A helpful guide on how to go vegan

Veganism is a topic that attracts more and more attention and interest around the world. If you’re new to the whole concept but intrigued and willing to give it a try, you’ll probably wonder HOW to go vegan. Where do you even start? It’s easy to feel completely overwhelmed at first. We’ll provide you with some useful tips that can help you through your starting phase.

Feeling lost? Embrace it!

If you decide to go vegan you’re up for a dramatic lifestyle change. This can be incredibly overwhelming and you might feel lost, puzzled and alone. For some people, drastic change is easy but it totally depends on your personality and there is nothing wrong with feeling bewildered in one way or the other. In fact, you should embrace it.

This is a great opportunity to get to know yourself better. When you first considered going vegan, you probably had a certain expectation of yourself. Of how it would feel, how hard or easy it might be for you. Maybe your feelings totally surprise you now. If you feel, it’s a lot harder than you thought, don’t get discouraged. It’s a learning curve. And most of all, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Oops, I slipped! Should I throw the towel?

In your first weeks or months of being vegan, the odd mess-up can happen easily. Maybe you accidentally consume a non-vegan product or maybe you give in to some intense craving for your favourite foods you used to eat. If this happens, do not beat yourself up! This does not mean that you have failed. And it certainly doesn’t mean that you can’t just carry on (trying) to be vegan.

You have to be especially mild with yourself during the first 4 to 6 weeks. According to evolutionary psychology, it takes around 30 days for your brain to “forget” about the pleasure of a specific item. Let’s say, you used to have a non vegan steak every other day, your brain will make you think about it automatically in the same interval.

However, the human brain is very efficient. If you don’t have said steak for several weeks, it will be “out of season” for your brain. Your grey matter is clever enough to move on and refocus on whatever then is “in season”. So, yes, if you slip, the season is fully back on, and it will take weeks again to forget about it. But these things happen and it’s always a good lesson.

How to go vegan? Stay motivated – Reread and re-watch your most impactful sources

It’s not only about how to go vegan, but also about how to stay vegan. If you feel that the lifestyle change is super difficult for you, or you continuously slip back into old habits, it’s easy to throw the towel. If you feel like you’re about to give up, go back to square one. What first inspired you to try out a vegan lifestyle? Reread or re-watch anything, that motivated you in the very beginning. And dig further from there.

Maybe you like specific vegan influencers or follow plant-based physicians. Just keep exposing yourself to the educational or anecdotal contents. You’ll quickly see that the learning never stops. Really, not ever! Even after years or decades of being vegan, there is more to learn.

How to go vegan? Step by step or from 0 to 100?

An aspect of how to go vegan is the type of change you’re planning to do. Are you going to approach your vegan lifestyle step by step or are you going from 0 to 100 over night? The vegan community definitely has no consensus here.

Many people who are vegan for the animals won’t understand how you can just “reduce harm” instead of eliminating it. After all, you know being vegan is the right thing to do and it’s also your personal goal.

They do have a point, of course. And here it would be very important for the vegan community to try understanding each other. Being a step-by-step-vegan you certainly don’t want to be attacked for your approach. If someone does attack you, try to ignore it and try to understand where they’re coming from.

And those over-night-vegans should definitely be more tolerant towards people who are actually trying to become vegan, even if it’s just a step-by-step journey. Nothing will be achieved if vegans and vegan-aspirants fight each other.

Therefore, you do you. Choose your own speed but with a clear goal in mind. You’ll get there eventually, maybe sooner than you thought. Once around three quarters of your meals are vegan, going to a 100 % will feel so logical and easy.