I've been a vegetarian for seven years and when I started I was squarely in the "a lot of people who try out a vegetarian diet with a strong predisposition that they will suffer negative health consequences" group.

You know how sometimes you get that sinking feeling like you know something you don't want to admit? Well I kept getting that sinking feeling like I couldn't be fully creative, or fully useful to others while still eating meat. It was the weirdest intuition to have, but after trying to ignore the feeling or suppress it for four weeks, I finally decided to try cutting meat from my plate. It wasn't motivated by animal rights or any external causes or anything like that, but I assumed that if I was meat-free any longer than one month I'd be in the hospital on an IV, emaciated and worn thin; malnourished.

I committed to being meatless for one month, after which I would re-evaluate and almost certainly renege. I was hoping the physical toll it would have on me would quell the stirrings of my subconscious like some sort of sick penance, so should the thought of eating meat ever reoccur I could be satisfied that at least I had tried…

Only two weeks into my plant-based diet I felt that same feeling as when you first put on your glasses and everything around you becomes less hazy. It was like a fog had lifted, and to my surprise I began to require about two hours less sleep each night. I was in college and it was a busy season so I could really make good use of those two new hours in my day. At the end of that first month I had to ask myself: "You've been feeling better than ever, would you sacrifice TWO waking hours in your day just to eat meat?" So I committed to stay meatless until the end of the semester. Once summer began, I would go back to meat if I wanted to.

Well I'm in my eighth year of learning to live with a plant-based diet and I'm still enjoying the vibrancy and diversity I can find within it. The surprising things for me are how it has led me to grow as a person in ways I'm very sure I couldn't have grown while I was still eating meat! For some reason eating meat wasn't just blocking time from my day planner, it was blocking understanding in other ways too. I became a lot more patient with others, and a generous person. After two years my feelings changed and I felt healed in a lot of ways. I have also learned a lot about self-control (as with any form of asceticism I imagine) because whenever I doubt my willpower over an issue I have a ready example of daily discipline from which I can draw determination. Everybody should have something like that in their life, and for me it's my diet. I have also grown to appreciate animals and what they provide to us (which includes food and clothing, companions, workers, and even family members to some) in a way I was barred from appreciating while I was so caught up in focusing on enjoying animals after they were alive.

I really recommend that everybody abstain from eating animals for a period of time to help them appreciate them greater. It's perfectly possible to survive (and thrive) without ever requiring the death of an animal to sustain you, so each time you choose to do that it comes at some cost to you (the price of the food) and a much higher cost to that animal (death). Be grateful, and be very grateful you were born into a species that's not farmed the same way because that's rare on this planet ;) My only dietary advice is eat for both long-term health and short-term enjoyment!