I never thought about vegetarianism for most of my life. I just saw everyone around me ordering ham sandwiches at the deli or eating hot dogs at a cookout, or whatever, and, well, I really never thought a thing of it. I never even wondered about why someone would be a vegetarian. I never knew one.
That changed when a friend of mine was trying to lose some weight and came across a book in a health food store by a guy who advocated fasting. My friend said that this author advocated vegetarianism too. He went on the author's program, and lost a lot of weight. I began to wonder, "what was this all about?"
Out of curiosity one day when I had some time to kill I went into a health food store we have over in the next town. I checked out the books. I was surprised to see that there were a lot of books on vegetarianism, including John Robbins' book Diet for a New America. I bought it and read it straight through. That book is incredible. I was pretty much blown away by it. Now, I'm a vegetarian and couldn't conceive of differently for myself.
I have a pretty much run-of-the-mill office job in accounting. Life for me begins after 5 p.m. After work, I may head over to the Greenpeace offices where I volunteer some of my time. Or I go to the park to work out on my bicycle. I recently learned to ride the unicycle and actually find myself riding it more than my regular bike.
I heard that a lot of famous athletes such as Carl Lewis and Andreas Cahling are vegetarian. I have learned that as long as a keep the junk food and processed food to a minimum, and eat a variety of mostly whole foods, I really have nothing to worry about nutritionly on a vegetarian diet. And I am sure that a meat diet could in fact be bad for me. I do know that I feel better now that I am a vegetarian. I actually can tell the difference!