a Vegetarian is born.

I would say that the last six years or so have been a personal quest for health. I would have never guessed that this is how things would turn out. Never the less, I find myself in the land of Vegetarian. It has been a long journey, with many changes taking place here or there. The most recent and most significant is my choice to cut out meat from my diet - minus fish and egg (whites, mostly).

The culminating event took place this spring. My friend & I decided to do a Raw Food diet for One Week. Motivators for this included: Linzy thought it sounded fun, I needed to jump start my body back into healthy habits, we had heard about great benefits of this, and yes I hate to admit - I saw Dr. Oz do a story about it on Oprah. I lasted the longest - 5 full days.

This brought about many positive results: Day 3 I bought a Food Processor. A very pretty very powerful one. I was in love. Day 5 I purchased a Rice Cooker - this was my first cooked food. I was so happy. I dropped a few pounds. And, I reveled feeling healthy once again for the first time in months. This healthy food thing is no joke. I had resolved to live a much more natural lifestyle.

In conversation regarding this, my good (vegetarian) friend slipped this into an email: P.S. Are you sure you don't want to be a vegetarian? It's fun. :) And the thing I love the most about being a vegetarian is that it makes me very conscious and thoughtful about what I eat. I don't just put anything into my mouth. And that helps you learn to exercise discipline in other areas, too.

My immediate reaction? Very Very good point, BUT I can't live without meat! I was raised on Meat & Potatoes! Don't you realize that's how the Dutch eat? What about Thanksgiving? What about family dinners? It can't be done.

So, I thought about it and conceded that I could live a PERSONAL veg lifestyle - I never buy or cook meat for myself anyways (it's too expensive and too much of a hassle for one person). However, I was very wary of working this out in other arenas of my life, but decided to start experimenting with such just to see what happens.

So, I signed up for the PETA's Vegetarian Starter Kit (so much for a kit, all I got was a stinkin' magazine, although it did have some good health tips was overall anti-climatic) and began my phase of Vegetarian Experimentation.

I am currently approximately one month in. I have not (voluntarily- story involved here) eaten meat for a few weeks now; I've honestly lost track - which I consider a positive thing. I still maintain that this is a transition time for me and am not sure where this will take me. However, I also do not forsee revoking this decision any time soon.

Join me on my journey of learning what it's like to be Vegetarian.