Well, I am happy to report that I met my goal. I remained a vegetarian for the entire year of 2015!

Let me tell you how it went.

The first three months were the toughest. I wasn’t feeling too good, and my stomach was adjusting to the changes in my everyday diet. I also felt hungry, a lot.

After that, months three through six were not too bad at all. I had a check-up with my doctor, and blood-work done. My levels were great, and I was starting to feel better. My digestive issues were gone too, along with heartburn, and any acid-reflux.

The following three months were good. My usual stress-ocular-almost daily migraines were gone. I tried more vegan dishes, and made lots of tasty vegetarian dishes too. Cooking was actually fun again.

The last three months of the challenge were a breeze. I stayed a vegetarian through Thanksgiving and Christmas. I closed out the year with a tasty dish. Even the kiddos were happy that I met my goal.

Here is the good, the bad, and the very strange during my year as a vegetarian.

The Good: Cooking became fun again. My stomach troubles, and digestive issues went away completely. I didn’t use a single tums or pepcid once in 2015.  The coolest thing though, is that my migraines almost vanished. I still have the monthly “horomonal” ones, but the everyday stress ones are completely gone.

The Bad: This one is one of those bad, but good, but well hmmm things. I lost five pounds right off the bat, but only kept off those five pounds for the entire year. Weight loss wasn’t a goal of mine when I decided to stop eating meat, but I was a little surprised that I didn’t see a little bitty bit more drop off. I also had really weird dreams of Christmas Hams, and Agnes force feeding me Chicken Taquitos. One more thing, I now have a zero tolerance for fried foods. My Doctor says that a great thing to cut out anyway, but now I can’t eat anything that involves the fryer.

The Strange: Want to have a complete stranger call you a weirdo, tell them you are a vegetarian. Want to have a close friend say that you are crazy, tell them that you are a vegetarian. Want to anger relatives who bring meat to family get-togethers, tell them you are a vegetarian. I think I isolated myself from just about everything with my stint with vegetarianism, but my stomach loves me more now, so it was well worth it.

One of the best things was getting back into cooking. My family tends to be a, well, a little picky. Like they will only eat about four dishes. That causes a bit of a rut for me in the kitchen. Going vegetarian gave me new dishes to try, new recipes to learn, and it was really refreshing. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Roasted veggies with Pasta. This is a great clean out the fridge or see what’s in the freezer dish. You can even throw in some already cooked Chickpeas to roast along with the veggies for a little added protein.

Call it Veggie Goulash, or Veggie Chili Mac, I love it with extra Okra!

Vegan Veggie Pizza! O.k. this is the one dish that scared my eleven year old the most. He was afraid that if I could turn pizza into a vegan dish, then everything else would be vegan too. The tiny ones tried it, and they really liked it. I make the dough from scratch, and no milk, eggs, or butter is involved. This vegan pizza also didn’t have cheese or a sauce, just late-season Summer veggies. It was delicious!

Homemade Potato and Broccoli soup with fresh Homemade bread. I love soup, and well my family doesn’t. It doesn’t keep me from making a giant batch and having lunch ready in the freezer for weeks.

Now that we are in January I have remained a vegetarian. I just haven’t wanted to eat meat or fish. As for the future, I think, I’m going to remain mostly vegetarian. When I’m cooking at home, I’ll still prepare vegetarian meals for me, but I’m making take-out an option to order off the regular menu. There aren’t enough veggie options around in my neck of the woods. We’ll see what happens though, I’m feeling pretty good right now, so I don’t really want to change it.