STEP 1: Find out why you do it.
Everyone has his own reasons to become vegan. Veganism is the most helpful change you can do to help against environmental destruction, animal cruelty and for your own health. Be very sure why you wanna do this step and remind yourself of it during the process. Also you will feel good doing something good.
If you have a reason to do it it will be easier to have and to maintain the willpower.
STEP 2: Start with a 30 day challenge.
Set yourself a limit of 30 days that you try the vegan diet. I think 10 days are too short to really make change and to feel the difference and I think 100 days like I did might sound too scary for the beginning. So 30 days are fine.
STEP 3: Buy only vegan things.
Take your time at the supermarket and try to find a variety of vegan things. Look on the back of the products and learn what is vegan and what might have animal products inside.
Quick tip: things like milk or eggs have to be printed in fat. Its quicker to just look for fat fonts to see if anything produced from animals is in the product.
You might be surprised, for example OREOs, that look like they contain a lot of milk, are actually vegan. CHECK! One vegan sweet you can eat! And there are many more.
STEP 4: Find new flavours.
Go on this page and others to inspire yourself about vegan recipes. For me it is very important especially in the beginning to not try to imitate the dishes you ate before. In fact those tries will rarely reach the flavours you had before. It’s more important to create new flavours you like. When you find dishes you can cook during the week that please you that make you feel YUMMY, thats enjoyable, you won’t miss your other dishes.
STEP 5: What to do with cravings?
If you really crave something always leave yourself the option to eat it again. Recall why you made the step to a vegan diet, remind the consequences your action will take, and if you still can’t live without that sausage, allow yourself to have it. If you forbid yourself to have something, you will want it even more.
STEP 6: Discussions.
Prepare yourself to be especially in the moment everyone sits together to order something in a restaurant, you will sometimes be confronted with meat-eater-opinions. Although the meat-eaters don't want that vegans always shout out their opinion, I have experienced that often the opposite is the case. Without saying anything about my veganism meat-eaters told me their opinions like "cows are there to be eaten" and "vegan is not healthy". Avoid discussions, they normally just lead to two people staying stubbern on their opinion. But if you have a meat eater sitting in front of you that is open minded and that listens to what you say, it's handy to have the right arguments for him. So check out this amazing vegan argument guide that prepares you for every possible "discussion" that might come up: HERE.
Tips:
Don’t have animal products at home. If you have a delicious pizza in the fridge it will take you a lot of energy to withstand it. Why putting yourself into this unnecessary situation?
