Sick of my thinking yet? LOL!
Seriously, this is all so new to me that I keep rethinking things and rethinking things..... So you (the one or two of you that ever find this!) get to deal with that thinking.... :)
Anyway, my new thought after eating a fake burger with fake mayo (Vegenaise (sp) - awesome!) last night was that the way to do vegan is NOT to try to fake your old way of eating, but rather eat new things in new ways.
In other words, fake meat isn't the way to go. The way to go is to find new ways to cook. Completely new ways.
Of course, that's what The China Study says.... Eating a "whole foods" diet. But I think that's smart not only from a health standpoint, but also having a more interesting, fulfilling diet standpoint as well!
Take last night, for example. I tried to mimic an old standby: two hamburger patties with may, ketchup and chopped onions with a veggie. (Very low carb!) Last nights version: vegan hamburger patties, vegan mayo, onions, mushrooms and ketchup with broccoli. While it was good, it wasn't great.
Take tonight: risotto with crimini mushrooms, onions and broccoli with garlic and other spices. YUM! I was MUCH more satisfied with that! Or two nights ago: tofu with portabellos (can you tell I LOVE mushrooms?!?), onions, zucchini over a wild rice mix. Another YUM. And once again, far more satisfying. And, of course, they were probably better for me overall....
So if you're thinking of going vegan - or you ARE vegan - definitely try a LOT of different dishes. It will probably be easier for you!!
Last few notes of the evening: I still haven't lost much - 3lbs in 3 weeks or so. But you know what? My hubby noticed that I looked younger (I'm almost 41) and I feel GREAT. Seriously, even when I"m tired, I'm not *tired* like I was. My overall demeanor is much better. And that's why I wanted to do this.
Being vegan isn't nearly as hard as I expected.... *big smile* Huge, huge surprise - and a wonderful one, too!
She was satisfied climbing on daddy for at least 10-15 minutes....
I finally brought Ellie to her first dentist appointment.
I'll update this as I can...
Good:
Tofutti sour cream and cream cheese - YUM!!! Surprisingly awesome!
Vegenaise - how do they do that? YUM! again!
Okay:
Vegetable cheese - need to find the real name, but this isn't even vegan, I don't think!
Bad:
Vegan Resa (sp) cheese. Bleh. Not good at all!
Please feel free to comment with your favorites!
Overall, after going through the photos, I'm good with them. I'm sure I'll get happier as time goes on.....
But after the wedding (the morning after), I was worried - seriously worried. I thought ALL the photos would suck. Of course, I always do this! LOL!
After downloading them and backing them up, I imported them into Lightroom and while I had some serious technical issues with flash (I suck at it), most of the photos turned out well. Or salvageable. I have a few key photos I'm sort of stuck about - should I post them or not kind of stuck....
I also made some pretty serious mistakes with this wedding right in the beginning. I'm not really ready to write them down yet since they are a little too fresh. But hopefully they will like the photos enough to forgive me for the few dumb things I did! LOL!
I think the biggest question that came out of this is: Do I even want to do weddings? While the wedding was a LOT of fun, I didn't have a great time. I was stressed most of the time and worried I was missing all the good shots. At the end of the evening, I felt like I hadn't done a great job. The next day I worried about everything. And on Monday, I had something very stressful happen. (Once again, not ready to talk about it.) And even now, after having edited about 1/4 of the photos, I'm still stressed that they won't like them.
I don't mind pressure, but I hate stress. Pressure being the pressure to do well, be as good as I can, excel, etc. I see pressure as a positive thing. Stress, on the other hand, is negative. It makes me feel bad, makes me worry, makes me freak. LOL! And that's how I'm feeling after this wedding.
There is a possibility of up to 5 weddings for me this year.... Two of these are already committed. The other two are up in the air... Luckily, the two booked are more traditional (as in, guests seated/standing and a normal aisle with a decent view to the couple exchanging vows) so that makes me feel less stressed.
Portrait shoots are different. If they don't work out, it's not the end of the world. You can reshoot them (generally) and they generally aren't once in a lifetime things.
*sigh*
So, I've been thinking about all of this from a dietary standpoint and I've made a few minor decisions.... I've mentioned these before, but I'm going to reiterate them again mainly because I have a few more.
At home, I'll be 99.9% vegan. The things I will not worry about in my diet are beef and chicken broth. Why? Because it's the protein that's bad for you and they have none. (Well, the kind I buy, anyway.) I like using low sodium broth and I haven't been happy with the veggie broths I've used. If I find one I like (there are not very many choices here), I may change that up, but for now, that's the case.
When going out, I'll be vegetarian. But I'll avoid dairy as much as possible. After last weekend, I realize that I dont' feel great after having it in my diet so I'll try to avoid it. And I'll avoid eggs. If there are trace amounts, no biggie, but if something has a cheese sauce or has eggs as a main ingredient, I'll be avoiding them.
I've been wanting Chris to read this book (The China Study) for a while now... I just finished it so I hadn't been able to hand it off. After talking last night, I realize that he's not completely against it (as I thought), but rather he's waiting to see how I do in a month. Now whether that's a month from when I started going vegan or if it's a month from last night, I'm not sure....
I did mention to him that I thought he must be scared... Because look at me - a confirmed meat eater going vegan just from one book AND after doing a bunch of research! LOL! He grinned at me and said, "Yeah, that's why I don't want to read it for a month!"
So, I'm thinking that in the long run that this book will help him understand where I'm coming from and I wouldn't be surprised if he did end up going mostly vegan. That would make me happy..... I think I would keep him around for a LOT longer and that's a GREAT thing!
(As a side note, Chris' dad and grandfather both died in their mid-40's of heart attacks.)
Sorry about the delay in posting, but after a major scare (photography-wise) on Monday (everything turned out find), I've been going a bit nutty since then.... More about that shoot in another post!
Well, I had rather low expectations for myself for the weekend. You see, since I've never been vegan or even vegetarian, I had NO clue what to expect. So I decided to make it easy on myself and stay vegetarian only and if I *needed* meat, it would only be fish. I would do everything I could to stay "good", but I wouldn't stress or worry too much. I had way too many other things happening for me to freak!
So on Friday, I had a low point... A yummy, yummy low point. I had a filet-o-fish from McDonalds. Oh, well.... I didn't feel great after it, which was a surprise - and not.
Then on Saturday they didn't really have anything vegan for breakfast that would fill me up enough for the entire day. (The place we stayed had a continental breakfast.) They had a lot of fruit and some cereal, but I am not a milk fan anyway so cereal wasn't interesting to me. So I got some waffles. They smothered 'em in butter, something I've always LOVED. But not this time. I ate about 1/3 of it and was done!
At lunch, I went to Wendy's - it was about 2pm and I was STARVED - and got a side salad and a baked potato with butter and sour cream. Didn't eat much of the greens, but ate everything else...
And at the wedding, I had the ziti, some salad and bread. No meat.
The next day, I at an English muffin with some jelly, 1/3 of an omelette (ONLY! I was EGG girl to the max before. Weird.) and waited until getting home to eat lunch.
Overall, how do I feel I did? I give myself a B. Especially since I decided to go vegetarian and I wasn't even interested in doing that... I really wanted to stay good after Friday night. I felt like I ate eggs/dairy in stuff just so I was getting enough food for a crazy weekend....
How did I feel? Surprisingly, not as good as I had! Now that I've been back to vegan for a few days, I feel a lot better. I felt a little foggier than usual while away for the weekend. And I feel less foggy again.
It's funny.... After reading The China Study, I've been looking at meat and dairy in SUCH a different way that this truly isn't as hard as I expected. Some people may make fun of me for bing a hippie vegan, but I actually look at them as poison. Something that's incredibly bad for you. Something that should be removed from the diet completely. And all the advertising sort of freaks me out a little. I keep waiting for Campbell (the author) to come out as a fraud. Or for my feelings to change (well, it's only been 2.5 weeks), but feeling better and feeling more alert are sort of pushing me to believe this is all true.... Well, along with all the evidence in the book and all the things I found online! LOL!
Next goal: Buy some vegan cookbooks! LOL!
Well, it's actually been MUCH easier than I ever expected! And, after switching a few things up, it's kept me much fuller with fewer calories. I've been tracking everything using the free software on www.fitday.com and I'm a bit surprised to see that I'm getting MORE protein than I need! I need to make sure, though, that I'm getting a few nutrients I'm missing. But who knows how long I've been deficient in those or others! LOL!
As for how much easier it's been that I've expected, I had a bit of a revelation today. When Sammie was 3-4 months, we found out she was allergic to soy, milk and eggs... so I cut all those out of my diet. That was pretty hard for about 2-3 weeks just adjusting everything for my new diet.
Well, I think doing that before has made THIS easier now since I've had to adjust my diet pretty radically in the past. Interesting!
So, how am I feeling? I'm feeling great! All those things I've posted about are about the same. I'm not really losing weight, which i think is odd since I've cut my calories down by about 300-500 a day. Well, rather, I've lost about 4lbs so far, but nothing in the last 4-5 days. But then again, that's not the main point - and who knows, maybe my body is doing some major readjusting and it'll come off somewhat later!
I'm going to be photographing a wedding this weekend in Keystone so I'm not sure I'll be posting much. I'll try to tomorrow and hopefully on Monday. I'm also not going to stress foods this weekend. Especially trace things. I'll try to stay vegetarian (lacto-ovo) and go from there!
