Most people think it was because I missed meat. Hell no! I survived perfectly for 3 months without meat and still enjoyed every minute of it.

That was because I wasn't in Singapore. I was in Toronto and Cape Town respectively - vegetarian food galore!

Those two cities truly understand what it means to be vegetarian - a balanced diet providing all the nutrients INCLUDING protein.

When I got back to Singapore and I was keeping my vegetarian diet at the beginning, I found myself losing weight rapidly.

FIRST, yes, we have Chinese vegetarian food and Indian vegetarian food, but NONE of them were really loaded with the protein I needed! Like, there was NO problem with Western vegetarian food because every vegetarian burger patty tasted DELECTABLE and were loaded with protein. Unfortunately, you can hardly find vegetarian burgers in Singapore (or you go out of your way to get them). In the other two cities, almost EVERY burger stand had a vegetarian burger.

Secondly, even if there were vegetarian options in restaurants, they consisted of only vegetables. Once again, do vegetarians live only on vegetables? NO!! I don't care how many ways you cook the tomatoes and zucchinis, at least give me more NUTS!! Or throw in tofu!

Thirdly, the lack of support around me was dismal. Let me first start with my family. When I was living alone, I cooked food that gave me the necessary balance. When I was back with my family again, and my mum insisted on cooking, there was usually ONLY vegetables for me. And occasionally some tofu. My dad was like, "You're vegetarian right? Here, eat the veggies!" All that sarcasm dripping from his words. Tell me, how could I go on living?! I tried telling her not to cook for me and I would settle my own meals, but she occupied the kitchen 100% of the time and when it was free, it was 9 pm.

Then there were my friends. It was then that I knew how Vishal felt whenever we kept heading to restaurants without proper vegetarian food (then again, there are hardly rsetaurants with proper vegetarian food) and we just encouraged him to eat meat. When I faced the same kind of treatment, it was HORRIBLE. The worst kinds of outings were those where my friends decided to order food to share. They'll be like, let's order some non-meat stuff too to accommodate Geri! Then when the food came, they ate the meat stuff, and MY non-meat stuff. I don't mean to sound selfish, but you do realize that I couldn't touch ANY of your non-meat stuff, and you had plenty!! So how about being considerate and leaving some food FOR ME?!

It was so frustrating. I could feel myself getting thinner and malnourished as the days went by. In a sense, I was forced to give up vegetarianism.

I would go vegetarian again if I ever move out of this country.

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Try to walk a mile in my kicks.