Makes sense, I was worried about the losing weight thing as well. That's not what I'm looking to do. Although I have been reading on all the diseases it can help with... it was kind of the right time for me for someone to bring it up as I've been looking for other diet ideas because I've been bored with eating the same meat all the time, so I was more open to the idea. And the girl that was trying to convert me is also a veterinarian, so, although she didn't mention it to be for the idea of saving animals or the planet, she talked about the benefits of feeling better and better workouts, maybe the motive was for the animals.
I think I'll just replace 1 meal a day with a plant based for now and go from there.
I see now way it's going to give you better workouts, but there are health benefits, it's just not the be all end all. I do eliminate some of my meat for other non meat protein sources, like instead of 6 ounces of chicken in a meal I might eat 3oz and use some low fat cheese and fat free Greek yogurt to make up the rest. I still occasionally will have the shake I mentioned earlier that is vegan.
But I will say this, the better workouts is nonsense. If going vegan gave better performance then all the top athletes that make there living off performance and there body would go vegan because they want every edge they can get. There are a very select few high level athlete that are vegan, but if you do some research on them, none of them got where they are following a vegan diet, every one of them switched to veganism late in there career with the exception of the Diaz brothers.
High level vegan athletes make up less then 1% of the population.
I'm not trying to convince you not to try going vegan. What I am trying to get across tho is it's definitely harder to get big and strong on a vegan diet in comparison to a meat eaters diet.
Count your calories, get your protein from various sources and cover all the bases with your micronutrients and you can definitely be successful on a vegan diet