Posts tagged vegan

I am honestly considering breaking my fast tomorrow. 
I am just SO sick of juice. 

I am sick of everything. 

I spend hours of my day obsessing over recipes on Pinterest and when I am not doing that, I am watching food shows on Netflix, and when I am not doing that, I am cleaning my juicer/making juice. 

I am just over it. 

I do not feel like my body is cleansing anymore. I feel like my body is at a war with me. I am constantly craving nuts and seeds and avocados. Clearly I need fat in my diet. 

The thought of a fruit juice makes me want to gag because it tastes like syrup and the thought of a vegetables juice makes me…actually, now that I think about it a green juice does sound good. 

I am at a loss. I want food. I want to cook. I want to eat, but I do not want to gain any weight back. 

But I really do not want any juice. 
At all. 

I keep feeling like I would rather not eat anything at all than drink juice. If I cannot keep myself motivated to juice, I am doing my body harm. Starving myself by only drinking 2 juices a day is not healthy and is definitely not helping in this detox. 

My stomach hurts. 

Honestly, all I can think about is a cold green smoothie in the morning loaded with nut butters and fruits…and a delicious raw salad with smashed avocado and lemon juice. 

What am I going to do?

Day seven.

I cannot believe I am on day seven. I can say with one hundred percent certainty that this was way easier than I thought it would be. I was always terrified of a juice fast…terrified of the hunger, terrified of the lack of fiber. 

But I feel amazing. I have so much energy. I feel thinner, I look thinner. I am barely even thinking about that stupid break up and that stupid. 

[Lies—just about the boy though]

I thought I was going to only make it three days. 
Then I thought I would only make it a week. 

But three days and a week have passed and I am at a fork in the road. Do I continue fasting? Do I break my fast and start eating raw food? Something tells me to keep doing the former. 

I guess I will see how I feel tomorrow. 

Day four. 
Is this real life? 

Four days with no food, only juice. 

Today was rough.

I worked my first eight hour shift on a Saturday, which are our busiest days, on my fast. By 4.30 and 5 and a half hours without juice, I was about to pass out. 

Thankfully I had this waiting for me in the refrigerator. 

About thirty minutes after I drank my juice, I felt energized again. Before I went on my lunch, I thought I was going to pass out though. 

I still have not felt many detox symptoms. I have no headaches or stomachaches. My skin feels less dry on my face though, which is definitely a plus. My tongue is still a little white, but not as much as it was in the beginning. 

Knock on wood, but I cannot believe how easy it is. 

I am also down four pounds.

This is Patrick. 

He likes juice too. 

I let him choose what to put in it and he did pineapple, watermelon, strawberries, and clementines. 

Cravings: 
-Vegan pesto 
-Ezekiel bread and earth balance

I did it. 
I made it to Day 3. 
And I am not stopping.

In case you were wondering, this is what twenty dollars of cucumbers looks like. 

I keep waiting to crash, but it never happens. Yesterday I felt so energized all day that when I left work, I felt like going for a run. 

I didn’t. 

Let’s not get too crazy. 

I have been experiencing some mild detox symptoms, but nothing too intense yet. I noticed that my tongue was feeling strange and that it was whiter than normal, so I googled that and apparently that a huge sign of detoxification. Oh, and it can also cause really bad breath. 

Great. 

I am a makeup artist and am in people’s faces all day. 
Sorry for my detox breath, guys. 

It smells fine to me and I have been making sure to really, really brush my teeth and chew gum [which is probably not part of this cleanse]…hopefully someone will tell me if I start to smell crazy. 

I went to Whole Foods tonight to stock up on more vegetables and I spent 90 dollars. Part of the reason for this is that I am a idiot and saw “Buy Big Save Big $1” in huge letter on top of the freshly cut pineapple…I thought this meant it cost $1 when, in reality, it cost $11 dollars and I saved $1. I was too embarrassed to admit my mistake upon checking out, so I bought it anyway. 

Goodness, I started to just feel exhausted. 

Every morning I wake up feeling like I have been hit by a train. Or I downed a bottle of wine the night before. Or two. I feel exhausted and weak and stiff, but as soon as I am up and drink a glass of water, I feel great. 

And I mean great. 

I have had so much energy throughout the day. So much that it is scaring me. I thought I was going to be exhausted? Honestly, I am just waiting to crash. 

Red bell pepper, beet, carrot, strawberry, pineapple, romaine.

Cravings:
-Vegan Eggs Benedict
-Pasta with vegan pesto
-Avocados
-Chili  

Today I have decided to embark on a juice fast. I have not done much preparation, but I suppose I could say I have been preparing for the last two years as a juice fast has always been on my mind. 

Apple, pear, lemon, ginger, romaine, kale, cucumber, kiwi. 

I am really not sure how long this fast will last. I am not giving myself a time limit. It might last 3 days or 30 days. All I know is that my body needs a serious detox. Serious. 

I am vegan. For the month of January, I was almost 80 percent raw. I ate spiralized raw zucchini with raw cashew alfredo. I ate salads for every meal. I ate green smoothies for breakfast. 

But then the boy I was in love with and lived with decided he no longer wanted to be with me and wanted to be with someone else. My whole world came crashing down on me. I had never experienced heartbreak before and this was the absolute worst kind. 

I started self medicating with the worst kind of medicine. With alcohol, with   vegan junk food, with stevia sodas. Things I never let cross my lips suddenly became something I craved. 

I had to do something. 

I am not sure what my plan is. I am just kind of whinging it. Yesterday I went to Whole Foods and Trader Joes and filled my cart with all the fruits and vegetables I could find. 

I also got kale salad, mock chicken salad, and a cookie as my last meal before the fast. The kale salad was my favourite. I forgot what it was like to crave vegetables, to really taste them, to crave kale over french fries. 

So today, I begin. 

So, I have now completed 2 full weeks of the P90X lean version. 

On Day 13 I used the exercise bike instead of Legs and Back because I pulled something and could not do squats on my right side and on Day 14, I ran 3 miles and did the elliptical because, quite frankly, I hate Kenpo X. 

I weighed myself this morning and, while I have felt a lot thinner, I have not lost any weight*. This happens every single time I work out for a short amount of time. I feel great, never lose any weight, so then I get frustrated and I quit. 

Boy did I want to quit this morning. 
I wanted to quit after I drank my green smoothie.
I wanted to quit when I was warming up during Core.
I wanted to quit when I was doing jumping jacks.
I really wanted to quit during Banana Rolls. 

But I did not.

I used weights during Squat X Press.
I did boy pushups during Sphinx Pushups AND Prison Cell Pushups.
My Boat was almost perfect during Bow to Boat.
My heart rate stayed around 155-175 the whole time.

So even if I have not lost any weight, I have still gotten stronger. And regardless, I have to keep telling myself that, no matter what weight I am, I still love my body…and that is exactly why I am doing this. I am doing this to be stronger, to help my heart, my muscles, my bones. I am doing this for the inside, not the outside. 

*I am really struggling with a Vitamin D deficiency, which I think has something to do with not being able to lose weight. However, I am going to start counting my calories today to see exactly how much I am eating and if I need to eat more or less. The reason I have not been counting calories is because I have stayed the same weight for the past year without gaining or losing, so since I was eating enough to stay the same, I just assumed adding in high intensity workouts would automatically make me lose weight. 

So, I have started P90X [once again], but this time as a vegan…and I am really struggling. 

Not struggling in the physical sense. Well, of course I am, this is P90X, but I am really struggling with what to eat and with my relationship to food. 

On a typical day, pre P90X, I start my day off with fruit or a green smoothie as my first breakfast. Then I have oatmeal or sprouted grain toast as my second breakfast. Lunch would be a combination of a big raw salad with a side of some sort of grain and bean dish—black bean burger, bean quesadilla, quinoa etc. Dinner would be a raw salad and maybe a hearty soup, quinoa tacos, brown rice pasta, etc.

I have been vegan for two years and vegetarian for five, so eating this way is second nature to me. Eating so many carbohydrates or so many fats was always a concern for me, but as I had not gained any weight since becoming vegan, I did not think too much of it. Clearly I was doing something right if I was maintaining the same weight. 

Now throw in P90X…and the P90X meal plan. The meal plan is highly protein based and does in fact list some vegetarian options for protein. However, those options are highly processed versions of proteins like soy hot dogs, soy burgers, and tofu. These are things I stay away from. I try not to eat a lot of soy or faux meats…I will occasionally have tofu, but it is usually off the Whole Foods salad bar or if I am craving a tofu scramble, I will buy it. I stopped buying processed frozen faux meats a long time ago—I will occasionally eat them if I am at my mom’s house though. That being said, I will not compromise my diet, but I am wondering if that means I will have to compromise my workouts. 

Am I not eating enough non carb-y sources of protein? 
Am I eating too many fats?
Am I eating enough?
Am I eating too much?

These are things that go through my head all day, every day and I am starting to have a negative relationship with food again. 

This morning my struggle was what to eat before my Shoulders and Arms workout. I woke up feeling famished, so I drank a big glass of water and I needed to eat something fast because I need to start my workout now, so I made two pieces of sprouted grain toast. But then, the biggest dilemma: what to put on it. I decided against sunflower seed butter because that will be going in to my post workout recovery smoothie. I decided against any other type of nut butter because that will be too much fat…right? I decided against my favourite of a smear or Earth Balance and nutritional yeast because I am trying not to eat oils. 

A million things went through my head. What am I going to put on this? Yogurt? Gross. Hummus? Too early in the morning. Just nutritional yeast? Too dry. A fig bar? Too many calories.

So then I opened up a jar of organic pasta sauce [with no added sugar…yay!] and used that.

I once talked with Tony Horton’s vegan chef, Missy Costello, about doing P90X as a vegan and she said to just listen to my body about what to eat.  

Right now, my body is just confused. 

January: was full of new experiences. The first words I heard on the first day of the new year were, “I really do love you,” but then he took them back claiming he was sleep talking. I celebrated my 1 year veganiversary and watched the first three seasons of Big Love. I got branded with the Deathly Hallows symbol as my first tattoo and my doctor told my uterus was perfect after he inserted my new copper IUD. I started experimenting more with food and cooked for Seth for the first time…vegan shepherd’s pie. I started toying with the idea of going on a raw food diet and played ridiculous amounts of Pokemon. I went to see Julius Caesar at Belmont with Hensley, her brothers, and Clay. There was lots of eating out, lots of love, a failed ice skating attempt, lots of confusion, and lots of fun. 

February: was not amazing. I started February 1st as a raw foodist…but quickly learned it was not the right fit for me. I spent the entire time chopping vegetables, practising disordered eating, and craving cupcakes. I searched and searched for Titanic on DVD and finally found it at the Great Escape and paid $40 dollars for it. The night he got Max, Seth and I stayed up all night watching Titanic and I just cried and cried. I really exercised my wife skills by wearing aprons for Shop/Cook MAC at work, making homemade meals every night, and watching Titanic while working out every day. On Valentine’s day, I made vegan chocolate lava cakes and the best mix cd for my Valentine…we then went to the Blackhawks game where I got my heart broken. I ended February thinking things would never be the same again…I cried all of my makeup off before I went to work, cried at work, and felt completely worthless. It took a couple of days and cleaning out his childhood bedroom for us to feel semi normal again. 

March: was better. I started out the month with a very violent sickness where I had to call out from work and ended up watching all six of the Star Wars movies in a row for the first time. I was working out and night running more and more. I started to gain more confidence and more love for myself and was seriously thinking of taking all of the negativity out of my life. I asked every person I knew for advice and they all said the same thing, but in the end, I felt like the good outweighed the bad. I joined OkCupid and got over 70 messages from men in my area…and even almost went out with one. When I realised what I was looking for, I already had, I shut down my account. My stepdad got tickets for me and Seth and 10 of his friends to go to the Predator’s game one night together and we ended the night by running through the fountain with all of our clothes on. I started discovering Macrobiotics and chewed my food 100 times each bite. I was only working one job so my days off were starting to be spent at Seth’s house playing video games, doing his homework, and playing fetch with Max. 

April: was playoff madness. I started the month out with seeing Ben Kweller perform at Mercy Lounge. Naturally, I was in the front row…and got a guitar pick and setlist. The playoffs began and Seth and I got tickets to as many games as we could, spending most nights drunk and barely being able to watch the game out of nerves. I spent the rest of the nights at my parent’s house, bonding with my stepdad and watching every other playoff game. On the night I told Seth he was my boyfriend now, I drunkenly fell on broadway and twisted and/or broke my ankle and could barely walk the next day at work during prom. On Seth’s birthday, I got all of his friends to meet at the Gerst Haus as a surprise and we all drank at Paradise Park till 2 in the morning. The next day I ended up with strep throat and ate popsicles and watched Star Wars for the next two days at Seth’s. I ended April by going to Brendan’s first communion spending time with my family. 

May: was all about fitness. Benton and I got a personal trainer and spent the whole month waking up at ungodly hours, doing things we never thought our bodies could, and never losing any weight. We became obsessed with the Biggest Loser and tried to model our lives after Jillian Michaels. We discovered Taco Mamacita and had so many Nashville days, I lost count. I spent more and more time at my mom’s house watching hockey, hanging out at pool parties, and bonding with my amazing family. Maw Maw got tickets for us to see Rain in the second row at TPAC! Brendan had another camping birthday party and on his birthday, Mom and I went on his fieldtrip with him to the Mother House. I started preparing for and applied for my dream job as a 30 hour MAC artist at Rivergate…I had never wanted anything so badly.

June: was all about new beginnings. We had our Hey, Sailor! event at Dillard’s where I got to bodypaint a hot model named Ignacio all day long. Conor and I went to the zoo one day where we reminisced about high school and searched for bubble tea. After waiting almost 3 weeks, I got the phone call saying I got the 30 hour position. The night I got the phone call, I drank an entire bottle of red wine, blacked out, and threw up in Seth’s bed. After many tears and hugs at Dillard’s, I was on my way to start a new job on June 20th. My job was everything I could have hoped for and Macy’s Rivergate started to feel more like home than ever. We spent Patricks’s 6th birthday eating sushi and I finally read up on the dangers of a Vitamin D deficiency and filled my prescription. After much begging, Seth finally took me kayaking where we floated down the river, drinking beer, and talking about life all day. 

July: was summer perfection. I finally decided to quit Tina’s Nail Spa for good because having two jobs was just too much. My Boston family came in to town and we spent a good amount of time acting like tourists by going to all the bars on Broadway and to see the Taylor Swift Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Seth and I ate so many burritos from Blue Coast and Mexican food, but that is what summer is all about. I dropped my iPhone and had to shell out another 200 dollars for a new one. Seth got us tickets to see the Dark Knight trilogy the night the new movie came out…I lasted through the first two, but fell asleep during the Dark Knight Rises. After many tears and panic attacks, I got Advanced 1 certified and started to really grow into the MAC artist I always knew I could be. 

August: was a new normal. I started the month off by purchasing a brand new MacBook Pro and Seth and I day drank at the Cheesecake Factory. Seth’s home started feeling more like home than anywhere else and I gradually just never left. I made my first ever pie…it was vegan, apple, gluten free, and delicious! I got a little too comfortable with Max and he bit my face, so we bought every Dog Whisperer book out there and started trying to figure out what we were doing wrong. I got my heart broken on my birthday after the one person I wanted most to come to my party did not show up. It started out full of tears, but seeing all the people who love me at my party eating the amazing vegan Mexican food my mom cooked and spending the night with my high school best friends made my birthday worth it. I took the week off for my birthday and spent it all with Seth. He took me to PF Changs for a birthday dinner, we played video games, went to the flea market, cooked vegan chili, and went to the Wilson County Fair. 

September: was September. I celebrated my two year MACiversary on the first and finally felt like I was grown up. The weather was changing and I was happier than ever…spending days out in shorts and stripes with Seth and afternoons taking walks at dusk with Max. Benton and I had a Southern dinner party where I cooked an entire vegan Southern meal. Whitney, Dustin, and I went to the Ryman to see Metric play and a couple of nights later I went alone to see Ben Folds Five and ended up sitting in the first row right in front of Ben Folds and his piano. My car started leaking gas so Seth had to drive me to work for a whole week straight. We were growing closer and closer and I was happier and happier. 

October: was busy. I represented my counter at the Nashville Cares AIDS Walk. The day after Maw Maw and I drove to Inlet beach to meet my family at the beach house for our vacation. I actually wore a bathing suit and spent the time bonding with my family via bike rides and playing on the beach. The day I came home, I had to house sit for a whole week and was terrified to do it alone. Seth stayed with me the first night and we had no video games or television…we just had each other I am pretty sure I stopped existing for a moment. Nonnie and Bailey stayed with me one night and so did Hensley. I went on a field trip with Patrick’s class to the pumpkin patch and felt a million feelings all at once when I saw Stephen Kellogg and the Sixer’s play their last ever show as a band in Nashville. Mom and I went to see our favourite, Alanis Morissette, at the Ryman where we both had too much wine. Seth started his new job and we barely ever got to see each other. I went to Alicia’s baby shower and then Rosy’s pumpkin carving party. My family ended the month by dressing as pirates, and Brendan as a soldier, and trick or treating. 

November: was full of brand new feelings. Never getting see each other was really a taking a toll on mine and Seth’s relationship. He was always so tired and I just missed spending time together. I went to see the Perks of Being a Wallflower alone and cried throughout the entire movie. A new person came into my life, someone I never saw coming, and I started to fall hard and fast. All of these new feelings were happening…love and hate and broken hearts and wants and needs. With the help from my mom, I made the most wonderful vegan Thanksgiving dinner and then had to work the Midnight to 6 am shift on Black Friday. 

December: was strange. The whole month was full of arguing and broken hearts. For the first time in my life, I was considering leaving, just packing up my things and starting a new life. I could not stop thinking about this new person in my life, but she did not want anything to do with me. I started really thinking about what I wanted and who I really wanted, but they did not add up. The world did not end on the 21st, but I took off from work just in case. Christmas was one of the best…I got so many amazing gifts and ended up going to five different Christmas’. The year ended with a meltdown after work, eating a frozen vegan meal, and laying on the floor with Seth after too many long island iced teas. 

2012 was the year I grew up and really started to believe in myself. I got the job I always wanted and was amazing at it. I had one of the best summers ever and saw so many amazing concerts. As a person, I became more independent, more of a leader. I felt a million different emotions and I am still not sure which was right. 2013 is going to be the year of health and growing up even more. I plan to finally do what is best for me, exercise even more, and eat even more kale.