Hello all! I'm Stacey, I am 48. I turned vegetarian 4 years ago right after Easter. the last straw a chicken wrap I got sick after I ate it. YUK! I was never a big meat eater to begin with, also very small amount as I just could not get over the whole animal it came from and the suffering that animal must have gone thru. Please don't get me wrong I am not one of those who picket the local farms or toss paint on fur coats, but I just hate looking into my cats eyes an knowing they have feelings and think so do cows, chickens and pigs. I just couldn't do it anymore. I went complete vegetarian and didn't tell my family to see if they would notice. After a week nobody said anything so I came clean, there response was "its about time!" I have three boys (25, 21 and 13) about a month after I cut out the meat so did my youngest son, he was only 8! shortly after he started to add in fish to his diet, but has not had meat since. I find it challenging the most with him, although the local public school he goes to has a vegetarian menu, he still had a tendency to eat nachos and cheese for lunch. He is a very active Boy Scout and the camping trips are "interesting". he has taken pride in educating the other boys on his Pescitarian diet and because of this they will make so interesting meals (one camping trip they eat claim cooked on the fire with garlic butter sauce, who does that on a scout camping trip?), but I always have to make sure he is getting enough nutrients that his body needs. He is planning a hike in Arizona next year (75 miles) I am already stressing over the food he will need on this hike.

I really thought that I would be eating more salads and loose all sorts of weight, but I got into the pasta and processed meatless food, I am just starting to work on getting that out of my diet. I plan each week of dinners in advance, doing a lot of recipes from Pintrest. I feel so much better being a vegetarian then I ever did before. But still get a lot of teasing from my extended family, especially by brother and his son. and if one more person asks me how can I live without eating bacon, I think I will scream. LOL.

My hope is that this life style I have chosen will do good for my hubby. I do 90% of the cooking. He is a type one diabetic and has high cholesterol (which is common with diabetic) He is so supportive of my choice, makes me love him more (this after almost 30 years!) currently we have more total vegetarian meals, I cook with the attitude of "meat on the side" . He sees his doctor soon and can not wait to see if he cholesterol has gone down.

I look forward to getting to know all better and the advice I will get from you all that will help me improve on my journey ahead.

Hey everyone. My name is Shelby, I'm 25 years old and living in Atlanta, GA. My husband and I went vegetarian(ish) last July after a trip to Denver, CO where we noticed our friends eat a lot less meat than we do here in the South (and look a lot healthier). We do eat fish very occasionally but are starting to cut that out because our ultimate goal is to one day be vegan. I just started a schedule where I eat vegan (mostly raw) until the evening, and then vegetarian at night. I've noticed it's become easier and easier to not crave dairy using this approach, plus I'm eating way less calories than I was previously.

I will say - when I first became vegetarian, I started working out at the same time and lost 10 lbs pretty fast. We've tried to focus on being plant-based vegetarian and I think that definitely helped. I also had really bad IBS-D for years that was honestly ruining my life, and that magically disappeared when I went veg! Plus my psoriasis cleared up and never came back. I'm super grateful to this lifestyle for helping me feel like a normal, healthy human again. I'm happy to have found others with similar stories!