Taco Bell hell!

Wow, today was an eater day for me.  I ate WAY to much and was tempted sorely.  It started out just fine.  I drank my lemon water and had a cup of whole fruit (raspberries).  But then I was still hungry, so I ate an Amy's organic breakfast burrito.  Then I had to get ready and take Logan to the Dr. and I ALWAYS have to look good to go to the Dr.  Mostly cause I have a crush on him, but also because I try to pull myself together for people I don't see that often.  Normally I rarely wear make-up but for the Dr., I put on the works.  It took a little long, as I was deciding if black eyeliner was a little much for 11:40 a.m.  So, I was running late and planned poorly.  Of course we had to wait and by the timewe were done it was 1:00.  We went to the grocery store and shopped around while they filled his medecine and I was starving.  I wanted meat, I wanted everything!  Donuts, meat, tofu, it didn't matter.  Fortunately, I made it out without spending too much but they had a good Kombucha variety, so I stocked up on that.  But we were starving for lunch and my son begged Taco Bell.  Now, I love Taco Bell.  I told you I love all the bad stuff.  I did eat Taco Bell, but I got a bean burrito Fresco style (no cheese).  That's not too bad but I got a 7 layer burrito too (minus sour cream and cheese).  I could've stopped after the first, but I was so hungry I kept going.  Here's the thing.  Before, as in 2 1/2 weeks ago, I probably would've had 3 or 4 items!!  But I felt bad.  But not too bad to eat Chinese food for dinner!!!  Yep, I just said that.  On top of it all, I ate bean curd for dinner.  Which was awesome, but bad in a delicious way.  I think I have to write this day off as an eater day and turn the page.  Fortunately, I haven't messed tomorrow up so there's all day to make better choices.  It's funny though, I've been so much better about listening to my body that when I over ate today I really notice how I feel.  I don't like it.  Once again it comes down to not having a plan.  In my defense, with going to the Dr.it was hard.  Of course, if I wouldn't have spent so much time primping, I might have been able to throw some healthy snacks together.  Oh, well.  It's all a learning experience.  At least I didn't eat any animal products, which is the thing I would have been sick about if I'd done.  Let's do stats:

Hunger:  Yes, very.
Mood:  Good, happy.
Cravings: Yes, I wanted everything.
Health:  Feeling good.

I definitely am starting to be able (where I never could before) know when to stop eating.  But I obviously still have some pitt falls to watch.  I still have some over eating tendacies that get triggered when I'm really hungry.  I'm still learning, stumbling.  It's a long road, so I'm not going to beat my self up for it.  I have all of you giving me support and that means a lot.  Thanks everyone.  Good night, I hope you are all healthy and happy =)

Danielle

Tools for Life

Well, I know we're supposed to love ourselves and be kind to ourselves, but sometimes it's hard.  Like today when I went to go pick up my youngest (Carter) from preschool.  I got there early, and instead of milling about in the lobby, I decided to take this time to pluck my eyebrows.  My mini van in the middle of the day is the best place to do this.  The mirror is nice and close, the natural light illuminates my face perfectly so I can see every hair.  It was iluuminated so nicely in fact that I got a good look at my face!  AHhhhhhhh!!!  I look like the wolf girl escaped from the circus.  Good Lord!  I was just doing luch duty in the school, those kids are going to make fun of me and call me "hairy".  Hello, Mrs. Hairy.  I don't even care if other parents in that parking lot were watching, I was dethatching my brows (which looks like Brezhnev's if I don't shape them and maintain them), pluching my chin and my upper lip (I have a lucky, lucky husband) till I was red.  Then all the lines and menstration induced pimples became apparent.  It was then that I remembered why make-up was invented.  I looked in my Whole Foods Encyclopedia, but I didn't see anything about eating for unwanted facial hair.  That's a little dissapointing.  Mostly because I see that there is no "cure all" for everything that is unwanted.  I have to keep myself grounded in realizing that being vegan is not the answer to everything.  There will still be moustache hairs and chin hairs.  I cannot hide behind the food and say "fix me".  Althought this diet is very benneficial, I must still see there is work to do.  I still have to exercise and pluck my face and clean the house (wow, I can dream though..."carrot, get busy with the dishes while radish dusts!").  All we can do is pick our tools in life that helps us the best.  This is why not everyone is vegan or vegetarian or Catholic.  For now my tool of choice is being vegan.  A long time ago, I realized that the people you surround yourself with is very important to your well being.   They are tools for life as well.  And I'm talking about the people very closest to you.  I was at a time in my life when I felt very sad or let down by people.  #1 I learned people are who they are and people can only give you what they have in their ability to give.  If this is unsatisfactory to you, you need to decide if they're worth keeping in your life or not.  If they are, quit feeling bad all the time and accept them for who they are and what they bring.  Adjust what you bring if you need to.  If they are not worth it, cut them.  Nicely, but do it.  It is up to you and no one else to make you happy.  Life is always happening, you have to move on in a positive way.  The #2 thing I learned is that if I surrounded myself with people I admired qualities in, then I learned from them.  What are Mom's told us as teens is so true!  My closest friends, every one of them are people I highly admire for many reasons.  What I give them, I get back.  These are enriching mutually benneficial (I hope!) relasionships.  What does this have to do with food?  Well, I'm glad you asked!!  I have chosen my diet to be like my friendships.  This tool to get me through life MUST be giving as well as getting.  I must do my part of the relationship (exercising, cleaning, preparing meals, buying whole organic foods...) to reap the bennefite (and there's many) to my new diet.  It's not easy.  No, relationship is.  But it takes us both.  I'm just glad I figured this out =)  Here's stats:

Hunger:  Very today for lunch, I was in the lunchroom and ate late!!
Mood:  Happy!!
Cravings:  Nope
Health:  Very good, even with the period and zits and....(whisper) facial hair!!

Here's to you all out there, thanks for reading mmy blog and giving me support.  May you all be surrounded by the very greatest of friends and tools to get you through your life =)  We're all in this together, always remember that!  Goodnight and good health =)

Danielle

Dang, my gym teachers were right!

Well, it's official.  I'm pretty sure I'm about ready to start my period.  But I've had none of the usual short tempered crabbiness that usually marks this time.  Today I feel kind of paranoid, like everyone thinks I'm dumb and thinks everything I say is dumb, but not like I want to karate chop everyone who gets in my way.  That and being a little tired and faintly crampy are my signs. (That and the fact I was crying while listening to "Cats Cradle" on the radio)  Is it true being vegan helps you?  Definitely, maybe.  This will be my first one as a vegan, so my hopes are high.  I think perhaps it appeals to my desire to want to control myself.  I never really thought I was controlling.  I'm not an "A" type personality either.  But I find that I'm really liking certain aspects of the vegan diet.  For example, I've really enjoyed learning the medicinal values to food.  It appeals to me to be able to eat certain things to control a symptom I may be having.  I also like the way I feel in control of myself and my body.  I like thinking that I can control the nutrition I put into me.  I was a closet control freak and didn't even know it!!  I guess there were signs.  I couldn't stand it when my boys played with play-doh and mixed all the colors together.  It was all I could do to NOT ban them from playing with it.  I wanted to ban them though.  It is really frustrating  to think that all my crazy gym teachers may have been right, all these years ago.  "You just need to quit drinking pop and exercise to get rid of your cramps and moodiness!!"  Gasp, they were right?  It really didn't seem like they could be at the time.  I just figured they took gleeful pleasure in being sadistic to a crabby, crampy teenager.  I think I might have switched a long time ago to vegan if I would have known.  I really hated that feeling of not being able to control my mood.  I think I can feel proud of being controlling in this case.  I think it's good to be able to control oneself, whether it's the amount of food you're eating or the moodiness that you unleash on unsuspecting people!!  I think it's all about finding that right balance (which is hard!) of being a healthy control freak as opposed to being a scary control freak.  Allowing yourself some "me" time as opposed to being too self involved.  It's amazing the things I'm realizing.  I feel like I've been asleep for the last decade and a half!  I really wonder at why we come to things when we do.  I'm just gonna let it go and be grateful I got it.  Let's see stats:

Hunger:  I think I'm training my hunger to Tess' cleanse.  I'm really hungry in the morning and it gets less strong each meal I eat.  I'm not too hungry at dinner.
Mood:  I cried to Cat's Cradle on the radio...what do you think??
Cravings:  None today, I think I've noticed a slight increase in a sweet tooth, but I haven't indulged.
Health:  Feeling good.

So, I close today thinking about my controlling nature.  My impulse is to stop myself, and denie any controllingness to my nature.  But it's there and that doesn't have to be a bad thing with enough balance =)  Good night everyone, be happy !!

Visualize white miso

I think I'm starting to get a more discerning taste with food.  I've been purified from my old hot dog and bologna ways and I'm tasting from a "cleaner" palate now.  I was at a restaurant with my son, scared? Don't be!  I had Navy Bean soup and salad!! and I got Greek salad dressing on my salad.  I was a little disappointed though because the oil in the dressing tasted old.  Old oil.  Me, I tasted old oil.  Hahahahaha, do you know how funny this is to me?  Old days my sister-in-law would TELL me there's old oil in my dressing and I'd try real hard to taste it and eat it anyway because I couldn't tell what she was talking about!!  So I ate my soup (delicious!) and NOT my salad.  Wow, it takes me a way shorter time to make up my mind ordering.  Out of a 200 item menu, there's now really only three things I can order and usually at least 1 of them inevitably ends up being vegetable stir fry.  It's like the chef's everywhere become flumexed when trying to think of a vegan meal.  "you know, let them have a stir fry".  That's okay, I like stir fry.  But my friend and I went to a Chinese restaurant and I had bean curd in a delicious hot sauce. Hello, I think I've found a new craving!!  Great 'cause every fat girl needs a craving, right?  Wrong!!  I'm trying to scrap that condition.  Could I be PMS'ing?  Maybe, but I'm not as harpyish as I normally am at that time.  Tess said she used to get PMS, but not after becoming vegan.  Could veganism be the Dr. Feelgood we've all waited for?  IF I could bottle this I'd be a MILLIONAIRE.  And then Rick couldn't yell at me anymore about money.  Which he hasn't because veganism has cured my indulgent, spendy ways.  Want a bottle?  Well, maybe I'm not completely cured, but at least I've been better!! ;)  Speaking of being spend conscious- I've been trying to do some price comparisons on my healthy food.  You know what I decided?  I live in the black hole of health.  If you don't believe me, come around here on Dingus Day.  Pretty much everyone charges about the same prices.  I'm on the hunt for white miso, because I want to make this one salad dressing from RHIW.  It's very frusterating when you can't find an ingredient.  We'll never get a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, because the business people will come during Dingus Day and see all the sausage and eggs and decide nobody wants to be healthy here and they'll leave.  I forgot to try to be positive.  Okay, maybe they'll come on Dingus Day and see all the drunk people eating sausage and eggs and say:  "we have to help these poor, sad, unhealthy people" and they'll build 2 stores each right away!  Either way I'm not getting my white miso any time soon darn it!  Visualize the miso.  Visualization is a tool to use during this 2 week cleanse I'm participating (starting week 2 thank you!) in.  I'm no stranger to visualization.  During my pregnancy after I lost my baby Seth to stillbirth, I did yoga and would use visualization.  I imagined a white light protecting my baby in my womb.  It might have helped because that was my first son Logan.  So I've been using it again to help me stay centered during this crazy transitioning time for me.  I don't even know why I stopped because it is an extremely helpful way to destress.  It was a busy, stressful day today, I need to go visualize.  Let's look at stats:

Hunger:  Weird, I'm either really hungry or not at all.
Mood:  Good, a little stressed.
Cravings:  Bean Curd!
Health:  Yay!!  All back to normal!

Well, wish me luck on week 2 of the cleanse and week 3 on veganism.  I'm afraid it will be hard to top the 21 pounds from before.  I'm a little nervous about it actually.  Ahhh, time to visualize!!  Goodnight everybody, be happy =)

Danielle

"That's obese!"

I held my breath and stepped on the "scale".  The mocking voice chirps out: "that's obese". (Yes, I'm using the WII FIT PLUS).  Well, I knew that.  But at least it's not as obese as before!!  I lost another 11 pounds!  So week 1 of the weight loss program is 11 pounds.  The 2 weeks I've been eating vegan, I started out at 266 and today's weight was 245.  That's a total of 21 pounds!!  I have to say that I really have been noticing the fat come off my stomach.  I was a little nervous at first like, really?  20 pounds in 2 weeks, is this healthy?  But I eat a lot!  I never feel hungry, sometimes I feel like oh, wow I ate too much!  In the middle of the second week I really started noticing that my stomach and thighs were shrinking.  I figured this has to be healthy because every  time I dieted in the past, I would lose weight but it took A LOT to get it off my stomach.  That was usually the LAST place it came off!!  I know I'm making big jumps now, but it will level off.  I figure my body is willing to give up the fat because it doesn't need it.  It's like I'm putting higher efficiency gas in my car.  It runs better and it's not putting out as much noxious fumes!!  (hey, and this would be true too!!).   Even though I've said (and mean) that I'm doing this for health, I can't help the little thrill of pleasure knowing that I've lost 21 pounds.  It's the difference between having heart burn and feeling good, tired and cranky to feeling energetic and positive.  It's the difference to my clothes feeling uncomfortable and tight and feeling comfortable and confident.  That's a big difference.  That's a difference that I can live without meat, dairy, chemicals & preservatives indefinitely.  I could walk out this door tomorrow and get hit by a car.  But at least, however briefly, I will have finally found the "secret" for me to live healthy.  That stupid WII Fit voice can tell me I'm obese, and I still am, but it can't read my heart.  In my heart I know I won't be obese forever if I can help it. Let's look at my stats:

Hunger:  I have really been doing good with this.  I even took veggies with me to the movie theater so I wasn't tempted or get too hungry.
Mood:  Pretty good, calm.
Cravings:  I was getting hungry and I saw McDonald's and I thought of a burger for about 60 seconds and then I was over it.
Health:  System still getting back.  At least I'm completely cleaned out!!  Energy back to good.

Looking forward to another week.  Making menus is exciting, trying a new recipe of Tess' is exciting.  I haven't been having this much fun with cooking and trying new things in a long time.  I was stuck in like the same 7 meals over and over.  If nothing else, becoming vegan has snapped me out of the dining boredom =)  Thanks for your support I hope I'm making you all proud.  Good night everyone, be healthy =)

Danielle

My genes are too big!

My Sister, Mom and I were discussing our family genes tonight.  We really got the short end of the stick.  We come from a very long line of pretty big people.  Part of the reason I decided to try the vegan life style is because I thought that it is so radically different than anything I've done before.  Nothing seemed to work before, at least not for long.  So, now I have to throw into the mix with my bad habits, my super sized genes!!  Great, a recipe for disaster.  How can I trick my genes into letting me break free from the things that have made me unhealthy?  Total change in eating.  Not a small effort like I'll eat lean meat, but total elimination from my diet of all animal products.  That includes eggs and dairy.  I figured that perhaps if I could get rid of all the triggers that may lead back to the old ways, maybe, just maybe, I can be successful in finding a way to reverse my unhealthiness and keep my big genes at bay.  I'm doing well.  I try to take it one day at a time.  All I can do is each day commit to myself  that today I will eat healthier, live healthier be positive this day.  I try not too think way ahead; it's too daunting.  I want to try to break my big genes of doom that seem to hang over my head, giving me a reason to fail before I've even tried.  Will it work forever?  I don't know.  I have hope though.  Some old habits are changing, for example I often had snacks later at night, but I've stopped that by shooting not to eat after 7:00.  I've also been eating lighter at night for dinner.  Today for example, I was with my Mom, Sister, Aunt and Cousins.  They had a lot of delicious food I normally would have delighted in.  Some how  I managed to keep it together and have my soup.  I keep running through my head these questions:  Will it taste as good as I think?  How will eating it make me feel?  Will my health benefit from this?  Oddly enough these questions help me stay focused and looking at the big picture.  This is the first battle in changing my big genes.  Yes, DNA is there and that's hard to re-write, but we pass down way more than just that.  We pass down our eating behaviors and  methods and traditions.  If you can start changing these things that are changeable, than hopefully down the DNA line maybe someday those genes will change too.  I want smaller genes.  And jeans.  *Yawn*  Time for stats:

Hunger:  Good, I ate bigger for lunch which left me not as hungry for dinner.
Mood:  Good, I love my family =)
Cravings:  I peeked longingly at my sis's taco dip, but otherwise not too bad.
Health:  I feel better, by bowels are trying to get normal again.

Tomorrow is weigh in day.  It should be exciting!!  It's nice that the weight's coming off.  It's a nice physical evidence that I'm getting healthier (it's not like I can look at my liver!).  Good night everyone, be healthy =)

Danielle

listening to my body, finally!

Today, despite the continued diarrhea, I was at least able to eat.  Now more than ever I'm really aware of what I'm putting into my body and listening to what my body needs.  I never really thought about it before that my body may be communicating with me.  For example, even though I've been craving hummus, I had no taste for it today and knew it was a bad idea.   For dinner I ended up with a grilled portabella cap sandwich.  It was really yummy.  I still had diarrhea, but I felt good eating it like it was what I needed at that moment.  I remember back when I was trying to get pregnant (it took me 3 years) I totally knew my body in terms of ovulation.  How ridiculous am I, that I never applied that concept further with food.  Clearly, as my butt kept getting bigger, my body was like: "yuck! I don't need this!!"  But I ignored it.  I got mad at it!  For the next how many years I veered between loathing my body and not listening to or understanding it.  My goal is to now get to know my body again.  It is not the body of an 18 year old who could eat whatever crap I wanted and not gain weight anymore.  I think I can get past this now.  I need to get to know my body as a 38 year old body that deserves some attention from me and frankly, some respect.  I see the way my body is responding to the foods I'm eating.  The fat is coming off my stomach like my body woke up and was like "what's this?  I don't need all this fat, burn it!!"  I never considered that I wasn't being nice to myself, I never considered I was working against my body instead of with it.  I want to change this; I already am.  It's amazing everything I am getting out of this new life style.  I thought I was self contemplative before, geeze!!  Which brings up the point that I feel like I've been so self-absorbed these 2 weeks.  I'm not used to focusing so hard on me.  So here are my goal:  listening to my body's needs.  I think eating as a vegan is really allowing me to achieve this.  It's late, let's do stats:

Hunger:  Coming back.
Mood:  Happy =)
Cravings:  None.  Still recovering!
Health:  Still have diarreha and a little weak.

Thank you all for visiting my blog and leaving wonderful comments.  You have supported me and keep me going and believing in myself.  I won't let you all down, and I won't let my body down.  Anymore.  Good night everyone, be happy!!

Danielle