Time is nothing.

 Holy. Shit.

It is 2022. My last post was four years ago, and a lot can happen in four years. Like...a LOT. I won't go into the minutia of every month past. I won't even scratch the surface of the insanity of everything that has happened in the past 2 years, globally speaking. Pandemics and wars are all over the news, and I am not interested in rehashing my own PTSD and trauma from all the garbage that has rained down on us for since 2020 hit.

What I can do, however, is recognize that I am mostly okay. I am working on myself, both physically and mentally, and that I feel better today than I have in a long time, and that is all I really want to say in this post.

It's not what it looks like

I know, I know... usually when people say that, they are lying. But I swear, my disappearance in August after making a post about losing weight to win a prize just one short month after switching to a plant-based diet does not mean I disappeared to go snarf bacon and balloon up to 300 lbs. Quite the opposite, for once.

You see, my history is that I throw myself full force at things I am passionate about for as long as they are new and shiny, and when the shine wears off and I become habitual in those efforts, I kind of glaze over, lose focus and need to find a new reason to be passionate about that thing, or an entirely new thing to be passionate about. I get bored, complacent, lazy, and that leads to bad places. In the past it has led me to start fights with my significant others, to overeating, to depression. I has led me to just feeling resentful and miserable for no good reason.

In August, I had a goal to lose 10-15 lbs while Kevin was in the Arctic. I worked my ass off, literally, to get to that goal. I spent those 5 weeks tracking every morsel I ate, exercising 5 times a week, and I surpassed my goal by 2 lbs and had lost 17 lbs by the time Kevin returned from sea. In September, he and I went to the gym together a lot, and I continued to track my intake, the entire time sticking with my diet. I got my coveted Ninja blender (OMG it is incredible), and I felt fantastic. In October I bought a box of milk chocolate Nestle bars for the trick-or-treaters because I no longer eat dairy, so I knew I wouldn't break down and devour them. And I was right! In fact, they made it to our Christmas party and I threw out the few leftover Aero bars just last week because Kevin mentioned they don't taste as good as he remembered, so bye bye!

I had one minor slip at my friend Allison's birthday party where I drank ALL the wine and ate a piece of cake with eggs in it to soak up the booze, but I am fine with that. It was necessary to prevent future projectile vomiting. Plus, it was birthday cake. I am only human, guys... what human can say no to cake when they are intoxicated?

Anyway, here we are in January, and I am kind of gob-smacked to realize that I am still passionate about something that isn't my husband or some cute animal. I am also impressed that I made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas without breaking my diet or gaining any weight. I feel that switching to plant-based is the best thing I have ever done for myself. My body feels great, my mind feels clear and balanced for the first time in any January that I can remember as an adult. I haven't needed my Happy Light to make me get out of bed in the morning, or keep me from crawling back into it mid-afternoon. I still track my food intake, though I am not as regimental on caloric intake as I used to be because most of my food is all natural, filling in one serving and relatively guilt free.

In addition to all that stuff, without actively trying (because I have not been as physically active as I should be since I am still a hibernator by nature this time of year), my weight continues to slowly fall. Overall, since July, I am down 36 lbs and have gone from a size 18 to a size 14. I am not in a rush to get to a certain size, I am just happy with the results as they come. The feeling of contentment in my own skin is unprecedented.

Happy New Year.

Incentives in Dieting

It's been a week since Mr. Jenjo went back to sea. One down, 5 to go.

The day before he left, I  suggested an incentive program to keep me active. As we both know, I am sometimes prone to cataclysmic levels of sloth and apathy when he goes away. I don't do it on purpose, it just happens, and without his presence here to "WOOT WOOT!!" me out of it, I comfortably stay that way. I won't lie: there have been nights in the past where I had a can of corn niblets for supper. Not hot, or seasoned. Just cold, sad corn, right out of the can. So, my idea for my incentive program was to get me off my ass and cooking new foods, grocery shopping for produce regularly, and exercising (my goal for the 6 weeks he is gone is to lose 10-15lbs from the day he left, in a good way, not a corn-diet way) instead of reading the comments sections on Facebook posts. Like a good husband, he said he would put some thought into it and let me know what my reward would be for forcing myself off the furniture.

That night, we went out for a meal at one of our favourite pizza places to check out their veg-friendly selections. While we were waiting to be seated, he said he had come up with an idea. Trusting my honesty, and willingness to succeed, he said if I managed to lose 10-15lbs in a safe, healthy way in the 6 weeks he was absent, he would put an end to my cursing on my Black & Decker blender and buy a new Ninja kitchen system. Let's be honest here, I was thinking he'd take me out for a nice dinner upon his return, or let me finally get to pick out a red car when the lease is up on our Sonata. But a Ninja blender/food processor for the kitchen?! This is SO MUCH BETTER! And I may eventually win on the red car next April (because I am tenacious like that), and still get a dinner date.

So, as proof that I have indeed been eating like a human being (albeit a plant-eating one), I present to you my food pictures because I have become that kind of person now. I am just steering into the skid.

 

Hummus, grilled mushroom & onion, Daiya shreds on English muffin w/ sweet kale salad. 

Homemade pesto, 4 grain penne, cherry tomatoes & corn topped with fresh pepper

Ginger garlic tofu and udon noodle stir fry.

One-pot Chickpea Biryani

See! I made food! And I started wearing my fitness tracker again, and even turned on the movement alert so if I have been stationary too long, it shames me into getting up and doing something. Netflix asking me if I am still watching has had no effect, but this thing vibrating on my wrist and telling me I am a lazy piece of shit works like a charm. 

Fitness trackers never sleep...

As for progress, I have lost 2.4 pounds since Kevin set sail last week (for an overall total of 15 pounds in the past 5 weeks), but this is PMS week coming up now so I may puff back up a pound before the weekend. I am hopeful it stops at that. In the meantime, I have some Facebook comment sections to read till my wrist yells at me again.

Food for thought

So, it has been just shy of 1 month that I originally watched What The Health and changed my lifestyle in what can only be described as a complete 180 degree turn. I still have a freezer overstuffed with meat products that I don't know what to do with, and I have had zero desire to eat them. I have had very little dairy (there is still Parmesan cheese etc in the fridge to be used up), but I am quite happy with the foods we have been eating, and I feel amazing. My stomach issues have been negligible, and my energy levels have skyrocketed. I am holding steady at 13 lbs lost because I have throttled my weight loss efforts due to having to stand in a wedding on Saturday and needing the dress to fit. But come Sunday, buddy, watch out! I will be hitting the gym like a motherfucker!

Despite already feeling like this lifestyle is 100% sustainable for me, I decided a little more education was in order, so this morning I watched Vegucated on Netflix. The documentary highlighted 3 random omnivorous people who were interviewed on the streets of NYC and challenged with eating vegan for a few weeks to become more aware of how the change would impact their health, as well as their outlook on the meat and dairy industries. At the end of their challenge, they could either stay vegan, or go back to their old ways. Each accepted the challenge (many others declined, of course, because people are wimps). It was pretty great to see people of different backgrounds face different challenges at home when it came to making such a dramatic change to their eating habits.

People seem to think that being educated on vegetarianism or veganism is going to complicate their lives, and I will admit that more frequent grocery shopping is required to eat fresh, plant-based meals every day. It also requires wanting to change. If you have no desire to learn where your food comes from because change is hard, that is a shame. Of course change is hard. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. But the meals themselves take little to no effort to make if you have a food processor & immersion blender, so blaming not wanting to become a vegetarian or vegan on how hard it would be to prepare the meals? That is a lame, bullshit excuse.

People also seem to think that being a vegetarian or vegan is going to be more expensive than eating meat and dairy. Granted, if you need meat and cheese substitutes for every meal, that shit gets expensive. But highly processed foods are overpriced garbage, meat or no meat. Making things from scratch, on the other hand, is cheap as hell! And the taste is so much better! I feel like I have been eating better this past month than I have in my entire life. The flavours have been incredible, and the dishes have been filling. What more could you want?

Oh, right.
Meat. Well...

There is no easy segue into this next part, but I witnessed a juvenile pig get shot with a stun gun, then strung up by one hind leg while semi-conscious to have its throat slit this morning, and that was one of the quicker, less gruesome scenes scattered throughout this documentary. I fast forwarded through  some of them. Several scenes included details on how the dairy industry works, how steers bred for meat are castrated without anesthetic, and how newborn calves are taken away from their mothers the instant they are born to either become meat (male), or dairy cows like their mother (female). How chickens are sorted by male and female and tossed into a funnel system that separates them to either go be egg layers or to go be caged for meat, or ground into "chicken by-products" or "chicken meal". Fluffy little yellow chicks, that we all think are adorable, ground alive because fuck it, they're male.

The disconnect between our brains and our stomachs is astounding. Somehow this is all okay because "they're just animals"... nope, sorry. Fuck all of that noise. It is NOT okay. If someone stole the newborn of a human mother, or even a goddamned dog, that mother would be inconsolable and broken; it is no different for cows. Those mother cows, despite being chained up their entire lives, forcibly impregnated by humans, and stripped of their freedom to walk around, and mother their calves, they scream out for their lost baby to be returned. But they have become nothing more than a milk machine, so fuck their anguish. And let's be clear: I have ZERO maternal instinct. I am not some woman in hysterics because of babies. I am an outraged human being who thinks that the system we have created for ourselves is broken... can you imagine if a doctor wanted to remove a man's scrotum without anesthetic like these meat farmers do to bulls? The world would fucking end! There would be rioting! That doctor would be eviscerated, a bullseye painted on his back for such barbaric practices, but it's okay somehow for us to do it to another living creature because, somehow, we got the ludicrous notion that we are above them. HA! We all eat, shit and fuck just the same as them, but we're better? Whatever helps you feel good about yourself.

I wish the willfully ignorant could be forced to think critically for five seconds after witnessing something horrible like the plight of food-farmed animals. Any person who can see or read these things and still feel nothing, or thinks it is okay that this system is so broken, is dead inside.

Human beings are a fucking disgrace, and a blight on this planet. Did you know that if the entire world consumed on the same level as the USA every day, we would need 3-5 more planets like this one to sustain it? Think about it.

Or don't. Seems to be working out great for us so far.

Self-care week

It has been a relaxing and wonderful couple of days here. We got some much needed rain, and I got a much needed massage. I am sore as hell today, since my massage therapist was really giving my knotty bits (har har) a real pummeling with her tiny fists and elbows. How can something that hurts so much still feel so brain-meltingly awesome? And how does someone so small have so much meat-tenderizing power in her arms?

On Monday night, after several recommendations from different people, Kevin and I went to a restaurant downtown for a nice dinner out. Since I took the leap and made the transition toward a plant-based diet, we haven't eaten out much, so this was a testing of the waters as much as it was a treat. The restaurant we chose has a vegan menu available, so I really wanted to give it a try and thankfully I was not disappointed. We shared an appetizer and so opted for the bruschetta off the vegan menu, and it was incredible. Fresh tomatoes, basil, onions & olives, extra virgin olive oil infused with garlic, served on what looked like a jumbo English muffin. Whatever it was, it was so tasty that I could have eaten another order of it. And I was so hungry when it came, I totally forgot to take a picture of it! Worst. Blogger. Ever.

The menu is your consolation prize, bitches.

For our main courses, we both ordered pasta dishes: Kevin had the wild mushroom fettuccine with a white wine cream sauce and parmesan, while I had the vegan penne course with peppers, olives, asparagus, arugula, gremolata, topped with their made-in-house cashew parm. It was astounding how good it was.

Who knew cashews were so versatile?

Something else I did on Monday was make a bunch of appointments for the rest of the week. Rather than jam a bunch of stuff all into one day, I decided to space things out. Next weekend (August 5th to be precise) I am standing in my best friend's wedding, and since I currently look like a disheveled pile of laundry, I decided it was time to get my hair freshened up and my nails done. So, today I have an appointment to go get my hair done, tomorrow I have an appointment to get my nails done, and Friday I have an appointment with my doctor to get a pap smear. That one is less for the wedding and more for the obvious reasons one gets a pap. A friend of mine mused, upon hearing of the order of my plans, "Jesus, you really go all out for your gyno, don't you?". Naturally, my reply was "It's the only way I can get anyone to look at my snatch."

Seriously, though.

Unrelated to medical procedures, I tried another recipe for breakfast from oh she glows the other day. The southwest tofu scramble. I must say, it was quite filling, and a very tasty substitute for scrambled eggs. It was so filling, I could not finish my portion so I refrigerated part of it and reheated it yesterday morning for breakfast, adding in extra spinach, peppers, spices and some of our leftover chili. Talk about a satisfying meal! I was full till supper time.

Good thing it tasted and smelled nicer than it appears.

I wish you could smell this picture.

The real show stopper of yesterday was not the massage, or the leftover tofu scrambler, the hilarious conversation about what I need to do to get the doctor to tend to my twat, or even the birthday party we attended for a neighbour last night. No, the real show stopper of yesterday was that Kevin cooked supper, and made a concerted effort to bring it as close to vegan as he possibly could. Since we are still eating down the fridge, I told him to go ahead with his use of the actual butter we had in there when he asked what was needed as a substitute if he wanted to make Butter Chicken. So, he used the butter but, instead of cream, he opted for coconut cream. And while he cooked chicken breasts for himself, he sauteed some tandoori spiced tofu for me and made the sauce separate from both. As a side dish, he also made Spiced Coconut Mushrooms, and the end result of all his hard work was stunning. I think I could eat it every day and not get sick of it.

The stench of onions permeating our house and clothes, though... that is another story. I hope my hairstylist doesn't think I reek today. I can't tell if I do or not. Fingers crossed!

Chili cheese nacho day!

Since my husband is such a supportive and wonderful man, today I decided to reward him for doing such an awesome job of keeping an open mind and dealing with my process of trudging through this mire of information. He loves chili cheese nachos, and we haven't had it in awhile so I decided to make a vegetarian version of our favourite chili, and since I have not yet sought out a recipe for vegan sour cream (though I am sure it exists), and Kevin is not a huge fan of the vegan cheese I currently have in the fridge, I opted to make the warm nacho dip to go with the chili. This recipe is identical to the one found in the oh she glows! cookbook, but it doesn't appear on her website, apparently.

Pre-baked nacho dip

It smells incredible, and tastes just as good.

While I know what I do not want in my diet anymore (meat, fish, dairy, and eggs), it is sometimes difficult to come up with healthy choices on the fly. It is also difficult to eat out on the fly. This city has a sparse number of restaurants that cater to vegetarians, let alone anyone who is dairy-free. If you don't want meat, cheese or potatoes, well...fuck you. This means having to plan in advance, do my homework, and keep inventory of all the ingredients we currently have in the house. It is a decent amount of work, but I enjoy it: it is challenging, and exciting to make something new from scratch every day. And man, the cashew cheese sauce recipe is surprisingly delicious, so the warm nacho dip was a really great comfort food type of thing. Served with some warm corn chips or pita bites, this would be an excellent party food.

364 calories, including tortilla chips (not pictured)

Tonight, however, I served it as a topping to our chili in lieu of the usual grated cheddar and dollop or sour cream. The result was absolutely sensational. The chili was as delicious as always because, if I am being honest, the spices are paramount in this recipe. The meat was always just in it because that was what the recipe called for, but it was always my least favourite part: cubing, patting, flouring and browning beef makes a goddamned mess all over the kitchen. Grease splattering, bloody paper towels, and just not worth the headache. The last few times I made it with meat included, I used ground beef instead because it was less of a chore to clean up afterwards. Making the chili today took a fraction of the time it normally takes, and I added black beans to it instead of beef, and the addition of the nacho dip on top just took it up a notch.

Seriously, try it. You will love it.

On a whim last night, I decided at 11PM to put the leftover sushi rice in the fridge to use. Rice pudding had been on my mind, and I just knew the internet would provide me with a dairy-free recipe I could throw together for a sweet midnight snack/dessert. Thank you, Google. If you like rice pudding at all, this recipe is absolutely the best I have ever eaten. The coconut milk and cardamom really make it explode with flavour! I didn't have the almonds or pistachios on hand, but I did use everything else it called for and it was still amazing.

I hope every recipe I try is as encouragingly enjoyable as these ones. I could easily feed friends and family these things and they would never know each dish wasn't filled with dairy, and that is exactly what I want. Anyone who actually thinks vegans only eat bare leaves, bland tofu and dry seeds needs to crack a cookbook open and learn something, just like I did.

Friday Night Adventures

Last night's fishbowl adventures were successful. Maybe too successful. We ate, we drank, we laughed (mostly at Allison's facial expression when I suggested she drink tequila). The eating and drinking continued when the 6 of us came back to our house and played Cards Against Humanity till about 12:30 AM. It was a riot! Much laughter and many terrible jokes at other people's expense ensued.

One of the tamer rounds... Cocktimus Prime vs Cockasaurus Rex won.

After everyone went home, however, much vomiting ensued. I don't know if it was something I (over)ate, (over)drank, or the combination of the two but, around 2:30 AM I lurched out of bed and lived out the Friday night of a frat boy till 4 AM. I am fairly certain the last time I got that sick (minus the bout of a stomach bug in 2011) was during what I will call "The Dominican Hot Dog Disaster"; this was much like that, but without Kevin having to break into a resort's storage closet to get garbage bags and drinking water for his girlfriend (yep, we weren't even married at that point, and he married me even after seeing my poor choices regurgitated into a clear plastic bag).

Kevin on our wedding day.

So, because my stomach feels like a wrung-out dish rag, my breakfast this morning is nothing exciting, unless you find 4 month expired Gatorade that someone else left in my fridge exciting. (thanks, Melissa O.) Anyway, something else happened yesterday besides me losing sleep on my bathroom floor: Kevin made sushi! He even made a couple veggie rolls for yours truly. I think he was reminded of how labour-intensive sushi is to make. He was in the kitchen for two and a half hours, at least, and kept grumbling at the ingredients about them being bastards. But here are the abundant, delicious fruits of his profanity-laced effort:

I have to say, he did a pretty great job. They tasted good, the rice was nearly perfect, and the rolls held up to being manhandled by the chopsticks without falling apart. Give yourself a pat on the back, Kevin!

Today, we have an annual family gathering to attend. I am sure it will come with its challenges, hangover-wise as well as food wise. There is almost always endless temptation at these things, but at least drinking won't be one of them. I am the official designated driver for us today, and planned on it even before my pukefest last night. Chances are good I will still feel so gross from lack of sleep and stomach contents that I won't want to eat or drink much anyway. #purgediet

New recipe tomorrow, as I plan to try a vegan cheese sauce recipe today for use tomorrow. 😋