Kim-Julie Hansen - Vegan Reset: The 28-Day Plan to Kickstart Your Healthy Lifestyle

Copyright 2018 by Best of Vegan LLC

Photography copyright 2018 by Best of Vegan LLC

Illustrations: fruit and vegetables Mary Zabaikina / Creative Market

graphic patterns Irene Demetri / Creative Market

watercolors Katherine Roberts / Creative Market

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hansen, Kim-Julie, author.

Title: Vegan reset : the 28-day plan to kickstart your healthy lifestyle / Kim-Julie Hansen.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018001644 (print) | LCCN 2017058733 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328453549 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328454034 (trade paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Vegan cookingRecipes. | Vegetarian cooking. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX837.H345 2018 (print) | LCC TX837.H345 2018 (ebook) | DDC 641.5/636dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001644

Book and cover design by Laura Palese

Front cover photograph copyright Haley Hunt Davis

Author photograph copyright Edward Gebel

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The book you are holding in your hands is a cookbook, a 28-day meal plan, and a practical guide to a vegan lifestyle. It is meant to introduce you to the basics of plant-based cooking and living, step by step.

W hether you are already vegan and simply want to learn how to prep meals and live a more balanced life, or you are brand-new to this lifestyle, or you are a meat-eater looking to kickstart healthier habits, this book is for you. I am probably one of the most unlikely people to be writing it, but I believe that this also makes me the perfect person to reach those who are struggling in the way I have struggled for most of my life. Today, I love eating healthy food and sharing my passion for this lifestyle with my friends and family, as well as people online. I write a vegan blog called Brussels Vegan and run an online cooking platform called Best of Vegan, and nothing brings me more joy than teaching others what I wish I had known years ago, as health wasnt always a priority for me.

I grew up hating fruits and vegetables and craving fast food every single day. When I was ten, I switched schools and started being bullied. As a consequence, I would isolate myself and overeat to feel better. I started gaining weight rapidly and food became my drug of choice. I continued to struggle with my weight well into adulthood. I dont have memories of wearing summer dresses and just feeling good and happy in my teens and early twenties, because those moments never happened for me. Instead, I spent my adolescence numbing my emotions by eating more, chain-smoking, and drinking.

I ate because I felt insecure, and the more I ate, the more insecure I felt. At fourteen, I started smoking and drinking in order to fit in so that the other kids at school would stop bullying me. It worked, but I started losing myself more and more and the cycle of self-sabotage seemed endless. All this time, I wanted to change, lose weight, get better. I read magazines that told me to simply go outside and run a few miles, but even that seemed impossible to me. I often wonder why I didnt find my way to veganism and a holistic lifestyle much sooner. But I also understand that it is very difficult to get out of a state in which you believe that youll never be able to feel better. I was so used to being unhappy and overweight that I couldnt even imagine what it would feel like not having to struggle. Over the years, I tried every single diet I could find in a desperate attempt to lose the weight and with it, my insecurities. The results, however, were only ever temporary, and most important, none of them allowed me to deal with the root problems that stemmed from never feeling good enough.

Over the years, I wanted to find the solution, a quick fix, a magic pill to make me skinny and happy. I read countless books on nutrition and exercise until I became a self-proclaimed expert on the topic, and yet, I still could not keep the weight off. The root problems of my weight issues were much deeper, so as long as I was still dealing with those, there was no way for me to find lasting peace. After high school, I decided to work for a couple of years before starting college, and by the time I started my freshman year, I was a chain-smoking, overeating, overall unhappy person, constantly living in denial and hoping to one day find my way out of the mess I had created for myself.

In 2010, when I was twenty-two years old, my father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age fifty-three. When he died, he was severely overweight, overworked, and had been smoking two packs of cigarettes every single day for decades. Instead of taking his death as a warning sign, I thought that I, too, was doomed, and things got a lot worse before they got better. I spent the next year pretending I was fine, while numbing myself with more food, more cigarettes, more drinks. Then, in 2011, doing research about the meat and dairy industries for an essay in college motivated me to become an ethical vegan overnight. I was used to eating junk food every day and I loved meat, cheese, and eggs, so this came as a surprise to everyone, including me. Little did I know that it would turn out to be the best decision of my life. Over the next year, I started reading every book, article, and blog on veganism I could get my hands on. I watched documentaries and listened to interviews, and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became.

After starting off as a so-called junk food vegan, I slowly taught myself how to adopt a healthier diet. The problem was that I didnt know where to start or how to put my newfound knowledge into practice. Id always had a passion for cooking, so that was where I started experimenting, and step by step, I taught myself the skills I needed in order to succeed in this lifestyle.

Vegan Reset is the book I would have wanted to help me navigate through everything that seemed so overwhelming at first. It is written for anyone who feels like they want to improve their health and live a happier life but doesnt know where to start, for those who want to go vegan but have no idea how to actually do it, and for people who are already vegan but would like to know how to cook more healthy and delicious meals or how to prepare their meals in a more practical way.