I’ve Been a Vegetarian for Over 5 Months?! – Part 1 (I No Longer Have That Tired Feeling)

January 3, 2015

Please don’t leave!

I’m not here to sell you on vegetarianism. I’m not here to say that I’ll be a vegetarian forever. Please, go ahead and eat your cheeseburgers – even while you’re reading this, if you want. It won’t offend me.

If you’re a long time reader, you may remember, I was put up to a vegetarian challenge in 2012. It did not go well. I did not go in with the greatest attitude. “Ugh. This is something I have to do,” was sort of an underlying thought as opposed to, “what a wonderful opportunity to try something new.”

As I’ve said over and over again on the blog (and am really trying to retain and live this lesson, as opposed to just saying it), attitude can change so much!

There were definitely days before I started this, that I thought, “forget it! A vegetarian/vegan challenge is going to be way too hard. I will just pay the freaking money back to the donor and not do it.”

But, then the competitive and adventurous side of me awoke and thought, “Okay, I gotta do this.”

I am trying to go closer and closer to being vegan for three months (as after all, that is part of the challenge). But first, let’s talk about the vegetarian part – which actually isn’t as hard as I initially thought.

I slowly cut out more and more meat ’til it felt okay to cut it out altogether. And that tired feeling I initially had? I don’t get it much anymore. As long as I take my iron vitamins, I’m pretty sure I feel just as good as I used to feel…

Of course, it’s hard to compare exactly… Memories are imperfect. Do I even really remember how energetic or not energetic I felt as a meat-eater?

Also, my life is always changing! If I had a job that was steady, I could have a pretty good comparison as to how things I changed in my life, changed my life. But I changed jobs not too long after (temporarily) becoming a vegetarian.

When I worked on the show about the Jackson family, I basically never slept. Of course I was exhausted. A lot of stressful things were constantly happening. I don’t think that had anything at all to do with being a vegetarian.

If I remember correctly, I was feeling amazing (energetic, happy, all that good stuff) before I started that job – and I was a (temporary) vegetarian then too! So, I think whatever tired feeling I used to get from being a vegetarian has gone away.

I think that’s mainly due to eating a lot less sugar than I used to, and eating a lot more plant-based food (which is, you know, what vegetarianism is supposed to be about anyway!).

You may wonder, well, if you weren’t eating plant-based food when you first tried it, what were you eating? Ice cream. Sweets. Empty calories. Things that didn’t have meat, but still weren’t healthy.

Also, it’s been important to be good about exercise. (That has nothing to do with this vegetarian challenge, but it definitely helps with energy levels!) And then, the all important iron vitamins have been great too.

For the record, I’m not saying all vegetarians would need to take iron vitamins. Plenty of vegetarian foods have iron (spinach, almonds, etc.). However, I needed iron vitamins even when I was a meat-eater. I have low iron. It’s just part of being Aurora.

And I’ll talk more about vegetarian stuff next Saturday.

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