I became vegan on December 2, 2016. I made the choice because I have multiple sclerosis. I am secondary progressive multiple sclerosis which means I continue to get worse slowly over time.  My symptoms vary and are more or less severe depending on the day, however it’s never great. I decided to go vegan to eat healthier, lower the inflammation in my body and to see if I’d feel any better. This is what I’ve found so far.

1. You have to have food cooked and ready in the refrigerator. Otherwise your stuck eating a pretty bland unfulfilling diet of brown rice and beans. I have yet to figure out how to throw these items together, quickly, to make a yummy meal. However now I cook some yummy simple meals. Something I didn’t do prior to this. I do things in stages because I fatigue easily with MS but I have help from my daughter. Btw she’s not vegan.
2. Salad dressing must have some form of oil. My aim is to be plant-based, as the forks over knives program represents, but I can’t take all that balsamic vinegar based dressings. I actually hate it. I also am not a fan of the salad so without a good dressimg, I find it difficult to eat. I therefore have found vegan mayonnaise products to make dressings with. Personally I’m loving the thousand Island dressing. https://multipleexperiences.org/2017/03/03/vegan-thousand-island-dressing-in-my-aerogarden-salad/
3. You can gain weight being vegan. You have to watch the added fat and sugar in foods.  Originally when I first started, I ate a lot of meals from Veestro, a delivery company of vegan foods http://Www.veestro.com. The meals are really good, but there is a lot of fat in some of them. Once I started cooking, I took off some weight. However because I can’t always cook, these meals are always on hand but now I check the nutritional labels.
4. Look at menus before you go out. This one was a big one for me. I needed to be prepared when dining out. I learned to look at the menu first, so I knew what I was going to order. I was prepared and knew I could eat something at a restaurant as opposed to eating a side salad.
5. Dont listen to everyone’s opinion. I’ve heard a lot, “what can you eat?” Or “Isn’t it hard?” “I could never eat like that?”, “Does this mean you’re never going to eat meat again?”, “I don’t know what they’ll have for you there, you may have to just eat a fish for the night!”  I’ve heard a lot of questions, statements, questions that sound like annoyance. Don’t listen. Do what you feel you want to do.
6. Too much sugar causes my face to breakout . I’ve found a vegan bakery near me that is pretty good. They make yummy cookies. Vegan desserts are loaded with sugars. Just because something is vegan, doesn’t make it calorie free. Too much sugar causes my face to break out. If I eat bread that isn’t a multigrain bread and is made with sugar, my face breaks out.  I guess I get an instant identifier that there is too much sugar in my diet.
7. It’s great for my digestive tract. One of my bigger multiple sclerosis problems was my issues in the bathroom. I wasn’t able to go without laxatives of some sort. I had an appointment with a GI doctor because of the issues I was having. Since becoming vegan, this problem has been fixed. I haven’t used any laxative. I go regularly. It has been my best reward of going vegan, that’s how bad my issues were. This alone will continue to keep me vegan because this alone has been the most amazing symptom reliever for me.