Lifestyle changes are the most difficult ones to make and one of the biggest lifestyle alterations that anyone can make voluntarily is to become a vegetarian. Frequently people find it easier to become part of a support group when attempting lifestyle alterations; think of Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers or giving up smoking. Joining a support group can help the novice vegetarian too.
The advantages of being a member of such a support group are many, yet some of them are encouragement, advice and friendship. You may not require the friendship, but you may like to socialize with other vegetarians so that you can see how they deal with eating out and basically simply fitting into a society designed by and for meat-eaters.
However, whether you intend giving up your old friends or not, you may find yourself gravitating away from them after a while quite naturally. Remember the old expression: 'Birds of a feather flock together'? This is quite standard.
You will have problems substituting something else for meat; you will become worried that your diet is lacking in some nutrient; you will be wondering which restaurants serve truly vegetarian food and lots more.
Your newly found support group friends will become a great source of encouragement and advice in this sphere. You may not like the concept of a 'vegetarian support group', but you could just as easily join a vegetarian dining club or vegetarian cookery group, the impact will work out the same - you will learn and you will make new friends.
If you have difficulty locating such a group by the standard methods of your local Yellow Pages and an Internet search, try going to the local community centre, where there may be yoga classes - a couple of the attendees will be vegetarians that you can ask. Or go to you local health food shop and ask there Likewise you could enquire at a martial arts club or a Hindu Indian restaurant. If all else fails, you could begin your own club.
If you organize your own club, find a sympathetic bar or restaurant that will cook your meal suggestions for that night at a reasonable cost. After a time, I am sure you could build up a nice little club of twenty people and the landlord might let you have your own room to dine in once a month like the Masons.
If you think that this is too much in the early days, you could simply set up a blog. A blog is an interactive web site, where you and others can post relevant knowledge. If you keep the name of the blog relevant to your town and vegetarianism, you ought to find that other people looking as you once did will find you, whereas you found no one. Once you have built up a circle of local, on line vegetarian sympathizers, you could suggest meeting once a month in the flesh and take the dining idea from there. An advertisement in the local paper would help too.
About the Author
Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several subjects, and is currently concerned with quick vegetarian recipes. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our site at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.
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