I’ve been vegan for about a month now (depending on when you’re reading this). So far, it’s been easier than I thought. I’ve had a few moments of temptation, but I’ve never thought about throwing in the towel and giving it all up- and I’m really proud of myself.

I’ve had the usual bacon craving – that’s to be expected I think. I’ve also craved cheese and eggs a lot. I freakin LOVE cheese and eggs. Not being able to eat them makes me sad sometimes. But then I think about the process in which eggs are produced and what cows have to endure so that they can produce the milk that is used to make the cheese…. then I’m not sad – at least not for myself.

I’ve learned several lessons so far about how to stay on track, but the biggest lesson I’ve learned so far is to plan. Like the saying goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

Since it’s been fairly easy more me to stay on track, it may not be for everyone. So here are a few tips to help anyone who’s struggling to stick to a vegetarian or vegan diet:

1) Remember why you’ve made the commitment: This is to keep you motivated. Food is all around us and advertisements from companies are there to constantly convince us why we should eat it. So it makes perfect sense to constantly remind yourself why you should stick to your commitment.

2) Research Constantly: I’m always reading articles and blogs, watching documentaries, and getting advice and info from vegan friends about everything vegan-related. This keeps me informed – and that is key. How can you effectively stay committed to something you know nothing about? The answer is, you cant. This will also help to remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing. In the end, you’ll be able to inspire others to make the commitment if they’ve been struggling too.

3) Plan your meals: This is so important! It’s really easy to cheat when you have excuses. The biggest excuses you can have are that you don’t have time to cook, you don’t know what to cook, or you can afford to cook healthy meals. Yes, those are excuses. You can! You just have to plan it out. Planning leaves no room for error or vulnerability.

4) Cook your own meals: This goes without explanation. You can control the ingredients, which ensures that you’re eating the right things and healthy amounts. Take time during your evenings, mornings, and/or weekends to cook for other days of the week.

5) Surround yourself with encouraging people: They don’t have to be vegetarian or vegan, as long as they support you in your lifestyle, keep them around! Many people get defensive when you tell them you’re vegan. Some actually try to convince you that veganism is too extreme and that you’re crazy for taking such an extreme approach. If you have people like that in your life, you’ll want to limit or eliminate that discussion – at least until they become more open-minded. You don’t have to cut them off, just don’t talk about it with them. You can even tell them that you’d rather not discuss your eating habits with them because they make you feel unsupported.

6) Actively search for recipes: This is extremely helpful! Nowadays, you can find recipes on Instagram and Facebook, in addition to blogs and cooking web sites. This makes it fun and exciting instead of a chore.

7) Be happy about your decision: This may sound like common sense, but it’s easy to get discouraged. Eating in restaurants can be particularly discouraging because most places aren’t vegan-friendly. This is why it’s important to stay educated. Most places will have a veggie burger on their menu, so you can ask them to leave out any meat, dairy or eggs and you’re set. Also, most places will have burritos or fajitas. Same thing, eliminate the dairy and meat and you’ve got a meal. The key here is to be happy because you’ve always got options – as long as you educate yourself and have fun!

As I learn more, I’ll definitely share what has helped me. I encourage anyone who is thinking about adopting the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle to start by educating yourself. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, educate yourself. Google is your friend! Stylefreeblog is your friend! Instagram is your friend! Kikistylingfree is my IG name and I post tons and tons of vegan recipes and information. Facebook is your friend!

Here are a few names that are Google-worthy:

Vegucated
Forks Over Knives
Vegan Starter Kit
Earthling
Food Inc.
Food Matters

Good luck!

xoxo

xoxo

Are you hungry? Need a snack idea? Do you have 10 minute or less? Perfect! I’ve got a quick and super-simple snack recipe that you will love – and it’s vegan!

Zucchini Crudi

Tools:
Mortar and Pestle
zest

Ingredients:
1 zucchini (preferably organic)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
Fresh Parley
Fresh Garlic
Lemon
Sal de Ibiza (pure sea salt with no additives) *You can substitute with another sea salt (like Sel Gris) but be sure to use pure sea salt.

Directions:
1) Chop the parley and garlic. Put ingredients in the mortar
2) Zest the lemon and add it to the mortar. Add the salt to the mortar
3) Crush the parsley, garlic, lemon zest, and salt to a fine mixture
4) Slice the zucchini into 1/2 inch rounds
5) Place the zucchini on a plate and drizzle with the EVOO
6) Sprinkle the salt mixture over the zucchini and olive oil

And scene! That’s it! It seems almost child-like, but the key to this meal is the fresh ingredients and the mortar and pestle. You need quality ingredients like the Sal de Ibiza salt, EVOO and organic zucchini. Also, the use of the mortar and pestle allows the flavors to marry together beautifully.

Try it and you’ll be hooked. I promise!

xoxo

“We like to be with some, because they’re funny
Others come around when they need some money
Some you grew up with, around the way
And you’re still real close too this very day

Friends
How many of us have them?
Friends
Ones we can depend on
Friends”

– Whodini “Friends”

Can I be honest about this subject? I’m a bit of a flake. I love my friends, and for the most part I try to spend time nourishing our relationships as much as possible. But you know that one friend who is always down to go out for some drinks or to go shopping or whatever, but ends up canceling at the last minute (via text)…. yea that was me. I’m guilty and I can admit it now because I’m not like that anymore.

In my 27 years of life, I’ve had many “friends” and have learned to identify the different types almost immediately. In an effort to better myself, and maybe help a few folks take a look in the mirror and do some self cleansing as well, let’s play a game! I call this one…

What kind of friend are you?

“The Flake”

This is the friend who you can always count on… to cancel on you – at the last minute – via text – and pretend like it never happened. SMH. It can be easy to be angry with the flake because you feel like you can’t count on them, but they have good intentions. The flake doesn’t mean to cancel all the time, and they almost always cancel via text because they feel bad it. So if you are the flake, I have two words : do better. Otherwise, your friend list will be quite thirsty this year.

“The Gossip”

*deep sigh* This is the friend who only (or mostly) calls to talk about what’s going on in everyone else’s life, and it usually includes information that was told in confidence and not meant to be shared. Now I’m not judging, because I’ve had my share of “tea sessions”.
*Note: a “tea session” is a conversation between two people where one is actively sharing information (about someone not currently involved in the conversation) that is both personal and extremely entertaining (i.e. hot like a freshly brewed cup of tea) and the other is actively listening and providing detailed feedback on how they feel about the news. We’ve all been there. If you’re the gossip, just remember that what goes around, comes around. Positively speaking, when you’re spending too much time talking about what’s going on in the lives of others, you’re neglecting to take care of yours – and end the end, it makes you look bad. You ever heard that saying, ” If someone talks about others to you, they will talk about you to others”?

“The Hot Mess”

The hot mess is always, I repeat, always complaining. If it’s not about a man, it’s about money – or lack thereof. This person is a hot mess, simply because they always complain about what’s going wrong in their life and why it’s someone else’s fault. They usually make Facebook statuses about how men are dogs or about how they are “doing them”. If you are the hot mess, please get yourself together.

“The Situation”

The situation is the friend who only calls/contacts you to brag or to complain – that’s all. This friend usually hits you up on only two occasions: (1) when something good happens to them or (2) when something good happens to you. They got a promotion, they’re going to Vegas, they bought a new car, etc.

Don’t get me wrong. You should be happy for your friends when things go right for them (otherwise you’re the hater – more on this later). But when they ONLY call to brag about their good news and don’t bother to ask about you, then that’s a problem. Or they call when they find out something great happened to you, only to complain about how EVERYTHING is going wrong for them. Seriously? Who does that?

“The Hater”

I don’t even need to go into detail about this friend. They always have something negative to say about everything! This person has some serious personal issues to work out. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been the hater at one point in our lives. Women especially tend to hate on each other for some reason or another. I think it’s because society perpetuates competition among women. Whatever the case may be, my advice would be to stay away from all haters. It’s just not a good look on anyone.

“The Grinder”

This is the friend who is always working on a project, or finishing a project, or about to start a new project. All they talking about is how they are in “grind mode”, or they “stay grinding”. Usually, it’s an illusion. Honestly, it’s been my experience that people who are actually “grinding” don’t have time to talk about how they are always “grinding”. #foodforthought

“The Illusionist”

This is the friend who make it seem like everything in their life is perfect and nothing is going wrong whatsoever. Period. The job is great, the boo is on point, the kids are perfect – everything is fine. Come on now! Life is full of ups and downs, and it’s perfectly fine to struggle every now and again. This friend has some serious control issues. If you’re the illusionist, let me let you in on a little secret. Your friends know that you are faking it.

“The Magician”

This friend is the one who disappears for weeks at a time and then magically pops up via a phone call or text and acts like nothing is wrong. If I had a dime…. seriously. And when you do hear from them, they usually have a long list of reasons why they disappeared (i.e. school, work, kids, significant other). Been there, done that. If you are the magician, please please stop disappearing. It takes two seconds to send a text at least.

“The Frenemy”

You know who this friend is. On the outside their your bff, but in real life they spend all their time trying to be better than you. They want to dress better, make more money, have more things, pretty much get more attention. But they need your acceptance to be happy. I’ve always been confused by the frenemy. I just don’t understand how someone could genuinely want to be your friend while at the same time put so much effort into being better than you. These types of people need Jesus and Oprah.

I think I”ll stop here for now. Did you pass the test? Are you one of these friends? I know I’ve been a few of them at one point or another in life. it’s human nature.

Although I listed these all in good fun, I am a firm believer in positivity and personal growth. Life is too short to take your friends and family for granted. Cherish the people in your life, because you never know when you may take your last breath. Each moment we let pass by is an opportunity to sew a seed in someone’s life.

What will you do with the time you are given and the people who are in your life?

xoxo

I must admit, I used to hate zucchini. I’ve only had it one way – boiled with salt and pepper. To be honest, it was absolutely disgusting, but it didn’t make me a veggie-lover.

I think it was more of a texture thing. Zucchini tends to get mushy in the middle where the tiny seeds are, so if you cook it for too long (which isn’t long at all), you have a hot mushy mess.

But the vegan in me has been determined to find ways to love all kinds of veggies. Insert my Food Network plug. If you know me, or read my blog often, you know I pretty much only watch the Food Network channel. One of the chefs prepared a zucchini crudi that looked simply delicious. I tried it and loved it – but I’ll share that recipe later.

I’ve been on a french fry kick lately, but the pretend culinary artist in me decided to kick up my usual potato recipe for a veggie fry. This is how my zucchini fry was born.

Want to know how to make it? Read on baby. Read on…

Fact or Fiction?

- Zucchini are an excellent source of Vitamin C
- Zucchini are rich in folate, potassium, and Vitamin A
- Zucchini contain beta carotene
- Zucchini have a high water content – more than 95%

Akia’s Zucchini Fries

Ingredients:
- Oil (Canola or Vegetable)
- 1 Zucchini
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Chickpea flour
- Cayenne Pepper
- Lemon Juice

This recipe is more about technique than ingredients.

1) Pour enough oil in a skillet to fry the zucchini quickly. Set to high heat
2) Wash and cut the zucchini similar to the shape of french fries
3) Drizzle, I repeat, drizzle a little of the EVOO onto the zucchini. You only need just enough so that the flour can stick to the zucchini
4) Mix the flour with the cayenne pepper then toss the zucchini in the chickpea flour
5) When the oil is hot, use metal tongs to put the zucchini fries in the oil
6) Fry for approx. 2 to 3 minutes. The zucchini should still be firm but the flour coating should be golden brown
7) Remove the zucchini from the oil, drain on a paper towel, then salt and squeeze lemon juice on the fries

Now, these bad boys are no substitute for traditional french fries. But if you want to explore zucchini, have at it! You’ll be happy you did!

xoxo

Nutritional facts source: I googled “Zucchini”

Did you miss me? I’m back with another green smoothie. I call this one “Something New”. I literally looked in my fridge and freezer and challenged myself to add new ingredients to my morning drink – and thus Something New was born.

Sadly, I don’t have measurements, so you’ll have to play this one by ear. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine!

Something New Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

Strawberries – high in Vitamin C and Flavonoids that help to reduce inflammation and strengthen blood vessel walls
blueberries – full of antioxidants, free-radical fighting machines
Peaches – Get their color from beta- cryptoxanthin that specifically helps to lower lung cancer risks
Mango
Apple – rich in fiber (as long as you keep the skin on)
Carrot – loaded with beta-carotene (that’s converted to Vitamin A in the body) which is essential for healthy eyesight
Kale – Full of beta-carotene
Honey – Known as the “food of the gods”, it’s anti-fungal and anti-bacterial
Ginger – An effective digestive aid, it combats inflammation, and reduces pain and swelling
Lemon – the acid helps to break down waste in the kidneys, and calms gas and nausea
Spring Water

Instructions: Blend, drink, grow muscles, lift a truck off a baby, be sexy

- exactly in that order

xoxo

Nutritional source : Reader’s Digest Food Cures