How To Become Vegetarian

Logan — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:00:23 +0000

This is the first in a series where I will give you steps, hints, and tips on moving to a vegetarian diet.

Make Up Your Mind

The first thing you need to do is get your mind set. Why do you want to be a vegetarian? If you don’t have a reason behind it, you are already set up for failure. Do you want to be healthier? Do you want to lose weight? Do you have ethical concerns about the treatment of animals? Figure out why you want this and write down a personal “mission statement” on why you are going vegetarian. This will help you if you are having a hard time so you have something to refer back to. It can also help if you get resistance from friends or family around you. If you can clearly explain why you are doing this, then they may be more understanding or at least less resistant.

Use Available Resources

There are plenty of resources out there especially on the web. Follow these steps as just a beginning and you will get tons of help and reference material out of it. Here is a very quick list of some places to start:

The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)
GoVeg.org (they have a great “vegetarian 101″ section)
VegWeb.com – recipes and cooking tips
Vegetarian recipes on Allrecipes.com
PETA’s website – for animal cruelty information (watch a few of their videos!)

Create A Plan

Once you have done some research, come up with a plan on when you want to start and what your expectations are. Will you switch cold turkey (pun intended) or will you start by having meat-free days and gradually increase those days? The main goal here is to do what you feel comfortable with and let it be good enough. During your planning you should come up with some simple meal recipes that you can create so you always have available food. It also helps to scope out your town to find vegetarian restaurants or vegetarian dishes at your local food places.

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Look Where You Want To Go

Logan — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:00:25 +0000

How can you go somewhere if you don’t know where you want to go? This article is about finding your goal or purpose before you start so you have a place to focus. The idea of looking where you want to go is used in racing whether car, truck, motorcycle, or bike. The idea is to not to keep your visual focus on obstacles, but to focus on where you want to go. Then the vehicle will go where you look easier. I have found this advice works great when I am mountain biking. Yes, if I look down and carefully watch the roots or rocks I can make it through the obstacles, but I end up going slower and I don’t have advance visual notice of what is ahead. If on the other hand, I look where I want to go, then the obstacles seem to melt away and I ride over them easier. This allows my speed to increase and it gives me advance notice of what is coming up next on the trail.

Apply It To Eating

So what does this have to do with eating? Simple – maybe you are struggling with being a vegetarian or vegan and are occasionally cheating and eating meat. Change your point of view from focusing on your next meal to focusing on the bigger picture. Where do you want to go with your eating? Do you want to look back in 5 years – 10 years – and be able to say that you have been a long time vegetarian? Do you want the overall health benefits? Visualize what your goal is and then it will be that much easier to get there.

Apply It To Health

You can use the same visualization ideas for your health in general. Your instinct is to focus on your weight today or struggle to get off the couch to go biking, or crawling in bed instead of doing push ups. Focus on where you want to go. Pick an ideal weight or set goals for your exercise plan. Then when you are faced with a mundane obstacle you can focus on your goal and see yourself where you want to be and the obstacles melt away.

Apply It To Life

This same advice can be applied more generally to your life. Are you stuck in a dead-end job or doing something you don’t really love? Do you just focus on making it through the day? You need a plan and you need to look at where you want to go instead of the obstacles of your day-to-day life. Visualize where or what you want to be doing and keep that image in your head. This can take the form of a plan in your head, or even better – write up a goal plan or hang up a significant picture of something to symbolize where you want to go. Then when you start to get caught up in the small obstacles you can reflect on your goal and remember where you want to go.

Last Thoughts

Looking where you want to go is a great tip and can be applied to many aspects of your life. From my experience trying to apply this to my mountain biking, I can tell you it isn’t always easy. You should remember that your natural instinct is to focus on the obstacle at hand. This is your challenge to work and overcome that instinct. But that is the point exactly – work at where your focus is and then the ride itself becomes easier and almost second nature.

Got a thought or comment? Be sure to let me know.