods my body doesn’t love. It reminds me why I don’t eat like that on a normal basis. On the other hand, I also love eating raw vegan foods. I will go days at a time only eating raw plant-based foods because it makes me feel good.

So if you are going vegan and need advice feel free to email me or comment on this post. I have hundreds of recipes and know a substitute for almost anything. Good luck!

 Try out this AMAZING vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe & thank me later. 

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