Veganizing your wardrobe? Surprisingly easy.

Making your bathroom more animal-friendly? Not quite as painless, but on a scale of one to ten (one being “I could do this in my sleep” and ten being “I would rather be submerged in a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese and forced to watch Ghost Dad“), it’s about a three.

Welcome to the next step, the pinnacle, the boss level: veganizing your diet. This is where things get real. (Kidding. I just like to sound like a douchebag sometimes.)

FOOD

There are at least three problems with changing your diet, three things that make it more difficult than the other topics I’ve covered:

A. Food isn’t something you can just give up. Leather shoes? Send ’em to the thrift shop and buy a pair made of canvas or nylon. Cologne that’s been tested on animals? Toss it in the trash. If you really need it, there are hundreds of cruelty-free options to choose from. But there’s no skipping out on food — at least, not for long.

B. Animal-based food is cheap, easy, and plentiful. If you have time to plan and choose your meals, that’s one thing. But when you’re hungry and in a hurry, rushing to class or a meeting or a flight, your choices are severely limited. You’re either having that sausage biscuit from Mickey D’s, or you’re going to have to re-train your body to subsist on coffee alone. I’ve tried that last one. I don’t recommend it.

C. Food fulfills deeply personal desires. You may love a particular wool sweater, but you own others. You can find substitutes. However, when you’re depressed or stressed or starving, chances are, you crave a very particular sort of food. For me, it’s mac and cheese, for other people, it’s a hamburger or cheesecake. We have a long history with these dishes — they’re often the ones we grew up with — and altering our deep-seated feelings about them doesn’t happen overnight.

So, shifting to a vegan diet involves some retraining. It’s like exercising or calling your parents more often or giving up Facebook: going vegan takes a bit of work, a bit of time, and the creation of new habits.

That said, there are a few ways to smooth the process and set yourself up for success:

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