Plant-based Lifestyle – A Step By Step Guide

The winter… khm I mean summer is coming. You need to be in good shape, right? The bikini season is standing on our doorstep! So maybe this is the best time to switch to a plant-based lifestyle! 😉

As I said in my previous articles, going plant-based makes so much easier to lose weight! In this article, I won’t use to the term vegan so often, because I believe the plant-based phrase means more in this context. If you follow a whole food plant-based diet, you do yourself a favour and help your body to heal. 🙂

But I understand how hard it is. Giving up on meat, dairy and eggs? Some people would rather die… I hope they won’t, especially if they switch to a plant-based lifestyle. And remember, I am here to help you guys! 🙂

WHAT DOES PLANT-BASED LIFESTYLE MEAN?

For me (and for a lot of people) it means that we only eat plants and mushrooms (they are not plants!). So we don’t eat anything that comes from animals, including their flesh and offal, dairy or eggs. I wrote about this more detailed in my article about what can’t you eat on a vegan diet.

On the other side a plant-based lifestyle consist of eating healthy whole foods that are plants or made from plants (stay away from processed foods!). Eating a variety of plants and the balance is the key here.

Let’s see now how can you go plant-based!

Step 1. Figure out your WHY

It is probably the most important step you should take on your journey to a plant-based lifestyle! Why? Because you must know why are you doing this or else you will fail.

There can be a lot of reasons. For example:

• you love animals and you don’t want to eat them,
• caring about nature and environment,
• wanting the best for your body and mind,
• you are allergic to milk or you get sick from meat,
• you want to try out something new,
• or you made a bet with your friends that you can’t stay vegan for a month (and you really want to win!) 😀

Anyway, you have a reason and you should focus on that. If you are just curious it might be not enough. For me, the main reason was my health and after I found out the truth about the meat and dairy industry and what meat and dairy does to our body, there was no other choice, I must have become plant-based.

Now that you have a proper reason let’s move on step two.

Step 2. Do your research

This is also a very important step, because you can’t go plant-based if you don’t know what you are doing. Good news, you are doing step 2 just right now, reading this article!

When I started my journey (more than 1 year ago), I was stuck at this stage for a couple of months. I read so many articles and books, watched a lot of videos and documentaries, but it was all about learning and talking about what I learned and I didn’t do anything. Well, I started to eat less meat, but I still ate dairy (a lot of cheese) and cakes made with eggs…

It took me 6 months to become fully vegan, and another 6 months to switch to a whole food plant-based lifestyle. And I am still learning!

I share this with you, because I don’t want you to feel stressed and worry about it. It is okay, you can take your time, there is no need to rush. But if you are ready to move on to the next step, keep reading.

Step 3. Find something that you can cut out first

For me, it was meat, because I found this the most disgusting animal product and I thought if I stop eating meat I don’t have to pay anyone to kill animals… Well, it’s true and it is a good thing to do, but if I could start again, I wouldn’t choose to cut out meat first.

Why? In the beginning, when I stopped eating meat I was still at stage 2, reading articles and studies about why meat is bad for us, but I didn’t know how to replace it properly. I was eating a lot of junk food like vegetarian pizza with 4 types of cheese and I felt so sick after consuming it!

If I wanted to eat “healthier” I simply ate a salad (with lettuce, carrots and cabbage) for lunch with some dairy-free dressing, but it contained eggs. It wasn’t really filling and not so nutritious either… Of course, a couple of hours later I was so hungry that I started to snack (it was chocolate or yoghurt with chocolate balls). Other times I ate a lot of pasta with pesto (from Lidl) and of course, cheese. Can you imagine how many calories they were? There were days when I ate over 3000 calories! No wonder people said I gained weight…

What I suggest to start with

Another reason why I say not to start with meat is the protein. If you don’t know how to get enough protein on a plant-based diet, you should start with an easier one.

It could be eggs or dairy. Maybe leaving eggs it’s easier, at least for me it was because I never liked them (it should have been a sign! 😀 ). The next articles will be a series about replacing animal products. Tell me in the comments below that which one (meat, eggs or dairy) concerns you the most!

So if you start with egg for example, you should pay attention to the following:

• you can’t eat more scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs or omelettes,
• when you buy pasta or noodles go for the egg-free ones,
• you have to say no to cakes made with egg,
• no more batter-fried foods,
• no more mayonnaise,
• ice cream can contain egg too,
• salad dressings or creams are not your friends either,
• or anything that says it contains egg on its label.

What is egg, really? It is the ovule of a hen, something similar happens when a human female ovulates. This is how hens reproduce, but if you want to eat their egg, you don’t need baby chickens, so the eggs became unfertilized. But still, it comes out from a chicken’s butt, bon appetit! 😉

Read this article and you won’t eat egg again in your life!

What if you want to go dairy free?

It is also a good start if you are lactose-intolerant. You should not consume milk and dairy products at all.

If you go for the lactose free version, that is not good enough, because lactose-free milk still contains a lot of harmful ingredients… So you need to get rid of it enterily!

You can do this too step by step. If you drink milk or cook with milk, first replace it with some kind of plant milk like soy milk or almond milk (this is my favourite for oatmeal) or leave out if you can.

Next, you can leave other dairy products like yoghurt or kefir, sour cream. Meanwhile, you can try some plant-based alternatives like this one from alpro.

And I know, here comes the chocolate problem, and ice cream, and everything that is sweet and contains dairy. Oh, gosh, this is so hard! How could I ever give up on these?? This is what you think, right?

But the truth is that you can live without these! You still can eat sweet and delicious treats and cakes and even “cheesecake”! And you can make these at home, easier than you would think. 🙂 Do you want me to share healthy sweet treat recipes with you? 🙂

And as a last step, forget cheese!

Yepp, I am serious. Just. Don’t. Eat. It. Simple. And so hard, because you can’t imagine a life without cheese, can you? No more pizza with cheese, no mac&cheese? What if I say that you can eat these too as a vegan? Here is my confession:

I never had mac&cheese before I went vegan. Sounds funny, right? 😀 But it is the truth, and I can tell that vegan mac&cheese is really delicious too! 🙂

So you can replace dairy cheese with vegan cheese. I am not saying that is healthy, but definitely healthier because it has no cholesterol and no addictive ingredient… My favourite brand is Violife. 🙂

Step 4. Invest in some main ingredients

Your next step should be preparing for your new lifestyle. This means that you should buy some type of foods like whole grains, nuts, legumes and seeds.

If you are not eating animal products anymore, you should replace them and you should eat more fruits, grains and vegetables. The best thing you can do to buy organic fruits and veggies from a farmer’s market. If you can’t do this, just buy your plants where you usually buy food (for me this is Aldi, I think it is one of the cheapest stores available in Europe/UK).

If you can, buy in bulk, you will need it anyway and it is cheaper this way.

What do I always have in my pantry?

• rice (white, brown, basmati or jasmine)
• pasta or noodles (I like whole wheat or gluten-free, but you can buy durum, just make sure it doesn’t contain eggs)
• quinoa (white or tricolour)
• lentil (green, brown or red)
• spices (smoked paprika, paprika, garlic powder, mixed herbs, basil, thyme, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, chilli flakes, black pepper, rosemary, oregano, turmeric, curry powder, cumin)
• rolled oats (gluten-free)
• chickpea flour
• peanut butter (sometimes almond)
• rice cakes
• onions (I mostly use purple, but white onions are also good)
• garlic
• sweet potatoes
• potatoes
• canned veggies (chickpeas, kidney beans, lentil, chopped tomato)
• canned coconut milk
• nuts (almond, hazelnut, walnut, peanut)
• plant milk (soy, almond or coconut)

What do I have in my freezer?

• mixed frozen berries (you can buy these in Aldi or Tesco or basically any store)
• green peas
• sweet corn
• broccoli
• veggie mix
• sometimes frozen bean patties

This is a quick list I wrote for you guys, would you like to read a detailed article about this topic along with pictures about my pantry? Maybe a beginner’s shopping list with stores and prices into your inbox?

Let me know in the comments below! 🙂

Step 5. Be prepared for the change and take it easy

As you switch to a plant-based lifestyle and diet your body and your mindset will change. Don’t be surprised if you feel distention in your stomach, it is because you eat more fibre and legumes than you used to before.

Or maybe you will start to lose some weight. It can be a good thing if you are overweight, but if you have some kind of eating disorder please consult with someone before you change your diet!

I wrote about these changes and the benefits of a plant-based diet in my previous articles. I recommend you to read those as well! 😉

The key thing here is to be easy on yourself. There is no need to rush anything, take your time. You can do this gradually, step by step. Celebrate every step you take, because you are doing great! Just by reading this article! (Anyway, thanks for reading! 🙂 )

Step 6. Replace every animal product with plants

You are almost there! You successfully left out one or two types of animal products from your diet, now it is time to make the last step and live a fully plant-based lifestyle.

How to do it? Find your favourite non-vegan meal and change everything to a plant-based alternative.

Disclosure: Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a small commission. Keep in mind that I only recommend products because I love them and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. You will buy the product(s) on the same price, and the decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Maybe you like hamburgers, but it has beef, cheese, pork and sometimes eggs in it. No worries, you can still eat burgers (actually vegan burgers are one of my favourite meals), just change the ingredients. Fortunately, a lot of brands make veggie quarter pounders or patties. There are tons of options to choose from or you can make your own. (I am still experimenting with a bean burger recipe, I will share it with you when it is ready.)

Or the tofu makes a good scramble, and you can use chickpea flour to make omelettes. Visit my Instagram page for more ideas!

Let me recommend a really good book for finding vegan alternatives! It was a game-changer for me, it is very very helpful and includes a lot of recipes as well! You have to own this one! 😉

Step 7. Find a supporting community

I saved this for last, but you can start with this one if you like. What is important that you have people around you, who have the same interest, who are already living a plant-based lifestyle so they can help you with anything. Don’t be afraid to ask, no matter how stupid do you think your question is… It is not stupid!

There are a lot of Facebook groups, just type in the city/country where you live and the term ‘vegan’. And then join these groups, follow the conversations and ask if you need information. 🙂

Quora is also good for answering/asking questions. You can search for the topics that you are interested in. Or just start an Instagram account if you don’t have one already. Follow other people who are vegan or plant-based, and get daily inspiration! 🙂

As I told you this before, I am here for you. Write me an email, send a dm on Instagram, I will reply. 🙂 I know that this journey is not easy, it has its ups and downs, and maybe sometimes you want to give up. When it comes to that, text me!

Good luck guys! You are on the rigth path! 🙂

Share this article with those who need it! 😉

Love,
Suzie