Just had my first vegan thanksgiving

hippyman

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40
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  1. Omnivore
I'll be honest, I was concerned at how I was going to make it through the holidays. But after this, I'm feeling a lot better. I forgoed the ham, turkey, and anything else animal related, and still had a great holiday, even with the few little jabs at my lifestyle from my brother. I never could have seen myself doing this six months ago.
 
Haha congrats on making it through the holidays. I bet by next year if you keep going at this rate you'll have so may vegan options to choose from, you might be the one showing jabs ;) .
 
Holiday season is the hardest, because everyone comes together and all of them have different needs. If I have to go to celebrate with someone I usually cook a meal for myself and then just silently bring it to the host so he or she can serve it to me later.

If I'm hosting an event I will try to make all vegan, but sometimes I've made some meat as well.
 
Ugh, I hate to have to admit this, but I have fallen off the wagon. I'm not sure if I just jumped into all this too fast, or if I just needed to do more research, or what. I'm hoping some day I can get back on track.:(
 
A lot of things. Low energy, inconvenience at restaurants and family meals, hard to find vegan friendly foods where I live.....need I go on? I'm thinking I may try again at a time when I'm better prepared and informed.
 
Oh. Completely understand.

I struggle with restaurants too, unless I'm visiting a big city.

We're here if you have more questions or need advice etc... :)
 
Before I try to tackle this again, I may need some advice on handling family members. I tried explaining to my dad about why I was going vegan, and the only thing he could say was that the meat industry was way too big for my actions to make a difference.:(
 
You must be in the worst place in the world to go vegan. Just do what you can. When you go out keep asking for soy milk, or vegan alternatives and spread the message. So even if you can't keep it up all the time at least keep putting it out there. Just keep chipping away, it's all any of us can do. Have you got a vegan cookbook, that helps enormously. Maybe once a week eat vegan. There is lots of vegan friendly food, all vegetables, they don't need to be fresh, tinned or frozen are probably better. Fruit, fresh or tinned. Beans. I know it's harder in America as, am I right? they don't list ingredients on the packaging. Maybe try being vegetarian first, then move onto being vegan, that's how I did it and it gets people used to your eating habits more easily. Then you can have eggs and cheese still for a while. :)
 
It'll be awhile, but I may try that. It would be a lot easier to leave in dairy products for awhile. Another issue that I have is that I'm a weightlifter, so I "need" extra protein.
 
It'll be awhile, but I may try that. It would be a lot easier to leave in dairy products for awhile. Another issue that I have is that I'm a weightlifter, so I "need" extra protein.

There are weightlifters who are vegan.

You will understand this better than I do:
http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/weightlifting

This looks interesting:
http://www.vegansouls.com/vegan-bodybuilders

There seems to be a cross-over between bodybuilding and weightlifting, natural I suppose.

Nobody said it would be easy.:)
 
Nobody said it would be easy.:)

I guess that's what makes it worth it.:)
 
I suggest you focus on no meat and eggs and ideally no fish but allow yourself some cheese and butter from time to time, that could stop you falling off the wagon. You might want to allow yourself chocolate, cakes with animal products etc.

You really don't need meat foods for protein. There are plenty of vegan protein sources especially legumes like soy/lentils/peas/beans; I suggest you also try a protein shake (ideally a vegan one) and some vegan meat replacement products that have high protein to keep it easy.

Try to teach yourself more about the animal industry. Have you seen Cowspiracy on netflix or if you don't have netflix it may be on youtube. Or have you watched meet your meat from PETA, also easy to find online for example.
 
Before I try to tackle this again, I may need some advice on handling family members. I tried explaining to my dad about why I was going vegan, and the only thing he could say was that the meat industry was way too big for my actions to make a difference.:(

The meat industry has been struggling to grow due to a slight trend to veg diets, people's action are making a difference already. For every 1 person that converts to vegetarianism that is a certain amount of animals that won't be treated as property, slaves, and suffer and die. A certain amount of water will be saved, carbon emissions reduced, soil left in better condition, land freed up for other use, and so on.

Your Dad may as well defend killing an innocent person on the basis that we will never 100% eliminate the murder of innocent people, so we may as well join in. It doesn't make sense.

You can explain that vegans are the best diet for reduced animal cruelty, better for the environment and probably better for health.