Growing up, I’m pretty sure I had chicken every day of my life. That may be over exaggerating a bit, but that just goes to show how obsessed I was with it. It wasn’t just chicken that I ate though. There was steak, catfish, pork chops, and the list goes on and on. In my family, and the South in general, it wasn’t a meal until you piled your plate with some sort of meat. It’s just how it was; it’s just how I was raised. Then something totally out of left field happen. Something so out of the ordinary my family thought I should see a doctor. I went vegan.

So how did I, the connoisseur of carnivores, decide to go against my nature and throw caution (oh and meat, dairy, basically any form of food product that comes from animals) to the wind? Well it was simple, and yet not so simple. See, veganism was something that had fascinated me for quite some time. It wasn’t till I thoroughly researched what it was that I started to consider trying it. There were people that I had followed on social media (Essena O’Neill being the biggest influence) for years that would always spark my curiosity with their rants on health and what going vegan could do for your body and how beneficial it is to the environment. Well long story short my freshman year I had experienced a host of health issues and something the doctor always seemed to say was “make sure you have a healthy diet”. This of course is very hard if you are a college student. So I pushed it off until finally my freshman year came to a close, and after seeing two documentaries on going vegan one night, I did it. Overnight actually. It has been almost three months since I have had a piece of meat.

So what was it? How did I do it for so long and not give in? Well it wasn’t easy, but the best way I can answer those questions is to describe what I discovered and learned from my own experience this past summer.

Expect to be ridiculed, but also expect to leave a positive influence.

My family made it a daily task of theirs to crack jokes at me every time we sat down to eat. It was annoying at first, but I knew they were only playing around. Eventually though I noticed that I had rubbed off on them. They started to incorporate more vegetables and healthier foods into their diet and on some occasions even have what I was eating. This doesn’t just stop with my family though; people that ask me about giving up meat are truly surprised and have said that those who can give up so much are honorable in the sense that they could never do it. If only everyone knew how easy it is!

You will feel like a million bucks.

Remember how I experienced those health issues my freshman year? Well slowly but surely all the symptoms and anxiety faded away and now I look back on how I was and how far I have come. Being a vegan I never experienced any upset stomachs or sickness and when I became full I wasn’t tired but full of energy! Working out became something my body craved in order to make use of all that good fuel I was putting into it. I started not only seeing a new me mentally but physically as well.

It makes being a vegetarian ridiculously easy.

Coming back to school I had no choice but to go vegetarian, but I still eat vegan every chance I get. Many people were shocked to find out that I was a “veggie”, but they had no idea what my summer had consisted of. Being able to have a bagel with cream cheese in the morning, or a bowl of cereal, is like a basket of wings for the old me.

These are just a few reasons on why I went vegan and the ways it benefited me personally. In saying my spiel, I’m not trying to brainwash anyone or force people to go vegan, but perhaps light a spark in the mind of some adventurous soul who wants to make a change. For those adventurous souls, I recommend going to YouTube and watching 101 Reasons To Go Vegan, Earthlings, or Vegucated. Now for some coconut ice-cream!