I'm trying to get healthier. Or maybe I'm trying to stay healthy. Or maybe I just don't want to be fat. It's at least one of those things.
When I started dating Jenna 4+ years ago, I slowly started losing weight. I weighed about 215 pounds when we met, but I was in pretty good shape - running 3-6 miles a couple times a week, biking to work when weather allowed, going to the gym semi regularly. My diet was...not great. Jenna scolded me for eating Pop Tarts, which I miss terribly to this day.
She only ever really drinks water. I used to drink a lot of milk. Even with skim milk, if I drank a quart a day, that was several hundred calories that weren't super necessary. We would go for walks pretty commonly and she just ate healthier than I did at the time, so by osmosis I started losing weight. By the time we moved to Italy I was down to about 200-205 pounds on a regular basis.
I remember telling a friend (looking at you, Lubelski) that at some point I just wanted to comfortably be under 200 pounds to the point that I could eat a huge meal or be fat for a couple days and still not hit 200.
I don't really remember when, but it happened. I haven't weight 200 pounds in at least a year and am pretty consistently in the low 190s. But while the whole point was that it would allow me to occasionally be a fat slob without tipping the scale over the two bills mark, I feel like it hasn't been nearly as fun as I wanted it to be.
Recently, for various reasons, we've converted to a vegetarian diet. Part of it is because we both just love animals and forced ourselves to think about meat, but part of it is because there are tons of documentaries about how bad meat is for you and almost none about how good it is for you. People talk about "What the Health?" all the time but they never talk about something like "Meat Makes Magic!" or something about the goodness of meat because that movie doesn't exist.
I like being alive. I don't want to stop doing that anytime soon, so if cutting out meat means I'm extending my time, I should probably do it, right? Sure. If you feel differently, fine, I don't spend my time trying to convert people. I'm happy to explain my decision if you want to know.
Back to the point. You would think that the pounds would be flying off now that I'm eating more vegetables, more non-meat products, and more generally low-calorie foods. I would think the same thing. But friends, we're wrong. My body is basically no different than it was six months ago and I'm really not sure why. I assume, based on what I've read about the benefits of eating whole foods/plant-based foods, that my health-numbers (cholesterol, etc.) are improving, but I don't take my own vitals for funzies, so I can't say for sure.
Most people swear that they have more energy after switching to plant-based foods. I have not found that to be true. Many people swear that they sleep better after switching to plant-based foods. I have not found that to be true. A lot of people swear that there's a psychological boost after switching to plant-based foods. I have not found that to be true.
It's weird, but I truly don't feel any different. The only places that I've noticed a difference is when I'm grocery shopping. I don't go on the same route through the store anymore, and now I spend a lot more time in the produce section, trying to figure out what fruit I'm not sick of yet. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
There are some rewarding moments though, I swear. The biggest one so far has been when we stumble upon a vegetarian recipe that *actually* tastes good. Sauces go a long way in determining whether or not being a vegetarian sucks, and since fruits are super high in sugar, you shouldn't just eat fruits all day. Vegetables, as you surely know, are bland and pointless and should be outlawed. Quinoa, which is part of basically every highly-recommended vegetarian recipe on the internet, tastes like paper and gets stuck in between your teeth. However, if you mix in a little rice and add taco seasoning, then drown everything in low-sodium salsa and low-fat sour cream, smear some shredded lettuce on top, and chop up baby tomatoes for good measure, I'll be damned if it isn't a tasty meal.
That's the trick. The rare moments when a delicious meal that you used to like can be almost replicated (let's get real, it'll never be truly replicated) and is still delicious - those make it seem OK. Last night we made jambalaya. It was really good. It was a tiny bit too spicy to be perfect, but it was very good. It would've been even better with chorizo, but that's not happening. Instead, I had to make peace with what was a delicious meal made out of things that come from the ground. That's mildly rewarding.
But I don't feel those boosts that people talked about. To some extent, it's a frustrating thing to make a fairly large commitment to something that you expect to improve your life and then not notice a visible improvement. I don't necessarily want to lose more weight, but I thought that would be a cool side-effect of this newfound diet. What's more likely is that I'm just not working out as much, so there isn't much of a payoff from the fewer calories. Of course, if I worked out more, I would need to eat even more, which isn't possible because I literally cannot stop eating. Granola bars are vegetarian. As are triscuits.
Oh. I guess that's why I'm not losing more weight.
There you go. That's my 1,000 for the day. We're now over a week in. I like this. I feel like I'm missing something if I skip out. I suspect this will go a lot longer than just a month, considering I don't remember which day I started.
When I started dating Jenna 4+ years ago, I slowly started losing weight. I weighed about 215 pounds when we met, but I was in pretty good shape - running 3-6 miles a couple times a week, biking to work when weather allowed, going to the gym semi regularly. My diet was...not great. Jenna scolded me for eating Pop Tarts, which I miss terribly to this day.
She only ever really drinks water. I used to drink a lot of milk. Even with skim milk, if I drank a quart a day, that was several hundred calories that weren't super necessary. We would go for walks pretty commonly and she just ate healthier than I did at the time, so by osmosis I started losing weight. By the time we moved to Italy I was down to about 200-205 pounds on a regular basis.
I remember telling a friend (looking at you, Lubelski) that at some point I just wanted to comfortably be under 200 pounds to the point that I could eat a huge meal or be fat for a couple days and still not hit 200.
I don't really remember when, but it happened. I haven't weight 200 pounds in at least a year and am pretty consistently in the low 190s. But while the whole point was that it would allow me to occasionally be a fat slob without tipping the scale over the two bills mark, I feel like it hasn't been nearly as fun as I wanted it to be.
Recently, for various reasons, we've converted to a vegetarian diet. Part of it is because we both just love animals and forced ourselves to think about meat, but part of it is because there are tons of documentaries about how bad meat is for you and almost none about how good it is for you. People talk about "What the Health?" all the time but they never talk about something like "Meat Makes Magic!" or something about the goodness of meat because that movie doesn't exist.
I like being alive. I don't want to stop doing that anytime soon, so if cutting out meat means I'm extending my time, I should probably do it, right? Sure. If you feel differently, fine, I don't spend my time trying to convert people. I'm happy to explain my decision if you want to know.
Back to the point. You would think that the pounds would be flying off now that I'm eating more vegetables, more non-meat products, and more generally low-calorie foods. I would think the same thing. But friends, we're wrong. My body is basically no different than it was six months ago and I'm really not sure why. I assume, based on what I've read about the benefits of eating whole foods/plant-based foods, that my health-numbers (cholesterol, etc.) are improving, but I don't take my own vitals for funzies, so I can't say for sure.
Most people swear that they have more energy after switching to plant-based foods. I have not found that to be true. Many people swear that they sleep better after switching to plant-based foods. I have not found that to be true. A lot of people swear that there's a psychological boost after switching to plant-based foods. I have not found that to be true.
It's weird, but I truly don't feel any different. The only places that I've noticed a difference is when I'm grocery shopping. I don't go on the same route through the store anymore, and now I spend a lot more time in the produce section, trying to figure out what fruit I'm not sick of yet. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
There are some rewarding moments though, I swear. The biggest one so far has been when we stumble upon a vegetarian recipe that *actually* tastes good. Sauces go a long way in determining whether or not being a vegetarian sucks, and since fruits are super high in sugar, you shouldn't just eat fruits all day. Vegetables, as you surely know, are bland and pointless and should be outlawed. Quinoa, which is part of basically every highly-recommended vegetarian recipe on the internet, tastes like paper and gets stuck in between your teeth. However, if you mix in a little rice and add taco seasoning, then drown everything in low-sodium salsa and low-fat sour cream, smear some shredded lettuce on top, and chop up baby tomatoes for good measure, I'll be damned if it isn't a tasty meal.
That's the trick. The rare moments when a delicious meal that you used to like can be almost replicated (let's get real, it'll never be truly replicated) and is still delicious - those make it seem OK. Last night we made jambalaya. It was really good. It was a tiny bit too spicy to be perfect, but it was very good. It would've been even better with chorizo, but that's not happening. Instead, I had to make peace with what was a delicious meal made out of things that come from the ground. That's mildly rewarding.
But I don't feel those boosts that people talked about. To some extent, it's a frustrating thing to make a fairly large commitment to something that you expect to improve your life and then not notice a visible improvement. I don't necessarily want to lose more weight, but I thought that would be a cool side-effect of this newfound diet. What's more likely is that I'm just not working out as much, so there isn't much of a payoff from the fewer calories. Of course, if I worked out more, I would need to eat even more, which isn't possible because I literally cannot stop eating. Granola bars are vegetarian. As are triscuits.
Oh. I guess that's why I'm not losing more weight.
There you go. That's my 1,000 for the day. We're now over a week in. I like this. I feel like I'm missing something if I skip out. I suspect this will go a lot longer than just a month, considering I don't remember which day I started.
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