So, it alllll started with this crazy woman in Sam’s club talking about how she went vegan and lost all of this weight instead of taking these pills that make you lose weight. My mom was buying a pretzel with salt and butter, her favorite. She recoiled as she stuffed the plain butter-less, salt-less, soul-less pieces of bread into her mouth.
“I stopped eating all of that.” She puffed. Mom shrugged enjoying every bite she ingested.
She then followed with a story about all of these documentaries about different ways you can change or better your diet for good health. All in all this conversation ended up being a half an hour long. As we were bidding our goodbyes after what seemed like a lecture, she reached out her hand. “WAIT!”. She yells. I walk back to her. “You must watch the documentary Forks over Knives!” I smile and tell her it is on Netflix and will hop to it. I had seen the documentary’s cover numerous time while perusing the different films, movies, and series on Netflix, but never clicked it. I also wasn’t serious about watching either.
Well, I did watch Forks Over Knives and I loved it! They spoke about caloric density and how in society today we eat high calorie, low nutritional food which fuels our obesity epidemic. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong about eating animals now and then, but I know how plant products are essentially always better to health even more so than lean meat. Even though, if you must eat meat, lean is the way to go. 
I talked earlier about how I should eat better for autoimmune and health reasons and not for vanity here and this just happened to be brought to my attention! Nice! I enthusiastically told dad to watch it since he suffers from high blood pressure, a sweet tooth and is vain about his physical appearance. (He goes to the gym 6 days a week for two hours at 4:30 am. AH!) Much to my excitement and disbelief he watched it! The problem was, he wanted to go vegan. Like, realllly vegan.
Now I’ve talked about going vegan here before. I would love to become vegan but I just love eggs and cheese and butter way too much! Dad, however, was convinced. He was enthusiastic. He was vibrant . He was ready to roll. He dared me (begged me) to go vegan with him just to try it out. My heart dropped. No more pizza or cheese or omelets or my go to comfort food of macaroni and cheese! No more late night munchies with friends after a night of going out. OUCH. I grimaced.
Five days on and two days off was my offer. Six days on, one day off was his. We shook hands like gentlemen. “5-2-6-1!” He yelled as he pumped his fist into the air. We walked downstairs to the pizza my mom and I had ordered prior to our knowledge to dad’s new found veganism. He walks into the kitchen and gasps.
“I’ll start tomorrow,” He laughs as he dives into the thin crust cheesy heaven.
I guess I am going vegan and what a better way to help out my disease than a vegan challenge? Hey, it just might stick.
We are obviously doing a partly vegan-inspired diet/lifestyle for health reasons in lieu of political and ethical reasons though our food choices would help the political and ethical side fractionally. (Hey it is better than not helping) So, while we are cutting out a good chunk of animal products, we are not being extreme. Yes, we will eat table sugar. Yes, we will eat some jello. Yes, we will drink some alcohol that isn’t deemed vegan.Therefore, we are flexitarian vegans. Here is a chart I found on the web that helps! Flexitarian is not included. Other information can be found here and here. Also more vegan stuff here. Here is a NY times article that is good, too! So much info!
UPDATE: So far it is going well! Mom accidentally made fish cakes for lunch, but it is all good! We shall see how day 2 goes. The challenge isn’t hunger. It is finding a variety of things to eat. Oh well. No slip ups yet! *knocks on wood*