Over this summer I decided I was going to try to be vegetarian when I got to college in an attempt to be a little healthier and more easily avoid the freshman fifteen. It’s been a month now and I feel nothing but positivity for this lifestyle change.

I am completely aware that eating meat is a healthy part of a regular diet and I have eaten meat for the entirety of my life, I took meat out of my diet because my taste includes exclusively and solely of burgers, hot dogs and bacon. Essentially all the meats that are awful for your health. Living as a college student in a dorm, eating from dining halls, I have unlimited access to these meats and knew if I didn’t take restrictive measures against myself it would result in not only the ‘freshman fifteen’ but more like the ‘freshman thirty-five’. So trying out vegetarianism and not allowing myself to eat these things is simply cutting out an area of junk food in my daily life.

So far I would definitely recommend vegetarianism to a like college student wanting to lead healthier eating habits as long as they make up for lack of protein and iron in other foods available to them. I have been getting protein shots in my smoothies, and eating protein bars before class, as well as eating lots of kidney beans and salads. I’m a big promoter of apples and peanut butter, sunflower butter or almond butter; stealing apples from the dining hall is part of my daily routine by now. When you can’t eat meat you learn to get creative hitting all your food groups in the dining hall- and due to that while all my friends are sick of school food, I feel like I have so many more things to try!

I really thought this adjustment would make finding food to eat much more difficult than it actually is. On a college campus everywhere is so accommodating it’s easy to find food you like and can eat within your diet. When you leave campus most restaurants are accommodating since vegetarianism has become so popular along with celiac and veganism, there are usually alternative options other than just a salad (because who wants that all the time). Ocean port towns that serve nothing but fish sometimes are trickier menus to figure out but most certainly not impossible.

The thing I love the most about being a vegetarian, other than having a super cool fun fact, is that it’s entirely my choice, my decision, my rules that no one can take away from me. No one is going to force me to eat meat if I don’t want to, and if I go out for sushi with my girlfriends and wanna call it a cheat day and order the most elaborate special roll on the menu, no one is going to stop me. Because I control my own diet and have all executive powers over what I eat.

Although some see vegetarianism as pretentious and ‘hippie-lifestyle esque’ I think people forget all of the endless reasons to exclude meat from a person’s diet that aren’t “animal lover oriented”, and for those reasons the hippie stigma should be dropped. I love being a vegetarian but I am the last person anyone would call a hippie.

I highly recommend trying out vegetarianism, or any new diet style for that matter. I am so happy I made this decision before beginning school and feel overall like I’m living in a healthier and happier body because of it.