Good Morning guys! It’s Monday and today I’d like to talk to you about motivation and diet. Diet, not in the sense of “weight loss”, but how you eat day to day; I’m a vegetarian, have been for ten years, and I have no problem identifying with that label. For the past two years I have been playing with being a vegan. I cook all of my meals vegan, I only drink non-dairy milks in my coffee, but I am hesitant to say I’m a vegan in front of my friends and family. When my boyfriend or family cooks dinner for me, I tell them vegetarian is enough of an accommodation, they don’t have to cook vegan; when I’m working (I work at a patisserie) and there are leftover pastries I eat them.
I can’t seem to figure out where this lack of commitment to veganism comes from so I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the connotations of vegan, and veganism. Aside from the obviously (hippies who only eat hemp etc etc we’ve all seen the movies), I think there is an inherent assumption that vegans are going to waste away in front of you. As a vegetarian I’ve had to deal with my fair share of “you’re never going to get enough iron”, “how do you get enough protein”, and back when I ate a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (eggs and dairy people), my answer was always “Well I eat eggs”, “I eat cheese and dairy”. But actually when I started to think about the treatment of chickens who produce eggs, or cows on dairy farms, they were being treated as terrible as those used for meat. Now when veganism comes up and they ask “But how do you get enough protein?” and I say lentils, I get a blank stare followed by the typical “well that’s not enough protein”. At this point my argument falls apart, I don’t have numbers to crunch in front of these people – I can’t say how much protein is in a steak versus a cup of lentils, all I know is that I’m getting enough protein. I’m not calcium deficient because green leafy vegetable contain calcium, so do almonds (and many other vegan foods), but I don’t have a number to tell you so you can compare it to dairy products.
At work I eat these pastries because I don’t want to miss out. But really miss out on what? Sure they’re super tasty but at the end of the day I would feel so much better if, when I go to bed, I had just left them.
Does anyone else struggle with this type of motivation? I’m so motivated to be a vegan I feel so good in my body and my heart when I eat vegan. But people sure don’t hold back on their opinions when they talk about veganism. I have started telling strangers “oh sorry I’m a vegan”, just to test it out and see what it feels like. News flash, it feels good and no one has challenged me to a “muscle-off” yet. Well it’s the start of a new week so I’ll just keep this vegan train rolling. Whatever goals you have this week, it’s Monday! Start fresh and keep that motivation going!
Good Luck!
K
Avenue 23 