anyone 'turned' vegetarian? advice and insight please

[ichoosesleep]

Is this the right place to post ?? Quite a newbie !

So I've started on my diet this week just calorie counting on my fitness pal and using my Fitbit blah blah blah all that jazz ...

Anyway ! My vegetarian friend posted a video on fb today and I watched it and thought how hard would it be to act silly give up meat? It would do me the world of good for my health as most of my crap binges are usually in the form of greasy takeaways or Chinese packed with crap and if I'm trying to give these up anyway then it would certainly help.

It's not just that though I have always been genuinely guilty and shameful about the way we do actually take the whole farm to plate thing for granted but have always still eaten it as I never imagined life without meat, it's always been just the way it is.

Has any of you made he transition after feeling this way ?

[Ninjagogo]

Hmm, OK, here is my twopence worth .

1. congratulations on starting such a huge lifestyle change!
   
2. I have been a vegetarian for 26 year, it was my grandad sending MY lamb to slaughter that got me to become a veggie.
   
3. I feel that we have a choice and can support high welfare of livestock if we eat less meat. It also depletes less of the planets resources to eat a plant based diet.
   
4. It is easy to stop eating meat, but still eat a crap diet. Food has to be nutritious and varied to give you a good range of vitamins and minerals. Pizza and chips as an occasional meal, rather than a standby.
   River Cottage Veg Every Day is a great book to inspire you, and the Abel&Cole cook book. Have a look in your local library. Internet has loads of amazing sites for recipes too.
   Good luck whatever you decide!

[OddSocksHighHeels]

MN has far too many topics to make posting in the right one easy - you might do better for replies in the food/recipes topic or even just Chat if you don't get many replies here.

Anyway - I eat meat again now but was vegetarian for a long time. I didn't eat loads of meat beforehand anyway so it wasn't too difficult to stop and there's loads of great recipes you can make at home, eating out is easy enough as everywhere hhas vegetarian options now.

If you eat a lot of meat now then you might find it easier to reduce it first before cutting it out. I'd recommend getting a few good vegetarian cookbooks and trying out some new recipes.

I would say that becoming vegetarian wouldn't automatically make your food choices healthy as it can still be easy to just have cheesy pasta and stuff so you would still need to make a conscious effort to make healthier choices.

[ichoosesleep]

Ah thankyou for your replies. I will post in the food post area next. Oh dear your poor lamb !!

I'm pretty healthy when I'm on plan so such as watching what I eat and things and what I put into it making food from scratch as much as possible shouldn't be too bad . So for tonight for example I have a beef stew in the slowcooker but I have packed it with vegetables and potato too. I would be happy enough picking out the meat so could start cutting down that way. DH would never give up meat so we will still have to buy it but surely not as much In that sense though with all the meat I leave for leftovers next day and freezer meals in Tupperware that would then stop us needing to buy meat more often for all of us. Does that make sense lol. How do people go on when they are the only vegetarian in the family ?

[clearsommespace]

I am only non meat eater in the family and main cook. I make alternatives. So if we have stew, we'll have a veggie stew and a meat one on the table. It seems like a lot of work, but of course there are alot of left overs. I make two lasagnas. The others are happy to eat meat free meals but not all the time. We eat alot of eggs.
I don't know much about weight loss diets but you have to work at getting enough protein in a veggie diet and protein fills you up so while you are losing weight it might be easier to eat some meat and fish but to eat less and buy from the most ethical source possible.