I think it depends on why you’re veggie as if you can’t imagine eating animals then it’s really not hard to stick to. I went veggie at 14 and my mum made me cook for myself but I’ve never eaten meat since, some 32 years later. We had cows and I simply couldn’t bear the thought of eating animals any more. I’ve never been anaemia, even whilst pregnant although my meat eating mum and sister often are. I did crave leafy green veg during pregnancy though. It’s true if you are prone to anaemia you need to be careful as my sister went veggie and her anaemia got worse, so she went back to eating red meat sometimes.
I’ve had some rough times as a veggie when travelling. Remote Mongolia doesn’t have much vegetables so I relied on a stash of museli bars, I ate a lot of picked veg in Russia in winter, in Zambia I lived entirely on bread, pumpkin leaves and maize meal with the odd egg. But I never once wanted to eat meat. Lost 30kgs from all the walking and lack of dairy!
However there’s a huge variety of foods in the UK I would recommend you buy some decent cookbooks as I found trying traditional meat and veg dinners felt like there was something missing. There were few veggie substitutes when I was first veggie, soya chunks (not that tasty) but no tofu.
Think around hearty soups and stews for this time of the year, beans for protein although protein really isn’t hard to get - even pasta contains 12g per 100g. You want to ensure you are getting B12 found in marmite or breakfast cereals or just take a supplement
DH and I were together about a year before I realised he’d been slowly phasing out meat. Never bothered me that he ate it, but I never cooked it, he’d eat it out or round other people houses but then basically started leaving it on the plate before one day saying he didn’t want it anymore, about a year ago he started going vegan, so we mostly eat vegan food at home. DS now 8, has never eaten meat or fish. Never been the slightest issue, as in most families, he eats what we eat, but he’s not interested in becoming vegan and cannot stand plant milk, so we still buy dairy just for him. In the last year, due to DH this means some separate meals - like mac and cheese sauces but lots of meals he eats are actually vegan. He won’t eat plant based dairy substitutes or spicy food so our family roster of meals is something like this:
Root veg soup with lentils
(Very mild) chilli with soy or quorn mince and rice
Stirfry with tofu and rice/noodles
Mac and cheese (we have cashew nut sauce, DS has standard sauce served with veggies
Tomato and veg pasta or pesto pasta with vegan pesto
Roast dinner - quorn or plant based meat substitute
Veggie burgers and wedges
Shepherds pie with veggie mince
Lazy Pastry pie with quorn pieces, Campbell’s mushroom soup, loads of veggies (mushrooms, carrots, celery, peas, sweetcorn, peppers, onion) and bought pastry. Due to soup and quorn this isn’t vegan but DS loves it, so we have it about once a month.
Falafel wraps and salads
Hot dogs with sauerkraut
DS will sometimes cook himself an omlette or scrambled eggs with help (DH and I rarely eat eggs anymore) but one egg would provide almost all the protein DS needs for a day so are a good thing for him to have depending on what he’s had to eat at school.
It’s actually not that hard. DS is very healthy, never been any concerns and is very rarely ill.
He’s never wanted to eat meat and is a committed vegetarian. Never been an issue round at friends houses or parties either.
So I think you need to look at what food there is rather than what you can’t have. Or depending on your reasons for being veggie look at higher welfare/quality meat and just have it much less frequently. The vegetarian society is a great source of info for nutrition.