Making the transition from meat-eater to vegan: the 101 redhead guide

Please note I am not a doctor, dietitian or nutritionist – just a redhead who found the love of being vegan.  I was asked by a reader to share my tips for making the transition from meat-eater to vegan.  So this is my basic 101 redhead guide:

Become Informed

First thing is knowledge.  You can go out and buy all the “vegan” crap food you want but you’re missing the boat if you are still buying all processed food (vegan or not).  Netflix is a great source for watching videos.  I would suggest KnifesOver Forks and Vegucated to start with.  The only down fall I had with Vegucated was they pushed the processed “vegan” food and I felt they could have shown better options.
Next hit the bookstore.  If you love detail and love to read check out The China Study.  If you prefer a quick read then try The Engine 2 Diet and My Beef With Meat.  My husband and I liked the quick read better lol. I have also just started reading Vegan For Her (can I tell you I no longer have hot flashes being vegan, sweet huh?).
Blogs and Facebook are a great place to search out places to read more information. Find the vegan ones that speak to you.  Some are pretty hard core vegan sites, don’t let something scare you off. When I first started I wanted to know more about starting out and raising a vegan family. Get ready to be asked, “So, where do you get your protein from?” from pretty much everyone.  Funny, before becoming vegan no one seemed to care where I got my protein from.  Hummm…

only one little pound left...

Around March 20th of this year I was sitting at work thinking about how I really needed to go buy a new pair of jeans as my size 14 were starting to feel a little on the tight side.  I pulled up a photo that one of my co-workers took of me just a few weeks before (they thought they were funny putting a Kyle Bush cut out in my office, as I cannot stand him!).  I thought I looked pretty cute over the winter months.  I got lazy.  Lazy is easy.  Lazy can be fun. Lazy really makes your body feel bad and God, I felt like crap all of the time.

That photo told me another story.  Wow, I had really started packing on the pounds.  I knew why, I'm not stupid -

At that same time that I was contemplating jeans in a size 16 I had a co-worker came into my office showing me her cute new jeans, that she also just purchase in a larger size.  Okay, enough was enough.  I am smart enough to know that I need to take care of myself and this was not good! I had thought of an idea a few nights before so I brought up to my co-worker the idea of doing a summer weight loss challenge for the women in our office (most all of us needed to drop a few lbs), and the challenge was formed!  With the blessing of our bosses we invited all to join us with a $20 entry fee that would go towards the grand prize at the end (July 1st).  March 25th was our first weigh-in an we ended up with a total of six of us joining in (we are a small office).  My start weight was 176.2 (I am 5'10" tall just FYI) and I gave myself a goal of 146.2 (30 lb. weight loss total).  I figure that was a doable number for the amount of time of the challenge.