Vegetarians

When you tell yourself, "I'm going to lose weight," do you ever consider going vegetarian as a way to accomplish that? I don't think very many people, including myself, start out our new diet strategies thinking they should stop consuming animal products. For one, our diet is saturated with meat, so when we think about cutting it out completely, we freak out. Second, we are bombarded all throughout the day by advertising, so after the 40th ad for fast food chains, it gets harder to resist these foods. A great portion of this advertising scheme includes myths started and maintained by the meat industry which claim that meat is vital for our health, which simply isn't true.

Unless you have researched the effects of a meat-heavy diet on a person's health, the idea may sound ridiculous to you, and you will probably be close-minded to this topic. But for those who are up to speed on the dangerous health effects of meat, it shouldn't take long before you see how it makes perfect sense. By reducing your meat consumption, you are preventing a lot of that excess fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium from entering your body right off the bat, not to mention all those extra hormones and dioxin levels you're leaving out. As you consume more fruits, nuts and vegetables, your body can play catch up by soaking up all those wonderful nutrients and vitamins its been missing. When you focus more on consuming whole foods, you steer away from processed foods in general, which are loaded with unwanted sweeteners and preservatives. The combination of all these contaminants (and so many more) prevent us from reaching our health goals.


You can't just snap your fingers and ~poof~ you're a vegetarian, just like you can't be 40 lbs lighter in one day. It is a journey that will challenge and inspire you. No matter how far you take it- whether you just cut out red meat 80% of the time or you go full vegan- there will always be a positive result. By eating more of what's good and less of what's bad, you'll see wonderful results in all aspects of your life- health, environment, conscience and wallet.

My point is that becoming a vegetarian can be your version of "going on a diet," because any new diet you start is difficult and foreign to what you are used to. You'll have ups and downs, proud and disappointing moments, and if you can stick to it, you'll want your new diet to have positive long term effects!

There have also been many studies done to show how people have lost weight, defeated cancer and completely reversed their cardiovascular diseases simply by removing meat from their diet.