If you have ever tried to switch to a vegan lifestyle you have no doubt discovered that it is an extremely difficult lifestyle to actually adjust to. There are plenty of people who do make the change every year, but at the same time, there are many others who struggle to actually change their lifestyle. Following these tips will help you to overcome your own struggles in your quest to change to a vegan lifestyle and help you to understand what you are up against.
If you have been raised on milk, cheese, ice cream and meat like most people you are likely to find that switching to a vegan lifestyle immediately is going to be extremely difficult. In this case, it is still possible to switch to vegan but it is advised that you take your time and make some very slow changes to get started. Simply jumping in and going without all of the foods that you are used to will lead you to failing pretty quickly and running to the nearest burger joint you can find for a double cheeseburger with a large milkshake.
A wise decision to making the change slowly would be to start looking for some substitutions that you can enjoy. This would include looking for some of the new veggie burgers that are available to replace meat and also looking into some of the alternative milk such as rice milk. While these might not be your favorite foods initially, you may soon discover that they are quite delicious actually. Switching to foods like this will allow you to ease the stress of giving up some of your favorite foods and make it much less painful.
Additionally, you should attempt to change slowly. This means slowly cutting back on the foods that you typically consume. If you are normally an avid meat eater you should not give up meat all at once. Rather you should attempt to omit meat from one meal each day for several weeks. From this point, you could then begin to cut meat from another meal each day for several more weeks. This would likely take at least a month or so but should find you consuming at least a substantially lower amount of meat every week. After you have managed to make this transition smoothly, you could then work to become completely meat free by cutting out the final portion of meat that you consume each day. This would allow you to slowly change your habits, which will allow you greater ultimate success as well.
It is also important to realize that Vegans do not use materials that are made from silk or leather as well. These are just an example of the materials that can be created using animals. It is against the Vegan belief to use these items and they too must be given up. This means discarding any leather shoes, handbags or other similar items that you may own. Additionally, you would need to look for a synthetic leather or some similar material to replace your shoes and accessories. This is not always easy to do depending on your fashion style, but it is still possible. An added benefit to this is often the synthetic leather accessories are much cheaper to purchase. These small changes will all add up to some rather significant changes after some time and will be well worth the effort.
