My lovely close friend Alex, who I traveled to Europe with, challenged herself to try a vegan lifestyle for 30 days after her 2-year pescatarian journey, and her passionate experience was so inspiring that I wanted to do a small fun interview with her to get some of her personal amazing insights!

The Interview…

Listening to her thoughts was AMAZING and the whole goal I was learning about was not just for the societal effects (from watching the “101 reasons to go vegan” youtube video) but also for that fact that she was working towards a more sustainable lifestyle and her passion for the environment!

The adjustment was somewhat difficult, having to pay more attention to ingredient lists with unspecified vegan items and feeling guilty for small mistakes. It’s hard to challenge yourself and start such a specific goal without the addition of disappointment for making mistakes. I think in our daily lives, self-support is so important and for hard-workers, it’s difficult to not be hard on yourself when you’re used to reaching so high for achievement. We have to almost think of it in perspective that we are training ourselves through life, to be the best version of ourselves, but in order to grow, we have to learn from our mistakes and move forward.

Anyways, going back to the interview, although there were a few hiccups, Alex was feeling like her skin and gut health were benefiting and after long days, she was feeling more energized. Everyone reacts differently to change, however, I was learning that as she shifted with her eating habits, she was almost automatically leaning towards more whole, fresh products with a lot of health benefits. I’ve read some really interesting articles about eating more plant-based, and I’ve noticed that automatically, cravings for more fresh nutritious foods become routine. Balance is key and you always should feed your cravings, but it’s interesting to see what development comes out of these small changes.

I asked her if she would continue to grow with this lifestyle and I was so inspired by her answer. Working towards 85% is what she is currently settling at, and I love how she put it into the perspective that being labeled with this title was never her true moral because with some social standards these days, labels can be hard to work with, but creating her own unique lifestyle and following the passion to be more sustainable and friendly with habits is something that she accepts which has taught her that it’s okay to make mistakes with this, that everything allows more learning to happen and setting small goals are way more achievable than putting all this stress to be perfect right away. Especially since we are both going into university, it’s quite noticeable that vegan options are actually pretty expensive, and as we all know, first-year students may not be fully equipped for independent spending.

Now for a small piece of advice, RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. and this honestly goes with everything. Sometimes our gut feelings can lead us to jump onto a new goal quite quickly and it can work out for the best. Alex really stood by this motivation to research prior to beginning something so unpredictable and it shows that she is so positively impacted, she’s grown adapted to this amazing journey and she’s still learning as she goes and that’s an amazing position to be in with so many possibilities of achievement.

Also, one of the biggest motivators she taught me was to JUST DO IT. You never know how you’ll adjust or react or think unless you try it and it is such an eye-opening experience that you’ll be surprised by your ability to work with self-rising goals.

One of my favorite things she said was she couldn’t wait to be on her own in the city buying what she wants and just living life.

It’s the small swaps in little food options that can start to allow you to learn whether you like this type of lifestyle and for Alex it was switching her milk to plant-based and slowly moving away from extremely lean meats, and towards tofu and other protein options that lead her to shift more towards this type of lifestyle and soon enough she was ready to start fully incorporating the shift.

And yes, you can still have your ice cream (Righteous is AMAZING) and chocolate (which is actually vegan but you have to find the right company).

Have an AMAZING WEEK, don’t forget to choose kind:))))