Rawr! Dutch vegan introducing himself!

Hai everyone!

I'm Lani, it's not my real name but kinda like a second name to me ^^ .. I'm 23 years old, I'm a boy, have a great awesome boyfriend and live at my parents place at the moment.

I've only been a vegan for about 3 weeks now, before that I was a vegetarian because I still ate cheese, before that I switched a lot between being a vegetarian and eating meat.

Me and my boyfriend are both vegans, he has been a vegan longer then me, though I was a vegetarian before he was so that makes up for it a little right ^_^ .. We're both slightly buddhist, but not very traditional, we go our own way, but we strongly believe in love, care, compassion, kindness, etc.. We try our best to live peaceful and caring lives, for all living beings, big and small!

I'm a big kid myself, sweet and sensitive, often playful and just plain goofy and silly, I like a lot of 'cute things'.. like my many plushies on my bed, or my fun posters and my colorful clothes! .. oh and puppies and kittens <3 .. and pretty much all animals that dont creep me out <3

And soon I hope to physically be 'big' for real! .. My goal is to gain weight, because I'm skinny. Right now I'm 190 centimetres tall and I weight around 68.5 kilograms. I'm pretty sure I'm on the edge of being underweight! I really don't feel comfortable with my body because of this and I hope to look and feel big and strong eventually!

Most bodybuilders and people who fitness want to be dry with very pronounced muscles, but I really wouldn't mind gaining some fat too, I don't think I have a lot of 'bad fat' in my diet and I work out every day, even if it's sometimes just a little bit. I just really wanna become bigger and the sooner the better, as long as I don't gain weight in a unhealthy way.

Personally I was thinking that if I gain 2 kilograms a month, then that would be a good thing. Not sure how much I can gain a month without it being unhealthy. So far, on my new vegan diet, I gained 0.5 kilograms in 2 weeks, so I was already happy with seeing that! But I would love if it got more, but since I only just started, I'm sure my body needs to get used to it before it can really gain some proper weight

I would like to add that I'm a smoker, sadly =( .. I really hope to quit soon, but I have quite a stressfull life. I've been in a depression for a very long time, I'm quite convinced it goes all the way back into my childhood O_o .. But lately things have been going better for me, the vegan lifestyle helps and of course, my boyfriend really helps with this too. It also helps that I'm a very optimistic and bouncy joyjoy person ^_^

I'm keeping track of what I eat today, trying to be as exact as possible, and I will post my food schedule later today or tomorrow so that hopefully I can get some advice and/or some comments on how good or bad my diet is, if there are things that need to change, if I get enough of certain food or if I need to eat less of certain food, etc etc =)

Let's see.. what else can I say about myself.. Well, I'm dutch, lived in Gelderland for a while, beautiful place, I lived in a city called Nijmegen, though not in the city itself but in a nice quiet neigborhood. I went to school there but had to quit because of my personal issues, along with depression I had a lot of other things going on sadly =/

And I love music <3 BAM! subject change ^_^ .. I really like viking/folk metal like Ensiferum, Turisas, Finntroll, Thyrfing, etc and some black metal, mostly Darkthrone and Immortal, I used to listen to a loooot of black metal but it's not really my thing anymore, to much dark stuff really =P .. I'm also a big fan of J-Pop/Rock and visual kei .. bands like SuG, the KIDDIE, LM.C, D, Hyde, etc etc ^_^ .. happy bouncy music <3 I also just like a lot of other music, if it feels right, I can easily listen to hiphop, dance, rock, everything really =)

I also like to draw, usually manga/anime stuff, I'm not really good at it or anything but it's a fun little hobby to keep me busy ^_^ .. I also try to learn japanese, hiragana at the moment, still at the first basics!

I also really like germanic/norse mythology and culture and such, I have a Mjölnir pendant that I wear almost all the time (hammer of thor), its a simple but very nice necklace. I also wear a tibetian endless knot pendant all the time, because it stands for eternal love and friendship, wisdom and compassion, harmony in the universe and a few other things, so it really suits me =) .. those two symbols together mean a lot for me, because I want to be big, strong, courageous and a protector, while also being compassionate, caring and loving and mindful of the / for the entire universe.

Aaand.. I think that about does it ^_^ wouldn't know what else to tell! I feel like I wrote a book for you guys!

but if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask! I'm a pretty open book, or try to be open anyway, and I try not to hide my true self from anyone =)

Peace & Love,

Lani!

Hi Lani, you sound like an amazing guy. Welcome to the group. Hope to hear more from you in the future. Check out people's journals to see what others on the forum are eating, the recipe section is great for new vegans and those like your bf that have been eating this way for a while. There are also tons of great book recommendations as well listed in the forum. Check it all out and chat us all up.

-Dylan

thanks for the warm welcome Dylan =D this forum seems awesome ^^ .. I just posted my food schedule here; viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28618 .. its kinda sloppy I think and yeah.. it's my first time doing all this so I have no idea if it's any good ^^''

You have a good start. Have you taken a look at some of the others journals on here for ideas? Don't look at mine its really diary like ha ha but it helps me not let myself slide and put off workouts by keeping track on them.