Guest Post: Becoming a Vegetarian

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As you may know, I eat a mostly-vegetarian diet. Personally, this is partially due to the ethics of eating meat, and largely due to the fact that my body functions better when I eat less meat.

I realize that eating a vegetarian diet isn’t for everyone. Just as my body doesn’t perform as well when I’m eating meat, some people feel like they function better when they do eat meat. Today, Maria shares with you her reasons for being a vegetarian.

Today’s Guest Post is Brought To You By: Maria of Real Fit Mama

Hi SavvyEats readers! My name is Maria, but you might also know me as RealFitMama from my blog by the same name. I am honored to be a guest poster on SavvyEats.

I grew up with a pretty Southern family. Everything we ate was meat-based and either fried or covered in gravy. Not the healthiest diet for anyone, but especially for someone who gains weight very easily! By the time my oldest daughter was born I was weighing 200lbs on the dot and I’m only 5 feet 5 inches!!

I became a vegetarian about 7 years ago while living in Portland, Oregon. Everyone there was either a vegetarian, vegan or somewhere in between! I learned a lot about healthy living and green eating while living there. I began to notice that there were all these fit looking people and none of them were eating meat. What could this mean? Does it mean anything? Why can’t I look that fit??? I started asking questions…”If you don’t eat meat then what do you eat?”

Being a vegetarian doesn’t mean that you have to sit down to a plate of salad every night. Or fill a bowl with sawdust type cereal in the morning. It means something far better than that. It means that we get to sit down to amazing grain and vegetable patties baked in the oven and then served on soft and chewy whole wheat bread buns with unbelievably creamy cheese and other tasty condiments. Yes my friends I get to eat ‘burgers’ just like you do, but mine don’t come from an animal. I get to eat vegetables made in the craziest and unexpectedly great tasting ways…braised cucumbers, grilled eggplant, oven roasted asparagus, and so on.

I have to admit when I first became a vegetarian I didn’t know if I would be able to keep it up. My family is NOT vegetarian and has no desire to EVER be vegetarian. Some even give me a hard time and tell me it really isn’t the healthiest choice for all these crazy reasons. Anyway – I knew it was going to be tough, but then I read a book by John Robbins called ‘Diet For A New America’ and it completely changed my life. Within the first few pages I found every reason under the sun to stay on this meat free journey for the rest of my life. I knew in those beginning paragraphs that my children would be raised vegetarian. I knew my life had changed for the better.

Now, 8 years later here I am – still a vegetarian and healthier than I have ever been.

If you aren’t ready to make the switch or know you never will, but want to try it out (what I call ‘flirting’) once in a while that is a fine idea
too. It does nothing but help your health even if you’re only doing it occasionally. Try the “Meatless Monday” idea or make one or two dinners a week vegetarian.

Thanks, Maria, for the great guest post!

Tagged as: Vegetarian