I'm Vegan!

Today is the first day that I begin my journey as a vegan. Last night was the first time it really hit me. No more milk, no more cheese, two of my favorite things in the world. I don't think I'll have a difficult time without meat but the milk and cheese are going to be tough. Good thing I had a ton of cheese and crackers at my Oscar party (and by party, I mean me and my parents sitting in the living room watching the Academy Awards together eating snacks and drinking wine/beer).

I have even decided to not buy any clothes until I have lost the appropriate amount of weight...which I expect will happen in the next month or so. I have already lost 2-3 pounds just by adding a few vegan meals into my week.

I think the hardest thing for me will be finding all of these foods. I went shopping on Sunday for my meals for the rest of the week and ended up spending quite a bit of money (and time), so I'm nervous about the overall cost. I hope that I can find brands that are reasonable, and honestly, I don't know if I'll be able to use Alicia's cookbook for most of my meals. She has a lot of ingredients that I found to be quite expensive. For example, she calls for non-dairy chocolate chips. The only non-dairy chocolate chips I could find at my local grocery store were vegan and $10 for the bag. I might need to check out Whole Foods, but that might be even more expensive...at least they'll have more options.

One of the things I had a hard time finding was maple syrup sugar. I have decided to cut out white sugar and white flour as a part of my going vegan, so Alicia uses this maple syrup as a substitute for sugar...but I couldn't find the granulated form.

So I have a few meals planned for this week:

1) Spaghetti with meat sauce. This meat sauce is made with Smart Meat, which is basically vegetables. I looked for tofurkey, but my local grocery didn't have it. I also noticed that this Smart Meat had egg white powder, so I'm not sure what that means, but I can't imagine it's vegan. I'll have to look for a different brand.

2) Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew: This recipe comes from Alicia's book and sounds DELICIOUS! She adds a lot of spices to her meals, which I happen to have already.

3) Risotto with Oyster Mushrooms, Peas, and something else that I can't remember: Another recipe from Alicia's book.

I will also be making the peanut butter cup dessert that Alicia has in her book, and I've heard that they are amazing! I'll be making those tonight!

For breakfast, I've been having my usual Shredded Wheat with soy milk. Lunch will be Thai Kitchen (not Simply Asian like I thought) rice noodle bowls. They're only $1.65 for each bowl and super tasty! They keep me full until dinner, which is rare.

I do need to keep an eye on my soy intake. With all the new studies, they've found that soy has been linked to thyroid issues.

Ok. Day 1 being vegan, action!