Groovy Vegetarian

Compassion Lifestyle Blog (with eco-friendly fun mixed in)

How I Became a Vegetarian

How I Became a VegetarianThis is a guest post written by Dee Barizo. He writes for Net Business Blog and The Eaton Web Blog.

Coming from a Filipino family, it seems like a miracle that I became vegetarian. I loved meat. Filipinos are meat eaters. It’s just part of our culture. But through some circumstances, i’ve been vegetarian for the last 10 years.

I ate meat for the first 18 years of my life. I loved meat. I loved the smell. I loved to grill and barbecue. It is amazing what I was eating back then. I would go to burger joints all the time. I remember going to Burger King regularly and eating three whoppers for lunch. That’s pretty crazy because I was only 110 pounds back then. And three whoppers is over 2000 calories! Now I don’t even eat that much in a day.

During my senior year in high school, two of my best friends who were also big meat eaters both became vegetarians at the same time. They decided to try it for health reasons. After a couple of days, they told me how much better they were feeling. I asked them about their meat cravings. They told me they had them but they just exercised self-control for a couple of weeks and the cravings went away. I thought “wow i can’t believe my friends are vegetarians” i watched their lives and they did seem healthier. I was a little bit jealous. They didn’t get as tired when they played sports. They didn’t feel sluggish and tired during the day. They slept better. One of them used to have bad body odor. But that went away after a couple weeks of not eating meat. At that time, i was active physically. I played sports a lot. But even then, i would get sick often and felt sluggish all the time. Also, i struggled with depression and excessive worrying.

So, I decided to try becoming a vegetarian. It was very hard at first because my whole family was eating meat. However, i wanted to give it a try for a couple weeks to see if I would be healthier. I made myself not eat meat and told myself that my body would just have to get used to different foods. After the tough first week, i started feeling better. I slept better. My mind seemed clearer. After meals, I didn’t feel like I had to take a nap. I didn’t feel as tired during the day. I had more energy and these benefits continued and improved as the weeks went by. Finally, after about 30 days, because of all these benefits, I decided to make vegetarianism a permanent part of my life.

It’s amazing that the human body can adjust to food changes. I remember accidentally eating meat. Someone had told me it was veggie meat. However, when I tasted it, I could tell the difference and it grossed me out. I used to love cheese. But I made my body eat vegan cheese over animal-based cheese for an extended period of time. Now I can’t stand regular cheese and i love vegan cheese. The same thing happened with milk and soy milk.

Vegetarianism has helped me keep my weight under control. I’ve become a lot more health conscious. I now watch my calorie intake and fat grams. I drink more water. I’m close to being vegan. Eggs are still hard to give up. I’ve become more involved with taking care of the environment. I carpool as often as I can. I use rechargeable batteries. I try to conserve energy and water. And I realize that vegetarianism helps preserve our planet.

How did YOU become a vegetarian?

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