Progress Not Perfection

Holy cow! I only have 10 days left of my month as vegan, I cannot believe it! It has been surprisingly easy to keep up with. The changes that I've seen in my body the past few weeks have been amazing to me and I feel so great! I didn't think I would notice such a difference and I definitely see myself sticking with it. The only times I really had issues was when I was hungover and craving a greasy cheeseburger, or yesterday when I drove past Casa di Pizza, my favorite place for pizza and wings. But alas, I made it through.

I have tried awesome new recipes with some of my friends over the past few weeks and they've been so delicious! We've done vegan pizza, vegan pad thai, chocolate covered strawberries among other recipes that I've tried on my own. I would definitely continue to eat this recipes even after the month is over.

I've avoided dining out for the most part in the past 20 days which has been difficult for me since I'm always running around and unless I bring meals with me from breakfast until dinner, I won't make it through the day without stopping somewhere. One extremely frustrating thing I've run into is going to a coffee shop, restaurant, etc., and the employees working don't know what is in the food that they're giving out. If i ask whether you have vegan products or if the products contain milk or egg, I would hope you know or could point me in the direction of where I could get that information (or maybe that's just who's been spoiled with Wegmans my whole life). Online forums have been a huge help in this department as many people have struggled in my position before me and have thankfully posted about the vegan options of many restaurants online.

As much as I would like to think that I truly ate 100% vegan the past 20 days, I'm sure there were things that I ate that I wasn't aware of that weren't vegan but it all comes with the territory I think. But I know I've definitely made progress and that's all I can ask for in this learning process.

And for those of you who are still not convinced of the lifestyle I have chose, please read the following:

#1 for my own health, #2 for the environment

On another note...There is nothing quite like a good run. The feeling of setting a goal for yourself and getting up and meeting that goal feels awesome. I've come a long way already, I think, in my half marathon training and I'm excited to continue training. However, I've found myself super bored on the treadmill (the day has finally come). I know of others (Kari & Mariya) who have said they can't run on a treadmill because it gets boring and its not the same AND NOW I TOTALLY GET IT! I enjoy running outside so much more and have so much more success on my runs when they're done outside. Now if Buffalo would get out of the single digits already, my runs outside would be absolutely perfect.