I woke up this morning to an email from Michelle saying that she created this blog and I was super excited! How cool that she created this blog so that we can share with you all our journey to become Northwest Vegan Sisters (NWVS). Michelle and I made the decision to become vegan when we were in Maui on vacation together a couple weeks ago. We quickly learned that being a vegetarian was easy, but becoming a vegan was much more difficult. Cutting out dairy (my god, no more non-fat, extra hot, lattes!!) and eggs was going to be much more of a challenge.

Why am I choosing to become a Vegan? First to ease the suffering of animals – that simple. I encourage you all to become a member of PETA and watch “Meet your Meat.” The second reason I am a Vegan (ok, I am not fully Vegan yet… I am leaning into it, you might call me a Transitional Vegan (TV), aspiring to become a Total Vegan (TV) - is to help end the suffering of our environment. The farming of animals is one of the greatest environmental pollutants only second to our mass consumption of oil. A Vegan lifestyle will help radically decrease one’s carbon footprint on the environment. The third reason I am Vegan is for better health. Being Vegan forces me to eat more vegetable, fruit, nuts, and grains.

Yesterday I was watching an old Tivo show on Oprah and Louise Hay (author of one of my favorite books, “You Can Heal Your Life,”) was one of the guests talking about the law of attraction. She said that to have great health one must focus on our thoughts and what we eat. I have never heard her talk about food before, perhaps now that I am Vegan I am more aware then ever. She did not explain this comment but I know she is talking about being Vegan. I bet you she is Vegan, I just know it. I am going to try to find out and will report back on what I learn.

I am impressed that Michelle is cooking vegan meals! She even sent me her vegan meal plan for the week. Go Michelle! If we lived in the same city I would totally be eating her home cooked vegan meals, Yummy! I have yet to cook anything from a recipe. I usually have a protein fruit smoothie in the morning. Then oatmeal or a Larabar for mid-morning snack then for lunch I go out to eat. The only problem with going out to eat is that I usually have to drive to get to a healthy restaurant (I am planning on walking to work more so eating out for lunch will not work for much longer). Then for dinner I don’t have a plan and usually end up eating a fast food vegan meal (no animal products but also nothing really healthy) For example, I had a pj sandwich and some chips – not healthy. So my goal for next week is to create a meal plan like Michelle! What I know for sure is that to be a happy, healthy vegan I MUST cook!

Much to my surprise and delight, three people in my office just read “Skinny Bitch,” and they also are TV’s – Transitional Vegans! In fact, Julianne made a couple recipes out of the book “Skinny Bitch in the Kitchen,” and she brings them to the office to taste, so far so good!

As Michelle said, we live in different cities and our husbands are not Vegan. My husband hates that I am vegan and thinks it is totally dumb and that this is just another silly idea and that I will not be able to truly transition into a vegan for life. I do know that once you become aware of what the farming industry is doing to animals, you will never eat another bite of meat without knowing the suffering the animal endured, and that it is causing harm to our planet! That alone is enough for me to commit to being a Vegan.