Hi Flower,
Congrats on being a veggie! The animals will thank you (even if you're not doing it for them ).

I can't say much for the medical issues, as I haven't had any of that checked (though I probably should...) You might want to check out the "Vegan Low Carb for Dummies" thread, as I just posted there a sample menu of mine, which might give you some ideas. I'm trying to do vegan and low carb, so I'm not eating dairy or eggs at the moment.

As for unsweetened soy milk, I do use it, but I don't drink it "straight". For some reason, I can't stand the thought of drinking any kind of milk without anything. So I usually throw it into a protein shake or some other recipe where the taste is disguised. One interesting thing I noticed since I became a vegetarian/vegan and started using more soy products - I had a really hard time with the taste of soy in the beginning, couldn't even stomach soy lattes. But now (three years since going vegetarian, a year since going vegan) the taste of soy proteins (like soy milk and tofu) really don't bother me at all. Weird!

Tam