Good for you!!! Being vegan is one of my proudest accomplishments.

Try not to think of it as missing out, or not eating the stuff you enjoy, try to focus on the things you now DO eat. That's my biggest word of advice.

yay! Always exciting to have new vegans...
It takes some time until you stop missing all those foods you used to eat. It's only natural... But there are so many other things out there we've never heard of, and it's fun to investigate new things and new techniques. Really I found that for anything you want, you can just google "vegan xyz" and you'll get loads of recipes.
Personally I don't like the "alternatives" as well. They're usually overpriced and not that delicious anyway... So I think it's best to get to know things that are already vegan and are delicious (though alternatives can help ease into this). Instead of cheese I just prepare my own hummus and guacamole. They're much nicer to my taste and it's cheaper and I think also healthier since you know what's in it.

Congratulations on trying out a new way of life :-)

Good for you. Don't be afraid to try different kinds of foods, and don't be discouraged by how new recipes turn out the first few times. You've got this!

Hey! Great choice! Turning vegan is one of the best things I have ever done. It made me more aware of what place I have in the world and has changed my perspective on everything, including my friends, my beliefs, my prospective career and which degree I study at University. I have spent hundreds of hours over the past 2 years studying and doing my own research on veganism and have discovered there are many niches within it. You can look into books like "The China Study" or "801010 diet" for ideas. There have been many studies done. There are people on YouTube who have great recipe ideas and who have their own blogs. If you develop an interest in raw foods, a word of caution is to avoid too much fats as it causes health issues. Raw food calories seem to be available from fruits predominantly, although of course veg is necessary. Otherwise, a McDougall style diet is considered the next-best thing, including potatoes, wholegrains, beans, nuts and seeds as well. There is a group of high-carb-raw-vegans who believe that optimum health and disease reversal can only be fully achieved by a raw food vegan diet and that eating 2500+ calories for a woman will give you weightloss (30bananasaday.com), take everything with a grain of salt, make slow changes and find out and repeat what works for you.
Good luck

lots of vegan do 80-10-10 (80% carbs, 10% protein, 10% fat)..protein is not needed in such quantities for humans as many like to think. In fact too much protein can lead to things like gout
Of course with such high carb numbers, ideally you'd be getting these carbs from fruits and vegetables, grains nuts and seeds--not all processed carbs like bread and pasta..although those are okay sometimes.
Not to say you HAVE to do 80-10-10..I think mine is set at 50-20-30 and it's been working fine for me.

Plant protein powder is a good way to get in extra protein. I use Lifetime brand Life's Basics Plant Protein Powder in vanilla. Each serving has 22g protein. Add that to a smoothie in the morning or plain with some water or almond milk and you're good to go.

For the protein question, I'm pretty active fitness wise, training for a marathon as well as doing strength and cross training, and on most days protein makes up 15-25% of my dietary intake. I've started trying to eat more nuts and seeds to increase the fat % lately as well. I can honestly say I'm at a better place today with 19 days until my next marathon than I was for the previous 2, when I wasn't trying to eat vegan. I'm not 100% vegan, I still have some bumps on the road from time to time, but it has made a big difference. So, don't worry about the carbs to protein ratio too much, if you eat the right stuff you will be OK.
And as for the plant protein powder, I eat oatmeal almost every morning for breakfast and will add at least a scoop of protein powder to the mix...so that is always a good idea to have some of that on hand.

I thought of all the things I would no longer be eating and concluded that it would be a lot easier to keep my calorie count lower with a vegan diet. haha - not! I am doing better at logging, though. It's interesting; I feel different inside my head somehow. Hard to describe. But logging is no longer an almost unbearable chore.