First step to becoming a vegetarian: DO NOT PANIC. You will not starve.

Quitting meat cold turkey (ha-ha, I laugh but I never understood that phrase) was one word: weird. One day I'm living my life on top of the food chain as a carnivore, the next I'm eating plants. I remember my first meal after my transformation - I stood in front of my refrigerator for about 10 minutes (the timer thing to help you not eat the whole fridge kept beeping and it even turned the lights out on me, so rude) trying to think of something to eat - no such luck. Then I checked the freezer then the cabinets and pantry. All of a sudden I was freaking out because that annoying little voice in the back of my head (mine sounds like a 3-year-old sucking helium - yeah that bad - her name is Sophie) was telling me I was going to die of starvation.
Well, clearly the toddler who inhabits my brain was thinking irrationally. Because about 15 seconds after my mini panic attack I regained control of my brain from Sophie and realized my options were limitless.
Meat does NOT make the meal. Let me repeat this, meat does NOT NOT NOT make the meal. And it never should but that's how we Americans were raised  and look at all the good it's doing us - we're the fattest country on the planet! Go us! Maybe if we didn't go around eating food called "the double-down" or "the big-n-tasty," our average waist sizes would be slightly smaller. Maybe if people fed their kids more veggies instead of taking them to McDonald's three times a week or plopping them in front of the TV with a plate of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets (and wait, why are they shaped like dinosaurs anyway? They should be shaped like chickens - maybe kids would be weirded out and not eat 'em), then we wouldn't have 350 pound 4-year-olds. End rant about American obesity. 

Anyways I realized as I progressed on my newly found vegetarian journey that there are so many different options when you remove the meat from a meal. There are meatless "meat" options from Morning Star and Boca. There really is more vegetables then meat options and vegetables aren't cute and fluffy so it's a win-win.
After about a week, I was not starving myself - I was actually able to eat more than before because I didn't have the heaviness or calories of meat in my body. I felt lighter and healthier and I honestly felt like a different person. I felt like who I should have always been.  I wanted to hug a tree but most of all I wanted to hug my sister because without her I would have never taken the next step to the rest of my life.






**On a smaller side note that I can't help but mentioning: today at the Cafeteria at school they were serving "london broil." They were cooking it on the huge grill they have and all you could see was red stuck to it. I'm assuming it was blood, it could have been barbeque sauce but it looked like blood. I originally traveled over that way because I saw they had tater tots and I love those, yum. But then the feeling I experienced in my tummy was so not yum, nausea can't even begin to describe it. All I could think about was those poor little cows just burning there on the grill. It may sound crazy but I was half tempted to jump on over there and rescue burning Bessie. But that would be irrational. So I pictured it happening, smiled to myself, closed my eyes and half-blindedly got my tots (which btw, weren't that good).