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After reading MD Greger's nutritionfacts.org I'm willing to start decreasing animal protein intake with a hope of becoming a vegan one day.
Any advice/stories from people with similar background?
Go buy the "eat to live cookbook" and eat the stuff in there. Eat as much as you want as long as it's in the book. The extreme is not for me right now (mostly have to prioritize shopping and cooking time) and it takes a few weeks to get used to but the food is good and healthy.
Do not eat poorly, take the time to make food lists and get what you need so you don't end up eating less nutritious food. Try tofu. initially eating at bbq may be tough but your friends and family will support you.
* Based on your comment, it sounds like you understand this, but it's important to stress that you don't have to go fully vegan right away. For most people, going vegan is a pretty huge lifestyle shift, and it's OK for it to take some time to get settled in. You can slowly cut out individual foods or food groups over weeks or months at a time, depending on what pace you're comfortable with. I found that the cravings I used to have for various animal proteins (esp dairy and eggs) generally went away entirely after a month or so of abstinence.
* B12 vitamin supplements are your new friend. They're quite readily available. If you're getting into ethical veganism, make sure that the tablets you buy are vegan -- some aren't >_* there are a lot of good vegan cookbooks, but if I'm in the mood for some specific dish, I find that just googling "vegan [dish]" will usually do the trick.
* Tofu is great. Learn to bake it, learn to fry it. You can do wonderful things if you marinate it. You'll also probably want to at least try other "meat substitutes" (or proteins, if you prefer) like tempeh, seitan, soy curls, jackfruit, etc. at least to get a sense of their flavor.
* There are a lot of pretty useful resources online for finding out what is and isn't vegan. http://www.barnivore.com/ is a great reference for alcohol. PETA (regardless of how you feel about their tactics, advocacy, or politics) also publishes a lot of very handy guides for all sorts of foods and products (e.g. their "accidentally vegan foods" list http://www.peta.org/living/food/accidentally-vegan/). If you use Facebook, check to see if there is a local vegan group. In my city there is a pretty active one, and it's a nice little community. It also gives you an easy network of people to ask for recipes and advice. For eating out, https://www.happycow.net/ is a pretty useful guide in my area, but I don't know what it's like in your city or country. Often vegans are pretty good about leaving each other tips in Yelp comments. If you're going to a specific restaurant and aren't sure whether they have anything that will work for you, it never hurts to search for "vegan" in their Yelp reviews.
Basically, just listen to your body. I don't take any vitamins and I'm reasonably fit.
Dr. Greger's book How Not To Die is a good source of nutritional information.
My 2 cents as someone who's been vegan for almost 15 years:
- Don't be too hard on yourself. Being vegan is not about being perfect.
- When eating out, explore ethnic foods. You will find that it's easier to find dishes that are vegan by default or almost vegan on non-western restaurants.
- Try to find the macro distribution that works best for you and work with it within a vegan framework. I thrive on high carb, but you will find all sorts of vegan diets out there, including keto.
- Avoid drama. Just by saying you are vegan, you may get negative emotional reactions from people. When confronted, just say it's a personal choice and move on. Too much time can be spent arguing with people who are ignorant on this topic.
I switched to a vegan diet out of ideology, not health issues, so I didn't really plan how to do it. I just eat plenty of vegetables, fruit, and all kinds of beans or lentils. I think cooking fresh meals (instead of eating out or eating pre-cooked food) has a lot to do with it. Basically, just listen to your body. I don't take any vitamins and I'm reasonably fit.