A Little Experimentation

Several weeks ago, I ordered a new book. It's shares a name and an author with the the very popular blog No Meat Athlete. I've been reading Matt's blog for the past several months and, as I started reading the book, felt inspired to give vegetarian eating another shot. I gave it a shot about 6 months ago but didn't make it past a week, mostly due to poor planning. This time, I'm prepared.

The first section of the book gives some basic guidelines for getting started and then Matt says, "Okay, put the book down and get started; Once you've done that, come back and read the rest." So, that's what I'm doing this week: getting started.

Yesterday, I bought a Nutribullet. It works SO fast - takes hardly any time at all to have a great smoothie full of fresh ingredients. My recipe needs a little work but it'll get better.

Last night, I planned my meals for the week and made a shopping list. Today, I went to Wegmans and filled my cart with the ingredients for breakfast smoothies, vegetarian cassoulet lunch, and grilled cheese sandwich dinner. Clearly, I'm not going vegan.

Here's the cassoulet:

It looked better the last time I made it but it still tastes good.

Next week is going to be a challenge because I'm at a work retreat for three days but I'm not going to think about that now. For now, I'm going to focus on the week right ahead of me.

How many of you out there are vegetarians?
What prompted you to move to a plant-based diet? 
What advice would you give to someone just starting out?