Tips tricks & the truth about going vegan (plus our burrito recipe)

A friend of ours has recently gone vegan. Well sorta. He's doing a self imposed vegan month and after talking to him today I felt that it would possibly be helpful to share some truths about the process and of course my tips and tricks to help make it a bit easier.

When I transitioned to veganism I went all in. I was a cheese addicted burger eating gal who loved food and then suddenly just stopped eating basically everything that I normally would and I got sooooo sick! Well not really sick, it was a heavy detox, but I felt sick just the same.

Anyways so there I was sitting on the floor of the bathroom after just puking my brains out and thinking to myself holy fucking hell eating vegan did this to me!? No way!? I felt better eating all the crap I used to eat which is saying a lot cause at that time my health was quite poor to begin with. Yikes. So I finished my bathroom session and joined my lovely partner for a smoothie because well first it was an easy way to get in all sorts of good stuff and second cause I've never cooked vegan food before! I had no idea where to even begin! So at the beginning I had a lot of smoothies! Lol.

After the sickness phase had subsided which took a couple days (and btw not everyone gets sick like I did) I found that my aches and pains were slowly starting to not bother me as much! Score! I couldn't believe how fast things were happening! And then at the same time I was starting to feel emotionally unstable and border line depressed. So much so that getting out of bed was a real struggle. Highs and lows all the same time leaving me feeling so very confused.

My partner who had already gone through this thankfully was an incredible support for me and helped me in so many ways. One of them being during this emotional time he would take me out to go on a long hike. Get the body moving and get those endorphins working. It worked great! Slowly but surely the combination of eating vegan and hiking was making me feel wonderful! Emotionally and physically! I have now been vegan for 4years i think and have literally never felt better in my entire life!

The only thing then I really wanted to figure out was the cooking which turns out to be way easier and way more fun than I ever thought! You can literally make ANYTHING! At the beginning though we had a lot of pasta with tomato sauce and burritos! Oh my goodness my mouth is literally watering thinking about our burritos!

Our vegan burritos consisted of refried beans, rice, fried onion bell pepper and garlic, salsa, avocado and cilantro all wrapped in a giant tortilla! They were so easy to make they quickly became our staple when we were backpacking! We would cook everything up in our little camp stove and devour them whilst swinging in our hammocks. Such nice memories.

Ok let's get back on track and list out my tips to going vegan.

1. Learn about what meat and dairy does to your body. In my opinion it's helpful to know what's going on inside of you that's causing the reactions you are or may feel. That way if and or when you feel worse when you go vegan you don't go right back to eating junk to have a quick fix and feel better fast. Veganism is for the long term feel good life.

2. Watch the documentaries. They help concrete and reaffirm why you have gone vegan. Especially in weak moments.... I think is might be kinda the same as the first tip but whatever. My post my rules. Lol.

3. Find a good support system. There is nothing fun about going through something challenging and foreign alone, so don't! Find a supportive friend, a local group, an online group, doesn't really matter where it is just find your support system and lean on them when times get hard. That's what they are there for after all and I guarantee there will be hard moments every now and then.

4. Workout. I know not all vegans are healthy vegans but like I mentioned earlier it helps with so much more than just fitness. So get out and get those happy vibes flowing.

5. B12. Most everyone is deficient in B12 so really everyone could benefit from adding this to their diet.

6. Have fun creating your food... Vegan food doesn't have to be boring. Like I said earlier you can make anything vegan if you are creative enough so put on those thinking caps and get cooking!