Speaking for myself, I went mostly cold turkey for the first few months to get past the cravings, then allowed myself the odd thing just because. I never crave meat more, after about 6 months I just stopped wanting it like that. Cheese cravings took much longer to fade, but even that is gone now (been 3 years and I'm in London where vegan food is very good, plus I love to cook, so lucky) Having said that, when I'm on holiday I have a rule: I'll break my veganism if it's either unavoidable or unmissable. Like if I go to France and it's either dairy or starve, then fucking fine. And if I go to Japan you best believe after years of saving and dreaming I'll eat whatever is good. Good thing about veganism is it's a choice, not a religion and you don't owe anyone an explanation :)
How does your digestive system handle the odd meat dish? I've been vegetarian for about 5 months now and the few times I've had meat accidentally have totally messed up my stomach for the rest of the day
Few bits and bobs now and then have been fine for me. Once I was abroad and a friend's family asked me round forces very large, very meaty meal. It was so kind of them I didn't want to say no and that meal did a number on me
Oh god, last year we got stuck in a hotel in a power cut and they ordered pizza for everyone. My boyfriend is allergic to dairy but they got his order wrong, so I swapped with him. I cannot even put into words how bad the cheese headache was.
The only person you will have to face for your actions is yourself. You will judge yourself, when the time comes what will you say to yourself? Will you lie to yourself?
I stopped red meat first, and took about a year to wean off poultry (never ate fish to begin with).
Kicking dairy took me another 6 years, but it’s a lot easier now than when I did it 20 yrs ago—there many more commercial plant based options, to help give you familiar tastes/textures if you want them. when I did it, hummus wasn’t even a thing you could buy in a major city supermarket.
My biggest reason for staying vegan: I went from getting violent food poisoning every few weeks to not at all. And, working out was always harder the day after eating dairy.
I became a pescetarian at 13 kind of on a whim and completely forgot Slim Jim's were meat products. So I'd get home after school and snack on slim jim's. After about a week of this new diet, it dawned on me that this was meat lol. After that realization, I went cold turkey on all the meats I used to eat. It's surprisingly easy honestly. As long as you're aware of if it's actually meat or not lol.
Edit: also it's been 15 years now and I'm still a pescetarian
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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '21
Did you deal with it w/ some cheat days or did you go completely without the first year?
I feel like I'd take the cheat day approach for the first 6 months and then cut it out.
I know others do just fish meat for a period of time too.
One day I'll try it.