Green Vegan! :)

     It's official, I've decided to become a 100% Vegan! :) And I'm super excited about it, and slightly overwhelmed too...  The truth is I've been a vegetarian for 23 years now, so you'd think the switch would be easy, but to give up eggs, dairy and fish all together is a little tricky at first.  And then there all of the products I use, like lip balm with beeswax and the leather shoes I own...  Then again after learning about the horrors animals are encountering for my leather shoes, I'm happy to stop purchasing them.  This is going to be a bit of a process, and yet I'm excited to go there and make a bigger difference in the world and in my own health.  The truth is that's where this new journey really started, with health.

     Someone who I love very much has been battling cancer, and she too has recently decided to become a vegan to assist her in this fight.  It's interesting, it was actually my brother (the die-hard red meat eater) who first suggested she try it.  My brother also partially pushed me too years ago to become a vegetarian when he would moo as I ate the cheeseburger in my happy meal.  Of course he wasn't doing this for my health, he was doing this to upset me, and it worked.  I realized I couldn't eat animals anymore, I loved animals too much.  As I got older in high school (much to the horror of some of the republican meat eaters in my family) I began to learn more about animal rights and write letters to congress and picket outside my local McDonalds in protest.  I was active in other issues effecting our planet as well and pushed for recycling laws spending my free time teaching elementary kids how recycling actually worked.  I was very active for a while, but the truth is I just got tired of fighting.  By the time I graduated from college although I still had my beliefs, I stopped publicizing them.  It seemed whenever I told people about my choices I was annoying or upsetting them.  I even got so sick of defending my choice to be a vegetarian that I just started telling people, "I just am one".  As if I was doing it for no reason at all.  I had stopped "up-leveling" as my genius acting biz coach Dallas Travers would say, and I wasn't "walking my talk".

     I had started doing all this research on becoming a full vegan to support my loved one and be healthier myself, turns out being a vegan can save the planet and maybe save you from cancer.  The thing is, the more I researched the more I realized I needed to also go back to my true values.  It's not just about health for me, and I do want to help save animals and our planet, and I want others to know how they can help too!  I'm ready to walk my walk and live within my values! I'm ready to up-level and be vegan! :)  And as I go through this journey, I'm going to share everything with you right here.  And of course I'd love to hear from you and any advice you might have for me :)