Contemplation of a substantial change May 7, 2009

Today has been a mixed bag of ups and downs for me as I have almost come to a life changing conclusion:  going vegetarian.   :shocked:  That’s right, I think I’m on my way to becoming veg.  I’ve always cared deeply for animals, and now that I know more about how a meat-based diet affects our environment, too, I’m much more uncomfortable consuming animal derived products.  I spent a lot of the afternoon in a bit of a rut thinking about the terror that is livestock’s life, and also fearing how Chris and my family will react to me wanting to make this change.  Going veg has been on my mind for awhile, but animal foods have always been a part of my life and I wasn’t sure I could reasonably make the change.  Now I feel compelled to do it based on my values, but I admit I’m afraid of how I will succeed or fail at this goal, and what obstacles I may encounter.  Ultimately I want to reduce my impact on the environment, and help save animals from the cruelty that is our food industry.

Over the last few months as I’ve lost more weight I think part of it has been eating less dairy, but I guess I’ve still eaten meat as usual.  I don’t think I want to go as far as being vegan, but I want to exercise great care in selecting the dairy, egg, and other animal-based products I consume.  I have a feeling this will be quite a task, and involve me going to farmer’s markets, interrogating vendors, and buying only what seems minimally invasive to animals and our environment.

I feel really weird writing all of this, kind of like scared to declare my thoughts and pursue this change.  I haven’t discussed this with anyone yet, but spilling the beans to my blog friends seems only logical since so many of you are already vegetarian or vegan.  How did you make the change to vegetarianism/veganism?  What were/are your biggest challenges?  I hope you are willing to share some of your thoughts and experiences.  Thank you in advance!

Let’s recap my day, and some thoughts along the way.

Holy shit, I got up at 5:30 this morning to hit the gym with Andrea.  We were set to meet at 6:45, but I went at 6 so I could get in cardio, too.  Getting up really wasn’t that bad, but I didn’t sleep that well and was already awake when my alarm went off. 

I ate a Kashi TLC bar and had a cup of coffee before heading out.

The gym was busier than I thought, but the stair mills I like were open 🙂  Getting started I did feel tired, but that dissipated and I was able to feel energized.  Until I smelled beef jerky, fire, and pipe smoke–some guy had to climb on the mill right next to me, even though all the others were open.  Grrrr…. his stench was so odd and overwhelming, but at least it wasn’t cigarette smoke stench.  I almost said something to him, like, “hey, I’m not sure you realize this, but you smell like you’ve been in a smoker with a side of bacon and pipe tobacco for like a week.”  Think he’d get the point?

Right on time, The Drizz rolled in at 6:45 and we got to workin’ the legs and shoulders.  We saw a bunny while doing hack squats, and I’m sure Andrea thought I was crazy to point it out again during her leg presses.  I’ve really enjoyed having Andrea as a workout partner…makes me reminisce of the good ol’ days with Erin!

We wrapped it up around 7:50, blew that joint, and I raced home to get ready and leave the house by 8:30.  I nuked my oats before leaving and had Chris drive. 

We had a business meeting all morning (which was quite good thankfully), and it included a catered lunch.  I ended up eating a small Caesar salad (lightly dressed, thank god), steamed carrots and asparagus, rice, and part of a chicken breast.  I stopped b/c I was feeling satisfied, but then came the tiramisu!  Ah!  Thankfully it was too rich and I only ate a small portion, but I probably should have just passed.  On the way home to let Lily out I felt guilty for overeating again 😦  And then I had asparagus pee and thought of Erin–hehe!!  🙂

I had some major allergies kick in while at the meeting, and they stuck with me all day.  Not good, cause this made me overly hungry feeling all afternoon.  Or maybe my furnace was burning hotter from working out this morning?  Either way, I snacked on another Kashi TLC bar, then a cup of light peach yogurt, and then mandarin oranges over the course of an hour or so.  The beast just wouldn’t stop!

After my vegetarian research and thoughts I began thinking of dinner, and ended up with quite a yummy veg feast 🙂  Sarah, Sharon, Andrea, and Erin have inspired me in the salad department lately, so I called Hugh Jass and Bigg Azz, but they were unavailable 😦 Then I discovered Random Azz was available!

This crazy pile consisted of romaine, yellow bell pepp, mixed sliced olives, edamame, avocado, carrot, a veggie patty (three years old in the freezer and still okay!), ground black pepper, and a tiny bit of olive oil and a splash of balsamic.  Yay to yummy goodness!  That half ear of corn with SB Light wasn’t bad either 😉  I also snacked on a few grapes and small cubes of cheese while prepping this. 

While eating this a commercial for Let’s Act Now came on and I nearly dropped my plate.  I took that as a sign that I should go veg, or at least pursue a less impactful diet like my gut is telling me to.  This morning I asked Andrea how she decided to go veg, and one of the reasons was a major sign while she was already contemplating it.  Must be that is is meant to be, then!  Kinda freaky…

After this feast and deep thought my little package of dark chocolate from last night called my name…. “eat me…you know you love how I melt in your mouth!”  So I did, and yes I do, so I ate three or four of you! 

Okay, I’m rhyming without a clue here, must mean it is time for me to go to bed.  This bitch is tired in more ways than one, and my comfy bed sounds so glorious right about now.  Later!

A perfect Saturday January 24, 2009

Today was really nice, and I mean really, really nice.  I think everything went well from start to (almost) finish where I sit right now.  Super yay!

The day began a bit slowly and with sluggishness as I pried myself out of bed at 7:50.  Ugh.  But the thought of Bob’s Red Mill was enticing, and before I knew it I was pulling into the parking lot and looking at this:

WHOA, a little bigger than I thought.  Anyhow, this is the water wheel and stream in front of Bob’s Red Mill retail store and restaurant.   I love coming here 🙂  The old school mill is pictured below.

I looked around at all of the goodness, damning myself for not having already created my grocery list so I would know what I could buy without guilt.  They even have frozen vegan donuts!  Chocolate covered!

When Andrea arrived we took a gander at the vegetarian menu, and as I mentioned I wanted to try a vegan breakfast.  No, not a huge step or big deal, but I wanted to think a lot more about what I ate and try to avoid animal products.  Andrea recommended the biscuits and gravy, and I totally forgot about staying vegan. Were they vegan?  Did they have milk derivatives? I don’t know!  And I’m pretty sure I put some sort of milk based creamer in my coffee 😐  Kudos to all of you who are vegan and remain very thoughtful about your food intake!!

The biscuits and gravy were really, really yummy.  I haven’t had something that rich tasting yet not too heavy in a long time.  Oh, mercy! Mmmmmmmmmm.  And the fruit cup on the side was just what I needed to round out my meal. 

We talked a lot about various things, including how we each married like the same guy (seriously, it is rather crazy!), and then we headed off to pilates to get long’n’lean.

Class was good today, and I felt more balanced and in control today during our moves than two weeks ago.  After class I did a half hour of upper body, and I tried the “squirreliptical” as Kath calls it.  It was a bit awkward at first, and harder than I expected, but I had a good half hour of intervals while watching random stuff around the gym.  This machine is on the 2nd floor of the gym, upstairs from the regular cardio area I use, and there aren’t any TVs mounted on the machines.  That half hour seemed sooooo long; I wanted to quit several times during the first 15 minutes.

After the gym I went home and made myself a nice easy lunch: an open faced sandwich with 1/2 a wedge LCL, one egg +one white scrambled, a slice of turkey; an apple; and some cc.  That hit the spot 😉

Whoa, there is an intense movie on IFC now, “Flannel Pajamas.”  I like IFC and the different perspectives the movies provide. 

By the time we both ate and I cleaned up, neither of us felt like going to work like originally planned.  Yay!  I could stay home and relax like anyone should be able to do on a Saturday.  I ended up cleaning, doing laundry, and making an attempt at meal planning.  My food has been way too boring lately, without enough variety or spice, literally, so I opted to get some new things, additions, and more veggies.

I hit the store…and forgot my shopping list.  Because of that shopping took forever, but somehow I remembered everything.  It’s a miracle!  Some of the fun things I picked up included: produce wash, Silk vanilla coffee creamer, a butternut squash, strawberries, tofu, barbecue sauce, and Sriracha :0  Love it!

Washing my produce was rather satisfying.  Here’s my pile of freshness drying on a towel; the wash is on the left:

For dinner I had meatloaf in mind, and as I cleaned veggies I thought of adding diced celery and shredded carrots for more bulk.  My meatloaf consisted of: 1lb. 93% lean beef, 1 slice diced whole wheat bread, small shake of bread crumbs, one egg, 1/2 onion diced, 2 stalks celery diced, 1/2 carrot shredded, 1 clove garlic smashed, a glug of BBQ sauce, a squirt of ketchup, lots of ground pepper, and Nature’s Seasons.  It smelled so good!

On the side were baked potatoes and over-cooked broccoli.  I kind mis-timed the meatloaf being done and the broccoli sat for awhile.  It was so soft it couldn’t be picked up but by a fork in the stalk portion.  Ew. 

I added Sriracha to my meatloaf and potato, and BBQ sauce to the potato.  It was so good!  I probably ate too much of the potato just so I could have more of the sauces.

That’s Smart Balance on the potato, too.  I liked the meatloaf a lot, but Chris didn’t quite agree.  It was so tasty!  Maybe too much onion, but otherwise really perfect.  I think he just doesn’t know or like meatloaf much.  I guess this means I get the leftovers?  We drank this while eating:

Haha, no I didn’t drink Sriracha… it just wanted to make an appearance on the blog 😉

Tonight I’ve been chillin’ working on recycling posts under The Three R’s, and watching TV.  Aw, I forgot the dryer buzzed….wrinkled clothes, here I come.

I ate a snack a little while ago: hulled strawberries and two pieces of Ghiradelli 72% chocolate.  I haven’t craved chocolate in awhile, but tonight it sounded yummy.

I’m a bit tired and think I’m going to take the LB out and go to bed.  A part of me really hopes Chris decides he doesn’t want to go to work tomorrow. If he goes he’ll want me to go as well.  Not like I don’t have work to do, but mentally I wouldn’t mind a full two days off.  (Or a whole lifetime off for that matter! ;))

Later y’all.  Have a great Sunday!

My, my…Monday January 12, 2009

So it was Monday, and not a very eventful day I guess.  Slept in a bit, went to acupuncture, had Christmas with Chris’ parents finally, blah blah blah.  It wasn’t quite a case of the Mondays, but sort of felt like that.

We had to get ready rather quickly, and I knew I didn’t have time to eat my oatmeal at work before acupuncture, so I ate it while getting our food ready for the day.

I think the new cinnamon I bought tastes a little different…not quite sure what it is, but it just seems a little bit off. 

Acupuncture was intense.  I went in not thinking I had many problems (elbow, knee, shoulders just slightly off), but I was quite the pincushion today.  Randy put needles a little deeper in my traps to induce fatigue and make them relax.  They were indeed fatigued today and sore.  He used a balancing approach today more than anything, which involves treating the energy channels related to the problems.  For example, my TMJ is on the gall bladder channel that runs on the side of the legs, so he put needles in the side of my legs.  My knee was hurting a little, which is on the liver that runs down the arms as well, so he put needles in my arms.  Other than the traps my body felt great today 🙂

I wasn’t that hungry when lunch time rolled around, but I ate a little anyway of the standard fare:

When my hunger returned I had the rest of the apple and some chips.  Then it came back again and I had the rest of the cottage cheese.  No pics since that would be a tad redundant.

I had some tea and lots of water this afternoon as I spent like two hours trying to de-bug my computer.  McAfee kept finding a rootkit issue over the last week and deleting it, but it keeps coming back.  Internet Explorer kept encountering errors and needing to close, so I wasn’t able to get very far on any of my online applications.  Fucking thing wouldn’t even go to a restore point.  WTF.  I’m not sure what to do at this point.  I was trying to download AVG today since I heard good things from a coworker, but the installation process kept freezing 😐  Boo.  Hopefully tomorrow brings solutions since I need to use the damn thing for some work due in the afternoon. 

That’s my little food and workout journal in the foreground.  I remembered an insulated mug for tea at the office!  No more wasted cups 🙂  Anyhow, moving on…

Chris’ parents were coming over for dinner, and we decided on Godfather’s Pizza, so I called in the order this afternoon and ran to get it when we got home around 5:40.  The smell of it in the car was absolute torture on the way home!  Oh so good!  I didn’t photograph anything as I ate tonight…didn’t really want to explain the whole blog thing for some reason.  I took pics afterward. 

Dinner went pretty well, the pizza was okay, and all in all the night ended fine.  My pizza was a medium thin crust Hawaiian light on the cheese and with black olives added.  Good, but would have been better fresher (traffic held up the parents).  I had three pieces; I looked up the nutritional info online beforehand and knew each one had about 190 cals.  I also knew I had 700 cals left for the day before reaching dinner and I was just fine expending most of them on dinner.

Dessert was a chocolate plate with fudge and chocolate almond squares.  I had 3 squares of this:

 MMM!

Chris’ mom gave me a digital kitchen scale, chocolates, and a little black lab ornament for Christmas 🙂  The kitchen scale is heavy duty:

Holds up to 22 lbs!  No problem weighing my turkeys and roasts, I guess!!!  Or HUGE batches of bread??  Hahaha.  I don’t have a 9V battery, tho, so I have to wait to use it until tomorrow.  I’m still kinda torn over the whole scale thing…neither one of them is exactly what I had thought of and I don’t know what to do.  This was no cheap scale, either, and I feel bad she spent so much on it. 

After Chris’ parents left he asked something about if I was going to mention the artwork change/if I thought he’d notice, and then he said he didn’t really want to discuss it.  😐  Great.  That should be a fun discussion.

Oh, and I used my new stick vac tonight!  I was super excited and whipped it out right when we got home, and I liked it 🙂  It is really easy to use, and seems to vacuum pretty well.  It doesn’t have a very wide track, so if you’re trying to vacuum a large floor it may take a little while (probably not longer than sweeping), but it is great for what I need.  We detached the hand vac and attacked some dust and cobwebs, and I used it not too long ago when Lily came in from outside.  Yay!  No more broom!  Emptying the dust cup is easy, and filter seems to grab the little particles of dirt and dust well.  Double yay!  Chris even used it to vacuum under the dining room table and under where the couch had been when we moved it.  Go honey!

Shit, it is really late all of a sudden, and I just kinda feel like putting an end to the day.  I hope my traps aren’t sore tomorrow.  I look forward to working out, a few good client meetings, and a good dinner.  Shit, I just realized dinner will take a long time to prepare and I have a later meeting.  Shit again.  Tune in tomorrow to see what happens!