Hi friends!  Hope your weekend is already off to a great start.  My what a busy busy week it was.  So glad the weekend is here now!

One year ago today, July 24, my sweet hubby agreed to go see “Food, Inc.” with me and a couple of our friends.  I told him before we went in that I thought it might be something that would strongly affect me, but neither of us could have known the understatement those words would really  be.  And that the BBQ chicken sandwich I’d had at lunch that day would be that last time I’d be eating chicken, among other things!

It’s been a year chock full of veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts, fermented teas, and so much more with an occasional egg or piece of fish or a little raw goat cheese here and there.  What a wild and adventurous ride it has been so far!  I have tried foods that I would never have even considered before or known about if I hadn’t needed to “find an alternative” for our typical meals, especially when eating out.

Like some of these awesome eats…

Delicious Vegetarian Enchiladas with Carrot Puree at Tres Margaritas:

Beautiful Berkeley Vegan Pizza from ZPizza (where I also discovered dairy free Daiya cheese!)

Fabulous Falafel and Hummus Plate at Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill:

Tasty Three Beet Salad at Root Down:

The best Quinoa dish I’ve ever eaten (at Boulder Organic Pizza):

And that’s just a few!  I could go on all day (but then I might start drooling on my laptop…!)

My tastebuds definitely thank me for the change I’ve made!  If I’d still been eating meat when visiting the restaurants above, I would never have even known about these delicious dishes.

Yesterday I decided to pay it forward, so to speak, by giving the DVD to a coworker who seems close to making similar changes.  I hope he finds it just as life-changing as I did, especially in the culinary sense.

Am I trying to change people’s minds or get them to give up meat?  Not at all.  I just want people who are considering cutting back on meat and animal products to see that when it comes to the question of “but what’s left to eat if I don’t eat meat?” the answer is “a heck of a lot of fun foods!”

I’m looking forward to what the next year will bring!

– Shari B. =)

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If you’d like to read more on how I eat, you might enjoy these previous posts:

Shari Becht is a Fit Living Coach and an ACE Certified Personal Trainer offering coaching services to people across the U.S.  She is extremely passionate about teaching her clients how to start making small changes every day to their own lives, built around steps customized to fit their needs.

If you or someone you know could benefit from Shari’s coaching, please feel free to email her at shari [at] fitfeat  [dot] com.  For more information, click here.

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