looking for help converting to a vegan lifestyle

Hi, I just joined on recommendation of my daughter. I went vegan one year ago this Saturday and there will be no going back. My cholesterol was 304 and I was not a candidate for medicine. I took back responsibility for my own health. Watching Forks Over Knives changed my life. Three months later my cholesterol was down 70 points. My goal right now is 47 pounds and a better fitness level.

why convert?

My daughter went vegan for a while, and as the one who had to shop and cook for her, I learned a few things.

- Remember it is a different way of eating, I would advise against just looking for vegan versions of what you already eat. (ie - tofurkey, soy replacements of meats etc)

- watch your soy intake as it can mess with your hormones

- decide how strict you want to be, strict vegans don't even use refined white sugar because some of it is processed through bone pieces. Others won't use honey (it is cruel to bees)

- ease into it, start vegetarian, keeping some of the harder things to give up for last (My daughters weakness was cheese, it was the only thing that she missed)

- read your packages!! you will be surprised how many products are vegan, or not. I found really good chocolate chips (presidents choice) that had not animal products in them, yet the brand name chips were not vegan.

- know what the stuff is that you are reading. Many "vegetarian" cheeses etc have casein, which is a milk product.

- one of the best easy vegan cook books she bought was PETA's college cooking (or something like that). It was full of easy and quick vegan dishes (they had to be, they are aimed at students), and more advanced would be the veganomicon.

- keep your sense of humor, in eating situations, everyone will just say "you can have a salad..." not realizing how many real food items can be vegan.

Good Luck!!
Let us know how you go with it!!

oh, and http://hellyeahitsvegan.com/vegan-zucchini-bread/ is the best zucchini bread I have ever had, freezes well, I still use this recipe when I'm not making something specifically vegan.

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I am not vegan, but I do like this site: http://plantbasedonabudget.com/

As far as your kids, make sure you are communicating with their doctor.

Forgot to mention that there are so many great vegan recipes out there. You may be surprised to find that it's not too hard a transition on the kids. Check out sites such as: theppk.com; vegweb; ohsheglows, etc. At home, I'm vegan, my husband is vegetarian, and our daughter is neither. She happily eats what I cook, and will even request certain vegan dishes. At family get-togethers, my brother is always excited about what I'm bringing. He can never believe it's vegan, and always asks for recipes!

Feel free to add me too - I'm also in the process of going vegan. I'm taking it slowly but am totally at peace with this decision to make this transition and am actually really excited about it.

Do your research ~ I already have a big, long list of cookbooks on my amazon wishlist (I plan to check some out from my library too) and there are a lot of great, free blogs with recipe ideas and tips. I also frequent veggieboards.com, but as with any internet community there are no shortage of people that are beyond passionate about their vegan beliefs; I'll just leave it at that!

I am thinking that I am going to transition to a 90% vegan diet over the spring break (next week.) I only plan on eating vegetarian (dairy and eggs) when I go out, or someone else is cooking. I would love more vegan friendly friends on MFP! add me!

pobalita... really healthy attitude! Good to hear.
There are so many websites and cookbooks (check them out at the public library before you invest). Right now I am loving Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli. Engine 2 is fantastic, too.
Last night my daughter made "potatoes au gratin." She substituted butternut squash for cheese and almond milk instead of cow's milk. Her husband loved it and didn't even realize there was no "gratin."

Hey keepitoff! I've been a full-blown vegan now for 3 weeks. After a doctors appointment last year that told me I was 30 with high cholesterol (not super high, but high enough to wonder WTF at age 30!), so that freaked me out. My doctor gave me a diet plan that was more for diabetics, but I noticed that I limited red meat and dairy. I hate fish, so I thought, "Why not go full vegan?" I tried, and after 2 days it was a completely FAIL because it was a complete 180 from my diet.

I didn't want to fail, but I made the commitment to gradually change, and it's taken me about 6 months to transition to full-blown vegan. I started by cutting out all of my processed foods - no more fancy salad dressing, snacks in boxes, etc. I started not really giving a crap about reading nutrition labels and was concerned more with the INGREDIENTS. I chose to only buy foods that had 5 ingredients or less, all of which I could pronounce. If I couldn't read the label, I wasn't putting that crap in my body. I'd cut different things out each week - switching my instant oatmeal to rolled or steel cut oats; eating whole fruits instead of crap like orange juice; switching out milk and creamer for coconut or almond milk. All of these changes were very easy to do, as I spread them out kind of one at a time. During this time, I looked at tons of recipes and started following vegan blogs and facebookers.

3 weeks into it, I feel fantastic. My cravings for crap are gone. The first 2 weeks were a little difficult, but last week was amazing and I lost almost 6 lbs, which was EFFORTLESS.

Pick up some good books (I'm reading "Eat to Live" and "Engine 2" right now) and find some recipes, and it's like a fun little experiment. Good luck!