allforbelieving

It was almost exactly one year ago that I went vegetarian. At the time I knew that I also wanted to become vegan, but I decided to focus on just being vegetarian at first, then gradually become vegan over the course of several months. My intention was to be fully vegan by the end of the year.

Well, it’s nearly the end of the year and I’m still not completely vegan. I’ve moved out of my parents’ house, so it’s much easier to be vegan at home, and I’ve just quit my fast food job, which will seriously reduce the temptation to buy dairy-containing food. I’ve decided that as of the first of January, I’ll go completely vegan – no exceptions, no excuses. And I’m pretty sure I can do it. I’ve been vego for a year and it’s been incredibly easy for me – within a week it honestly felt like second nature to me, like I’d been vegetarian my whole life. Unfortunately I know that dairy is far more pervasive and tempting to me, but I know that it’s high time I took the plunge, and I genuinely feel ready for it.

One more week to go. I’m excited.

Still nowhere near completing this goal, but I’m definitely on the way there. I’ve found brands of rice milk, vegan margarine and soy ice-cream which I like, and most of the time they’re decent substitutes for their dairy counterparts. I’m managing to avoid adding cheese, cream or yoghurt to my meals most of the time, although I really need to either find a non-dairy cheese or just manage without it. I haven’t eaten any meat at all this year, and it’s been super easy, despite being very limited in options when eating out.

I’m still not sure if it will be possible for me to go fully vegan whilst still living with my omnivore family, but it’s definitely something worse striving for. I guess I’ll just need to do a lot more cooking, and eat separate meals to my family more than I already do now. My fiancee is very supportive of me, for which I’m grateful – we’ve prepared a few vegan meals together, which has been nice.

With a bit of luck and a lot of effort I might be able to tick off this goal in a couple of months’ time. We’ll see.

Gone for a walk the past two mornings. Mostly because my sisters and mum were going for a walk, and it seemed a good opportunity to. Unfortunately they set a much faster pace than I… I’m not sure if this was due to the fact that they’re fitter than me, or because my legs are shorter than theirs. Probably both. Anyway, it was painful at the time, but I felt good about it afterward. As long as I get to bed at a reasonable hour, I should be able to continue getting up between 6 and 7am to go for a walk each day.