6 Months as a Vegetarian

I made it one of my new year's resolutions this year to finally become a full and proper vegetarian. I rarely ate meat as it was and I've always been a lover of animals, so it just made sense to finally make the commitment and give up meat for good.
Now I'm vegetarian, and not vegan so I still eat milk, cheese, eggs and other "animal products". That said I always drink soy milk, and only have that in the house. I believe every little bit counts. I just wanted to share my experience so far on going meat free.
Because I never ate very much meat to begin with, it wasn't that big of a change to my diet and lifestyle overall. So I didn't really have to make that many changes. But I wanted to talk about a few things that I've noted over the past 6 months.

It's Easy being Vegetarian but it's Easier to be an Omnivore

Being vegetarian is not hard. At all. I'm also not a picky eater, I'll give any kind of vegetarian dish a try and I have always been like that.

Almost everywhere nowadays has vegetarian options. They'd be stupid not to. More and more people are choosing to go meat free for at least one day a week, as they realise not every meal needs to have a dead animal in it.

What I've noticed though is often there will only be one or two vegetarian options at a food place, and if there is they will probably be garbage. Plus say goodbye to eating greasy takeout food, unless you only want to eat hot chips as that is often the only option you will have available.

While I mostly eat healthy on the regular, on occasion I would have nuggets from McDonalds or a twister from KFC. I have probably eaten at each place once since the start of the year, seeing as the only thing on the menu I can have is chips.

People think they have to Accommodate for You

I hate feeling like I'm putting someone out. I don't want anyone to go out of their way to make sure I have food. But people continually seem to feel like this, which is not what I want! I haven't yet attended a lunch or dinner where the only thing being served is three plates of meat. There is almost always some kind of vegetarian side dish that I will gladly have.

I don't want to feel like you had to make this dish just for me. I can honestly just eat when I get home. I didn't choose this lifestyle so I could force it upon anyone else.

Obviously I thoroughly appreciate when people go out of their way to make something separate for me, I just feel bad! Like you didn't have to do that! I would have just eaten a bowl of mashed potato.

I'm not Malnourished, I'm Fine

I've gone my whole life not eating red meat, I don't think now suddenly that I've stated that I'm a vegetarian am I going to curl up and die. I've had all my levels tested, and no deficiencies! Not even in iron, I'm all good. I eat a lot of veggies and good stuff. Because I've been trying to tone up and get fit, I drink my protein shakes, and I try to always keep on top of it with my macros as well.

Getting the vegetarian boxes weekly from Hello Fresh have really helped a lot too. I have learnt how to cook a lot of different vegetarian dishes and tried a much larger variety of food. You can read about my experience with it, and see one of the dishes over here.

Can I keep it up?

Definitely!

There's literally nothing about meat that I miss. I used to feel like a hypocrite with my love of animals and meat eating. I felt like I wasn't allowed to have an opinion on animal cruelty because I ate chicken nuggets.

Another thing that I used to face a lot was people not knowing how to label me. I only rarely ate meat "So you're a vegetarian?" but I did eat some chicken on occasion... Does everything need to have a label anyway? It's easier this way. Now I just need more places to have better vegetarian options, and I'll be set!

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