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Todays show is the first in a 6 part series on my: 6 Step System To Becoming Vegan and Living A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term.

It’s also a “veganising” of the system I designed many years ago to effectively lose fat (and GAIN a fit, strong, healthy body) by getting your mind working for you and making your best eating and exercising actions simple and sustainable.  

Regrettably I’m learning the ethical compulsion to not exploit animals is not enough for most people. In fact prominent “ex-vegans” make painfully clear how easy it is to see the suffering we humans inflict on animals and then to conveniently UN-see that very same suffering.

How can you ever UN-see?!!

Fame worshiping, social media intoxicated ex-vegans deserve no more air time. I want to turn my attention to the omnivore who is vegan curious, the vegetarian who suspects there’s more to dairy and eggs than pervasive marketing portrays, the struggling vegan or plant based eater.I’m here for anyone who has decided they no longer want to contribute to animal exploitation and yet are fearful, overwhelmed and confused as to how challenging the steps to take might be.

If you saw a documentary like Dominion and went cold tofu on the spot you’re rare and this information might not be for you. It could well be of value to someone near and dear to you though!

The 6 steps are: Define. Align. Eliminate. Educate. Strategise. Prioritise.

Today I’m going to focus on: How To Define Your Goal To Become Vegan and Live A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term.

It sounds deceptively simple right? If it was, the stats on people who do stick with a vegan lifestyle long tern wouldn’t be so incredibly heart-breaking. I get it. Anything we’re excited about starting we’re tempted to just launch into.

As much as I want every single person to just launch into a vegan lifestyle, if doing the groundwork in advance means you’ll stick with it longer (like forever!) then I want you to move a little more slowly.

What you need to do to do first is to define your goal. To get super clear on exactly what you want, how it looks and feels.

AND so much more importantly what does living that healthy vegan lifestyle – potential having that body, that health, that energy and I would say that congruency between actions and beliefs / ethics allow you to experience?

Consider, what you are missing out on right now? Or perhaps what does having that body / health / energy / congruency / Freedom mean you no longer have to experience? What can you gratefully let go of and how will this impact your life?

To get a little more specific, I could say: “I want to live a healthy vegan lifestyle.” However it means so much more than that. We’ll dig in with the “How To” component soon however first for anyone who might already be thinking “this sounds like a bit too much effort” please let me explain…

Why taking the time to first define your goal and second pack it with emotional intensity is so vital.

The fact is anything worth achieving is going to take work. Either work to achieve or work to maintain or most likely both.

You will face challenges (number ONE your non-vegan loved ones). You will feel fearful (main-stream media, big animal agriculture and sadly governments work very hard to feed your fear). You will feel frustrated (why on earth is the more compassionate way of living so often portrayed as extreme / undesirable / selfish?

Yes, you’ll likely be bursting with motivation and discipline initially however that will wear thin AND it will run out if you let it.

The daily actions you’ll take to Become Vegan and Live A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term are simple yet not always easy. If you don’t have a clear goal and a compelling reason to achieve that goal then I guarantee it’ll be way too easy to slip into a stop, start, inconsistent routine or quit on those daily actions as soon as your discipline gets tested and your motivation wears thin. Let’s get specific…

How to Define Your Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Goal? I have 3 steps for you:

Step 1: Your goal needs to be PRESENT TENSE, PERSONAL and POSITIVE.

So it’ll follow the format of: “It is… and I am…”

Whatever follows “I am” needs to be how you want it to be. Never what you don’t want. There is no value in focusing on “no longer addicted to cheese and scared of causing tension at family meals” as you’ll only attract more opportunities for non-vegan-cheese (!) and UN-fun family meals.

Something like this: “It is 19th December 2019 and I am living a fit and healthy whole foods plant based vegan lifestyle and confidently rockin’ my fav pair of jeans.” or whatever resonates with you. We’ll dig in much deeper with how this aligns with your values and beliefs in Part 2: How To Align Your Goal To Become Vegan and Live A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term. For now let’s stick with the Define aspect…

Step 2: Define your evidence procedure and implement a tracking process to hold yourself accountable.

You’ve got to know what success looks like. Perhaps you rocked those favourite jeans 2 years ago and that’s exactly what you’re aiming for. Maybe you know what it’s like to be in a natural meal planning, food prepping and exercise routine with animal product based meals and you want to achieve that same level of focus, results, food joy and fitness via a vegan lifestyle? Spoiler: YOU CAN!!!

It’s also fine if you haven’t been there yet and can’t imagine it. It just means you need to put the energy into sourcing an example of how you want it to be. Someone who has what you want. Someone you can model. You can look at what they do and implement the actions that can fit congruently into your lifestyle. If you’re not willing to make the sacrifices they make or as I see it, keep the priorities they keep – that is absolutely fine too HOWEVER you’ll need to adjust your goal accordingly.

There’s no wrong or right way to track your progress. The main thing is you want to choose something that supports your success and gives you reference points for success. Personally I like to track the daily and weekly actions that will deliver the results rather than only measure the results. We’ll get to this daily and weekly actions in step 3.

In contrast to the disheartening “Death by Scales” taking the right actions will always deliver a result.

If it takes a little longer than you would love, then at least you get to enjoy the positive reference points when you track the actions you complete AND be encouraged to build on them rather than get pushed off course by a disappointing weigh in.

Step 3: Action based goals.

The frequency of these actions will vary, it’s dependant on…

1. Where you are with your goal right now.
2. Where you want to be.
3. How quickly you want to get there.

Here’s a rough guide to start with:

DAILY:

=> Get enough sleep: specifically get to bed 7 hours before you need to get up. (or how ever many hours you need for an effective, efficient day).

=> Eat a nutritious, satisfying, whole food plant based breakfast, lunch, dinner. This means planning your meals the day or meal before. (if you’re a snacker plan them too). I cover some of my regular G2Meals in both my Free 3 Day Easy Vegan Plan and my 5 part blog series:

Low Carb High Protein Vegan Meal Plan. (Part 1) 

Low Carb High Protein Vegan Meal Plan. (Part 2) 

Low Carb High Protein Vegan Meal Plan. (Part 3) 

Low Carb High Protein Vegan Meal Plan. (Part 4) 

Low Carb High Protein Vegan Meal Plan. (Part 5) 

=> Exercise: move your body 30 minutes or more each day.

=> Plan your day to come: work, food, exercise – taking 10 minutes in the evening to plan tomorrow means you’ll have a more proactive, productive day making it easier to make time for that meal prep and that exercise.

WEEKLY:

=> Start the week to come fresh. If this means leading a slightly less exciting social schedule after a crazy busy week then it’s worth it. Take that sleep in or prioritise an early night. You can only demand and demand and demand of your body for so long… it’s a short term strategy.

=> Block out 3 or more hours to shop for and cook meals on mass so your daily meal planning is achievable. Because it’s such a non-negotiable in my routine I’ve written and podcasted a lot about meal prep. These are a few previous shows:

464: How To Prepare Quick And Easy Yet Still Natural And Healthy Plant Based Meals.

435: 4 Ways To Make Meal Prep Easier.

532: How To Make Meal Prep More Fun.

=> Complete 6 exercise sessions of 30 minutes or more including at least 2 weights sessions.

=> Plan your week to come: work, food, exercise and if you have important commitments that clash with normal training/food prep times, then lock and load alternate appointments with yourself.

The number of times I hear “I couldn’t do it because I had (insert excuse you choose to prioritize over exercise or food planning here)” is crazy. It’s GOT to become “I couldn’t do it then so I did it then instead.”

If you’re looking at my guidelines thinking you don’t have one 3 hour block plus 30 minutes a day then, it’s not truly about time it’s about priorities: How Important Is It?

What next?

It’s over to you… and you know that means the time of the actionable.

First it’s time to define your Present Tense, Personal and Positive Goal.

Second, to define your Evidence Procedure and commit to a Tracking Process.

Thirdly, to set some achievable Action Based Goals.

In show 603 I’ll be back with Part 2 of my 6 Step System To Becoming Vegan and Living A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term which is possibly my favourite and the most impactful AND the most applicable (part of these versatile 6 steps) to a specifically vegan lifestyle. We’ll cover: How To Align Your Goal To Become Vegan and Live A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term.

Aligning the actions you need to take to achieve any goal with your most important values and beliefs is the part of the process that just makes everything natural and non-negotiable. You can make it work whatever your values and beliefs are however heads up YOU HAVE A HUGE ADVANTAGE if you want to adopt a vegan lifestyle for ethical reasons.

If your initial incentive to become vegan is your health, or the environment or any of the other near limitless reasons to adopt this lifestyle you 100% can however I have a strong suspicion (based on many conversations with new and old vegans) that with time the ethical component will become more and more important to you irrespective of your initial motivation. Anyway, that’s for show E603 and prior to that I’ll be back in E602: with Alex Lockwood to discuss his BAFTA award winning short film 73 Cows.

That’s it for today in Healthification. Huge thanks to YOU for hanging with me today. I respect your time and I appreciate your support!

The Healthification podcast is proudly bought to you by my FREE ‘Easy Vegan’ plan. It took me 25 years to transition from a meat eater to a happy, healthy Vegan! You can do it in just 3 days with  my simplified ‘easy vegan’ plan!  Get the fit, strong, and healthy plant based body you deserve… while avoiding ALL the mistakes I made along the way!

Till next time, remember Creating a body and life you love is Freedom. (If this ex-carb queen, non genetically gifted, naturally uncoordinated vegan chick can do it – so can YOU!!!)

If you liked “6 Step System To Becoming Vegan and Living A Healthy Vegan Lifestyle Long Term” you’ll also like: Vegan Lifestyle Fears And Benefits

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