Vegan lifestyles have been trending for a while now. They’ve been recommended to improve your diet and overall health. There are many different types of vegans you might encounter and each of them have their own opinion on it and different reasons for becoming vegan. Having lived with a vegan and seen the health benefits it provides, I challenged myself to be vegan for a week.

Now I know I’m going to get so much backlash for this. Being vegan isn’t something you can just do for a week and it’s not something you can just start doing out of nowhere. I knew going in that I would have to start out slow. I started with cutting dairy out of my diet. This wasn’t particularly hard for me because I’m lactose intolerant, so I avoided most dairy sources anyway.

My biggest weakness with this was my trips to Starbucks for my semi-daily Grande skinny vanilla latte. At first, I tried substituting skim for almond milk but quickly learned that, in my opinion, soy and almond milk don’t mix well with espresso. AT ALL. So, I began drinking Grande almond milk chai tea lattes. (If you haven’t tried it, you really should.)

To take this experiment one step further I restocked my kitchen with vegan only choices. This was no easy task. I spent hours at the grocery store trying to find items that I might enjoy (I’m an extremely picky eater) that didn’t contain meat or dairy of any sort. Every time I thought I found something I would look closer at the ingredients and have to put the item back on the shelf.

In the end, I settled for veggies, fruits, almond milk, vegan butter and various soups. It was pricey and didn’t personally look appetizing at first, but I knew my body would thank me in the long run.

Something anyone should know going into something like this is that on long hard days, when your body has just about worn itself out and you’re at your wit's end, you’ll want to quit. All you’ll want is something familiar and comfortable and the temptation to dig into the ice cream or order a pizza is STRONG. Which is want I did halfway through the week. Yes, I was weak and I caved.

When I started this experiment I just wanted to see if I could do it, and maybe I could have if I hadn’t chosen the week before Thanksgiving to attempt this, but right now veganism isn’t in the cards for me.

So, for all you vegans out there, I’m truly amazed by the sacrifices and the strength you have. You may get a lot of crap from people, but you weren’t born vegan and making the choice to become one took guts. Thanks for being awesome guys. Maybe I’ll give it another try here soon.