As a fitness instructor, I felt like I really knew what to expect when I decided to go vegan at the beginning of the year. I am all too familiar with the surge in attendance during the first few weeks of January. I have so many new members flocking to the gym and into my classes to prove their commitment to their New Year’s resolutions. However, inevitably by the third week of January all those bright-eyed new students have vanished and classes once again dwindle back to their average numbers. I was determined to not be a New Year’s resolution statistic, but I too have experienced the same struggle.

During the last 60 days the biggest challenge has been thinking about the future. Am I really NEVER going to have a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup again? Am I really done with dairy? Can I really say goodbye to cheeseburgers FOREVER? What kind of cupcakes am I going to make for the kids’ birthdays? The questions are endless. And with the questions comes the self-doubt (“hey, is this really the healthiest way of eating?”) and with the doubt comes the cheating. I stop fighting the temptation and add a little cheese on my veggie wrap, a pat of butter on my toast, and splash some milk in my coffee.

What I realized is that I needed to change the way I was thinking. I had lost the “health” aspect of choosing to go vegan and focused instead on the deprivation. I skipped meals and snuck little bites of peanut butter in after dinner. I drank too much coffee and ate too much sugar. Even after thoughtfully cooking and preparing an awesome vegan recipe, I just didn’t feel like eating it. I craved burgers, tacos, pizza, and even though I wasn’t indulging every craving…they were still there.

Although outwardly I have lost weight and cut out a lot of unhealthy food from my diet, inwardly I wonder… am I actually becoming healthier? Or am I still just doing the same unhealthy things in a new way? Can I actually become one of those people who crave green smoothies and raw vegetables? Or am I going to constantly think about how much I would rather have a bacon cheeseburger rather than they lentil/mushroom/olive creation that is on my plate?

If one of my new students came up to me after yoga class and said they were really struggling and having a hard time in class… I would never tell them to quit or to give up. I would say, “Listen to your body. You are your own best teacher. Yoga is a practice. Just keep practicing.” Maybe being a vegan is the same thing.

The post Is Bacon Vegan? appeared first on Chic Vegan.

Why did I decide to go vegan? Well, after being a vegetarian for nearly 20 years, I had fallen off the “veggie wagon” so to speak. Two pregnancies, two small children, two stressful cross country moves, and two, (too many to count) cheeseburgers later I was anxious to lose weight, feel better about myself, and live more in touch with my beliefs. I promised myself that 2015 I would focus on making some changes and so my New Year’s resolution? Go vegan.

But I didn’t want to be another clichéd statistic making promises to myself that I wouldn’t keep. So I made this decision in October and planned and prepared for the next few months. I collected recipes, wrote down ideas, and set goals for myself. But with anything there is a big difference between thinking about what you will do and actually doing it.

Here are the five things I have learned during my first month as a vegan.

1.) First and foremost, don’t try to be perfect. One of my greatest challenges is my inner critic, that cranky little voice always reminding me that something isn’t done or something isn’t done quite right. So it was no surprise that nasty little critic was very vocal while I fumbled through my first month as a vegan. It is very easy to feel overwhelmed while learning how to read food labels and discovering which favorite foods contain hidden animal products. And then there are things like honey and leather …there is much more to consider when I decided to go vegan than I initially anticipated. So the first month, and probably these first few months, I have focused on doing my best and forgiving myself if I accidentally stray from the vegan path.

2.) Along with my inner critic, I found my second most important thing I learned this month was don’t try and do too much all at once. Becoming a vegan, in my opinion, takes a lot of planning, preparation, and thought. It’s a process.  As exciting as it might seem to just pull out a huge garbage bag and chuck all of your kitchen pantry and refrigerator food away…changing your diet just is not that easy. I have tried that method in the past with several “diets” and let me tell you…it never works. What usually ends up happening? All of that junk starts creeping back in the house. Those deeply ingrained habits and triggers that you have that cause you to want to eat cookies when you are stressed and eggs and bacon in the morning when you are tired…those things are VERY hard to change.

3.) So this leads in to the next thing I learned, plan out substitutions for the non-vegan foods I crave. I think everyone has comfort foods and guilty pleasure foods. I can’t imagine living without pizza, tacos, burgers, and peanut butter cups so I needed to research what sort of vegan alternatives exist. It’s important for me not to eat a lot of heavily processed foods and so I didn’t want to rely on the frozen (and expensive) vegetarian junk food.

4.) Consequently, it was important for me to find a support system because learning to cook with new ingredients in new ways can be frustrating. After talking with some of my vegan friends, I was actually surprised to see how easy it can be to prepare some of my favorites in a vegan friendly way. But my support system isn’t just about cooking. It has been so important to have those closest to me be supportive and understanding of my efforts. It’s a huge help that my husband actually loves our new vegan dinners.

5.) Really, the most important thing is to know WHY I am going vegan. Breaking old habits and changing routines is frustrating, but I know that it is essential. I believe being a vegan is the way to achieve better health and well-being. I know that I am doing this for my health and the health of those around me. I am setting a good example for my children. So during this first month, (although I definitely cheated and had a few non- vegan cookies) I know I am well on my way to being a true vegan.

The post My First Month As A Vegan appeared first on Chic Vegan.

For as long as I can remember New Year’s Day has been my favorite holiday.

I think it was New Year’s Eve 1999 that I began an annual personal tradition of writing down an annual list of 10 New Year’s Resolutions, which I would spend the entire year working to accomplish. I think so many people give up on these resolutions (statistically what is it…like 99%) before January ends because they expect the changes to be easy, or rather they don’t want them to be so difficult. They say, “Oh forget it. This will never work. I can’t do this.” But for me, I know that the hardest month is January. That is the month where you have all the momentum and excitement about the change you are embarking on, and inevitably you begin to feel all the disappointment and frustration (that same month) when you are confronted with the challenges and the unforeseen difficulties such a change entails.

On my 15^th Anniversary of my New Year’s Resolution list I have decided to go VEGAN. After having my second child last year, and spending the last six months battling the sleep deprivation, hormones, and baby weight I am ready to begin the next stage of my personal journey…changing my eating habits.

I didn’t come to this decision lightly. After being a vegetarian for nearly 20 years, when I became pregnant with my son, the primal desire for cheeseburgers was so strong it could not be denied. I think I am still holding onto at least 10 lbs. of cheeseburger weight from that pregnancy. I ate cheeseburger after cheeseburger, no holding back. And I didn’t stop there. I even started drinking whole milk, eating chicken, and anything else I could get my hands on. My long standing diet of black coffee, stir fry, and tofu had long been forgotten and was replaced by something the documentary list in my Netflix cue warned against, I was eating like I was living in Super Size Me.

After I had my son, I lost most of the baby weight fairly quickly however breastfeeding came with its own hunger cues as did chasing a little crawling baby around. When I realized I was pregnant again, I thought, “Oh no, I am never going to lose this baby weight” but surprisingly the morning sickness I had with my daughter was so intense for the first 4-5 months I actually LOST weight being pregnant. However, the remainder of my pregnancy I really could only eat Breyer’s Vanilla Ice Cream, literally, it was the only thing I could keep in my stomach, and so I ate it, and lots and lots of it.

Once my daughter was born, I was so tired and stressed adjusting to having a newborn and toddler I couldn’t even think about changing my diet, just remembering to eat was hard enough. I finally enlisted the help of my best friend and begged her to help me, “I want to be healthy. I want to set a good example for my kids. I don’t want to be standing in the kitchen eating cookies at 3pm after drinking coffee all day! Help me!”

And so, like the wonderful best friend and woman she is, she said, “being a vegan is not hard! It’s probably one of the easiest things there is! How hard is it to just open the fridge and grab a head of lettuce and just bite it if you are hungry? Grab some carrots, an apple, a banana, and a spoonful of almond butter! This isn’t difficult! You just need to change the way you are thinking about it. You most certainly don’t need to spend half the day chopping vegetables and making a perfect salad or a green smoothie! That is so dumb. You are not Gwyneth Paltrow. You have two young, small children that require a lot of attention. You just need to make sure you are taking care of yourself, so then you can take better care of your family.”

And isn’t that it? Shouldn’t that be the reason we make changes? I chose to become a vegan because it is in line with my beliefs and values. I know that when my kids are old enough and they are able to ask me thoughtful questions like, “Why do we eat this mama?” I will be able to answer them equally as thoughtfully. Additionally, I also think being vegan and being healthy ensures that I am doing everything I can do be around as long as I can to take care of my family and the people I love.

Years ago I had a wonderful yoga teacher that always said, “If you can; you must,” throughout class. To this day, I repeat this to myself. To me it means if you know better…then be better…do better. If you can: you must.

The post Why I chose to start 2015 as a Vegan appeared first on Chic Vegan.