Thinking about those New Year’s resolutions already? You want to try a plant-based diet? Good for you! Here are five tips to help you on your way to greatness.

1. Make your breakfast a smoothie with greens!

By starting the day with a glass of veggies and fruits—aka a smoothie packed with kale and such—is a superb breakfast choice. Put some of that leftover pumpkin puree into your blender with some spinach, apples, and bananas and blend away! Drink it up and you’ll have a heyday!

2. Add in; don’t subtract out.

When you embark on your plant-based diet, be sure not to think about what you can’t eat: there is a whole new world of plants that you can consume now with unfettered abandon. It’s not that you can’t eat cheese or hamburgers, but it’s that you can eat rice and beans and soy ice cream or broccoli and plants that you’ll crave more than you did that old, greasy hamburger. Eventually, if you keep adding in say, more veggies into your diet, you’ll forget about those meat products and make a smooth transition into a plantastic diet!

3. Replace your night time dairy treat with a plant-based alternative!

Dairy is not a plant-based treat, obviously. Don’t down the breast milk of a cow! That’s revolting! Choose fresh fruit, soy/coconut ice cream, or banana soft serve instead if you need a sweet, chilled, after dinner treat. Or, have some decadent medjool dates enveloped in raw cacao powder. Smoothies are great too if you make them thick and with natural sugar. Eat it with a spoon, and you’ll never miss that dollop of dairy!

4. Make your dinner veggie-centric!

Don’t choose meat for dinner just because you’re used to it! Meat and potatoes are a no no! Choose beets and potatoes. More like choose beans and greens and potatoes or something along those lines (beets would be weird with potatoes). Forget that stupid slab of steak dripping with blood! Who are you, Count Dracula? I’d rather have my dinner drenched in a divine sauce rather than a bodily fluid. Just saying.

5. Remember the roughage!

Green salad for lunch. Kale for dinner. Green roughage in all shapes and sizes are remarkably rich in nutrients that keep you runnin’! If you run around eatin’ just rice and Ramen with no roughage, you’ll rot away! Eat right, and eat greens, and the volume of your food will make you forget all about that meat crap.

Image Source: Beginner Green Smoothie