Hi Deb, I never thought I'd ever be a Vegetarian let alone Vegan! I initially read about his book on this site and when I got it, wow! it opened my eyes. My DH and I were just going to cut back our animal protein slowly (never a huge beef eater , but loved chicken and turkey) until one night when I was adding some chciken to our salad and he commented "aren't we going to stop eating that altogether?" So we went Vegan. We both lost weight, he lost 30 lbs the first 6 weeks and I lost 17. I did loose a few more but my body seems to like a certain weight and I gained a few back at X-Mas. I do remember being real gassy in the beginning but I think your body adapts..now for me its certain things like soy beans for sure.
I love this way of eating, you do have to work at it and once I got a few cookbooks, the best being The Vegan Planet (400 recipes) I make myself try new things almost every week. I have found so many foods I never even heard of. As far as working out I had some weakness in the first 2 weeks on my long runs. Not when I lifted or doing any indoor cardio. Yes, I am a marathoner and during training I might eat a bit more protein than usual. I like Tofu, tempeh and have tried seitan a couple of times. A site that has been very helpful to me is
www.vegsource.com There is an Eat to Live discussion board among others. I really liked the New Veggie board and Bryanna is great about answering questions, plus posting recipes!
The only downfall is eating out. Not many restarants in my area have vegetarian menus and I find it a pain to figure out what to eat in them. So we normally do mexican as they usually have a vegetarian menu and I just get a vegetarian dish without cheese or sour cream. Honestly, I'd rather make something at home...
I'm happy to help and there are also other Vegetarians/Vegans here that will answer most any thread about vegetarianism. Feel free to email me anytime you want. I know the first 6 weeks can be the most difficult...

...Carole