Back on the Bandwagon

It's been two weeks since I have been eating meat again and I must admit, it's been a bit of a relief to everyone around me. Just because they don't have to worry about ME anymore.
But meat itself? I don't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. It smells good and tastes good, but nothing out of the ordinary. Honesty, I had gotten quite used to not having any meat, and was satisfied with my vegetarian diet. It's just an extra option for me on the menu now. And sometimes I still prefer the veggie option!
I did gain back a few pounds when I started eating meat. And I was so sick I was about to vomit after my first meal-stir fry with bits of beef in it. And then again when I had a McChicken.
I am still debating if I want to continue being a vegetarian or not. For now, I'm happy being part time. :-)

Six more days to go!

SIX more days before I will allow myself to eat meat again, if I want to. Which I'm not sure I will. I've gotten so used to not having meat that it doesn't bother me much anymore, what bothers me is the inconvenience of being vegetarian. I think that's the biggest challenge of all, something I have overcome and the one thing that I will remember the most from this experience.
When you tell people you are a vegetarian, you are stamping your forehead with FREAK, HEALTH NUT, HIPPIE, etc. It's quite discouraging and sometimes even pisses me off when people get extremely skeptical and go off on how I am skinny enough or how meat is delicious and they could never do it. I feel like I'm constantly defending myself and I get tired of it.
And I also feel bad when people go out of their way to accommodate my dietary preferences. Like yesterday, after a few drinks, some friends and I were hungry but we debated for the longest time over where to eat since they wanted to go somewhere that had things I could eat. And my only objection was LocoBoyz.
Or later on yesterday, when I was helping my girlfriend make spring rolls and she asked me tentatively if I could still eat the shrimp if it touched the beef flanks that we were preparing next to it.
There is still much to learn about living life as a vegetarian...not only on the different meals I consume, but also the reputation that comes with it.

And then I learned how to cook!

My boyfriend came down to visit me this weekend. To prepare, I decided to look up veggie recipes and cook for him all weekend! I picked out super easy stuff like veggie lasagna and veggie omlettes and veggie quesidillas. They were foul proof, I made it, and he liked it! Yay!
I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.
There aren't a lot of places to eat in Corvallis that don't make you feel restricted. :-(

Has it only been two weeks?!

It's day 14.
Meat doesn't interest me much anymore, not so much as the strange food cravings I get periodically. Like for sushi. Raw fish.
The fact that my boyfriend didn't come down last weekend like he was supposed to also threw me into a crummy mood+boredom= more alcohol instead of considering meat.
But overall, I feel fine! My stomach is flat. I'm never starving or feel drained.

After my 30 days as a vegetarian, will I stay? Probably not. But we'll see.

MEAT--->ALCOHOL?!

Looking back at the last three days, I realized that instead of having dinner, I've been at bars having happy hour. But barely any food involved. Very interesting, since the meals when I am most tempted to eat meat is dinner time.

Maybe I have subconciously conditioned myself to enjoy drinks instead of meat!

Wow, what's worse, alcohol or meat?!I must slow down and do some research.

By the way, when I woke up this morning I was craving meat. Or anything that tastes like meat. So since my fridge was bare, I made ramen. YES, chicken flavored ramen. I hope I didn't break any vegetarian rules, it's just meat FLAVORED right? Too bad it was a shitty idea cause I felt like throwing it all up on my way to work.

Did you know that a pack of ramen has 380 calories in it?

It's not so bad...

Vertical Horizon-Best I Ever Had.

That is the song that comes into my mind everytime I see meat now.

I've developed these love/hate feelings associated with meat. Last night I was starving in my apartment and didn't feel like fruit so I opened up my freezer to see a bag of frozen chicken breasts and frozen honey BBQ wings from Costco. AHHHH it's haunting me! Everytime I look at meat now I just see nasty, leaky, contaminated blood, but at the same time I WANT TO EAT IT ANYWAY!!!

It is now day 12 and I have lost three pounds.

Vegetarianism

For those of you who are unaware, I have recently decided to 'pledge to go veg'. That means that I am going to stop eating meat for 30 days.
There are many different motives for becoming vegetarian (which I DO eventually want to accomplish, I'm just testing the waters right now). Mine is mostly for health reasons. I will go into detail later, if you really want to know. But mainly, there are so many hormones, toxins, dieases, etc. in meat that hinder your health. And make you fat. I want to detox my body to see what improvements it will bring to my body. Being a Nutrition major, I see this as the next big step in an effort to live better and make smarter food choices.
It has been 8 days so far, and quite an adventure. I have tired so many foods (mostly meat alternatives) that I would never have thought to consider before.
So I'm going to dedicate this blog mostly to my journey of becoming vegetarian.
It's gonna be gooooooooooooooood. ;-D

New apartment

I took a shower this morning after spending the night rolling on and off an air mattress, just to find that the bathtub was clogged. And then I spend 30 mins rummaging through my bags and boxes in order to find something to wear. Ah, the delights of moving.