My veganism was not exactly a choice. When I figured out that animal products were the cause of so many of my medical problems, I wasn’t sure I believed it. I had always consumed dairy products, being an avid cheese lover my entire life, and there was never a week that went by where I didn’t eat at least one cheeseburger.

So when I realized that I would have to go at least one month without any dairy or meat, I nearly cried. There was no way I could do it. Say goodbye to milk and cheese? How about no. Give up my quest to eat at every cheeseburger place in America? Not happening.

However, I really didn’t have a choice. So with a jug of almond milk in hand, I began my journey into a world I couldn’t imagine.

The first week I only ate three cartons of strawberries, two bags of grapes, four bags of pretzels and five cartons of vegan soy yogurt. Food prep each night consisted of an hour of cutting up the fruit, filling Tupperware with yogurt and hating my life.

“That’s all you’ve brought for the past three days, did you run out of everything else?”

“I have to be a vegan now.”

“HA THAT SUCKS!”

While my lunch table laughed at me daily, another friend decided to take a different approach to the situation. After driving out to the biggest Kroger we knew of, we spent more than an hour looking through the entire ‘Live Naturally’ section picking up every item off the shelves and in the freezers to inspect the ingredient lists. We ended up filling an entire cart with more than $100 worth of food to start my new diet.

My bitterness toward my diet soon turned into the passive aggressive answers I gave everyone who asked me about my diet.

“So does that mean you don’t eat anything but vegetables?”

“Absolutely. Because there is nothing you can eat besides vegetables that doesn’t have meat or dairy in it. Absolutely nothing. Not a single food item.”

“So is this permanent?”

“Nothing is permanent. Everything’s relative, even time. We are all just floating through the void.”

After the first two weeks of my lifestyle change I slowly began to get over the anger I felt at first. I never thought I would be OK with being a vegan, but it slowly became easy, almost natural. The only problem I ever had was when my brother decided to order a steak and eat it really dramatically in front of me.

While I’ll never say I don’t miss meat, I’ve come to accept that I’ll never have it again. I’ve come to accept the lack of cheese and ‘real’ ice cream in my life, and I’ve gotten to the point of not caring that I’ll never have an actual cheeseburger again.

I’m not saying being a vegan is easy; it’s far from it. From explaining why you have to spend ten minutes looking at the menu at every restaurant, to trying to figure out how to tell new people I’m a vegan without being judged so highly, it’s not exactly a walk in the park.

Do I miss animal products? Short answer, yes. Long answer, only when I’m confronted with the choice of a bacon burger or a salad and it’s difficult to choose. On a day to day basis I’ve come to terms with my new diet and have learned that not everything we have to do is easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be impossible.

So to those looking for advice on becoming a vegan: It’s going to seem hard. You’re going to realize that you eat a lot more meat and dairy than you thought. You’ll see that animal products are everything and you’ll think your only options are vegetables and fruits.

However difficult you think it is, however little you think you can eat, it’s going to be OK. You’ll find foods you love, and a few you hate. But in the end, it won’t be as bad as you originally thought.