Trying to go plant-based too much at once is really difficult and almost always leads people to this all or nothing mentality (and speak for you directly obviously—just my observations).

I’d love to see people take a statistical model. I currently get 50% of calories or maybe protein from animals. If I reduce that to 40%, what would that look like? Maybe 1 fully-plant-based meal a week? That way I can test out a recipe or learn how to make tofu yummy.

Or maybe you’ve heard “I can’t live without steak” or “cheese.” Well, trend towards plant-based except for steak or cheese (while not increasing your consumption of that).

I quit animal products pretty abruptly and on a personal level I wouldn't say doing it all at once is necessarily the difficult part. I was unprepared for the sudden lop-sidedness in favour of needing to plan and prepare meals. The shift to not being able to eat unprocessed on-the-go and restaurant meals because the plant-based options were mediocre to non-existent is quite drastic. I've gotten used to accompanying people who are eating without partaking myself.

I am still allowing myself to make an occasional mistake, because if you do not read the ingredients carefully it can be hard to say what is (for example, finding out a brand name chicken ramen bowl is artificial chicken and is actually vegan friendly) and what is not vegan (for example, a brand name candy I previously enjoyed, sadly), but rather than giving up I hit the reset button and start again the next day until I get it right. Everyone gets a mistake!

+1. I phased out meat over almost like 6 months before being completely vegetarian. It made the transition much easier when I did this about 12 years ago.

I eliminated types of meat (e.g no more chicken, then no more beef, etc). Slowly adapting my diet over time.

I think that made it easier to stick with it.