And Thus Begins the Journey

Today is the first day of 2012 and my first day as an official vegan. For ten years I have been reading and researching the vegan lifestyle, dabbling in the cooking and eating of vegan food and dreaming that one day I would have enough self control to adopt it as a life style. I don't think I am at that point yet, but I have committed myself to a year long experiment. I will eat a vegan diet for the next 366 days (figures I would choose a leap year!) and I will blog about my experiences and super scientific health findings.

I all seriousness, I am not a very healthy person starting off this experiment. I am overweight (obese if you ask my PCP), my blood pressure is borderline high and my triglycerides are more than double what they should be. I could take the easy way out and claim that it is all hereditary and leave it at that, but I am choosing to look for solutions. I am not completely unhealthy though. I feel the need to redeem myself in some small way. This fall I trained for and ran a 5K with my husband and I am not ashamed to say that I am the reining Just Dance champion of my friends and family.

Almost exactly one year ago, my sister in law made the switch to veganism and proudly, she hasn't looked back. She has had to endure endless teasing and many complaints from her family. With grace she has persevered and I admire her for that. She is excited for my experiments and has offered her support whenever I need it and I thank her for that. I know that this year won't be easy, but it is nice to know I have friends on my side.

I guess that's it for the first post. Nothing too exciting to report today... mostly because the start of any new lifestyle change comes with a significant amount of momentum in the beginning. The real challenge will come later and I predict it will have something to do with Cheese Doodles or milk chocolate.