Focus Change: From Weight to Health

I’ve almost been vegan for a year. Can you believe it? Time has gone by so quickly, and I don’t regret a second of it! So I thought I’d fill you in on my progress, and something that switched mentally along the way.

When I first went vegan, in the end of June/beginning of July 2015, I went through a week of major withdrawal; not from animal products, but from cheese! My husband ate nachos almost daily, and the smell of melted cheese would be ever so tempting. So how did I combat it? By having a piece of fruit in my hand and shoving it in my mouth… lol. You do what you have to do.

From there, it got easier. However, since I was so excited about this vegan world, I started looking for everything vegan in the grocery stores. I subscribed to a local Organic Box delivery which was the greatest thing because then I was able to select organic produce to be delivered weekly so that I always had fruit and veggies available. But as the fall came, things changed.

In the colder weather, I wanted cooked foods all the time. No problem, really. You can easily be a cooked food vegan. But, with a few complications in starting up my next school year, I started grabbing denser calorie, fast food. This meant hitting much too much of the shelves and freezers in the grocery stores. Not only was I excited that so many things were vegan, but I was able to try so many vegan products. Let’s just say, I was not paying attention to the macronutrient breakdown in any of them. My diet was very high in fat.

Now, I was already mentally transitioning from a person who had heavily counted calories, starved myself to lose weight, and pretty much obsessed with being thin to someone who was just concerned about being healthier for myself and doing what I felt God was calling me to do. That didn’t make it any easier when I found my weight still climbing. I was eating all that I cared for, reaching a state of being full but not being stuffed. I felt pretty well, but I knew the weight gain was not what I wanted. However, I continued on because it was easy to do.

Christmas came, and I was so excited to travel to the states to try some new vegan restaurants. They were AMAZING. But it hit me when my mother-in-law had to ask my husband if she should even bother asking me if I wanted to sort through some clothes of hers before she donated them. That told me right away everyone noticed my weight gain. I started to feel pretty bad.

The following two months presented me with some of the greatest stress I have had in quite awhile. My husband left for school in the states, I moved our entire apartment myself, making appointments to sell items along the way. As soon as things were finally moved, I had to prepare report cards. As soon as that was over, I had to prepare for parent-teacher interviews. Needless to say, I got really sick after that. I literally did not have a single break, and as happy as I was to be leaving our old place, I hit the point of nostalgia as it was emptied and I was doing it alone. Emotional ups and downs, zero rest, and not eating was a recipe for disaster, and a time to hit my highest weight. I knew things had to change.

I was not giving up veganism, that was not an issue. Veganism had made me feel better about pretty much everything. In fact, when I was not reminded about my weight gain, I actually felt amazing. But I knew I could do better.

With my husband in school, and I taking on all of our bills, the money was cinched tight. I had/have a very small budget which meant all those vegan junk foods were few and far between. I actually had to start cooking again! And you know what? I felt even better than before. I found out that my greatest eating pattern is eating raw throughout the day (mostly fruit) and eating a cooked meal in the evening. The cooked meal ranges from pasta to potatoes to veggies and vegan proteins, to vegan sushi, to cream of wheat, to sandwiches. They are not complicated at all, and are whole-food based. I feel vibrant and amazing and have even found a 6-day pattern of attending the gym again. And that’s when it happened: I started caring less about my weight gain.

I knew I was bigger than I wanted to be, but I chose to trust the system. People have been through this before; I’m not the only one. God’s original diet for us was the fruits of the earth, and I was closer than ever to following that diet. I began to pray for God to not only bless my food before I ate it, but to bless my efforts in trying to eat the way He designed for us, and for my results to show to others that this is His design as well. I began to pray before workouts for the same thing. And then I continued to eat when I was hungry and stop when I was full, except this time, it was whole plant foods from home.

You know what? In less than two months, I am down 14 pounds from my heaviest. Did I cut calories at all? No. In fact, I have been logging my food everyday just to see how much I’m eating. Some days, I’m not very hungry and I only eat around 1500 calories. I don’t like to go lower than this, so that does involve an some extra food I probably wouldn’t have otherwise eaten. Some days, I’m super hungry and can eat over 3000 calories. I’m not starving my body anymore. I’m giving it the healthy nutrition it needs, and it’s working.

I’ve always worked out which you’ll see if you have followed this blog for quite awhile, so that has not changed. I’m currently doing 3 full-body circuits a week with 3 cardio sessions between and 1 rest day. I’m getting stronger, and my endurance is better. I absolutely love it.

So I’m continuing on my vegan journey, in love with it greatly. My father has started his own fitness journey and to my surprise, displayed a picture of a blender with raw vegan protein powder. He’s been making banana/protein smoothies. It’s a huge step! My mother has been trying to cut down on the animal consumption within the house, and a coworker of mine has just begun her own vegan journey as well. More and more I’m realizing that people are waking up to the reality of how great a vegan diet is, for health reasons, beliefs, ethical and environmental reasons. It is truly the greatest. And though weight loss is awesome, it beats nothing to knowing your body is healthy and going to last you a little longer. When you eat healthy, the body releases the fat that is not good. It’s a slow process, and already within the two months, I’ve had over a week of being stalled on the exact same weight. But I continued nonetheless, and it paid off with a lower weight break in the end. So take courage. If I can do this, you can too. Start researching and be awakened to the world of truth that is out there. It’s truly amazing how deceiving the world is. Get to the nitty gritty and find out for yourself; the only regret you’ll have is that you didn’t do it sooner.

So Happy! It’s Been A Long Time Coming…

So yesterday was our second attempt at getting my husband’s permanent residency. Instead of being 1/2 hour early like last time, we were a full hour early. You would think there would have been less people, and though there may have been a little less, there were still quite a few people there. My thoughts were quite honestly: “How early do these people come in the morning?”

We were fortunate in the fact that almost every single one of those people were there to write their citizenship tests. We were actually the first ones in line for the immigration interview, which of course meant after the office finally opened and officers finally showed up to do interviews, we were the first ones called in.

It was nothing like what I had expected! We showed the officer our papers (receipts, passport, letter, pictures) and she asked us 3 questions each: Have you ever been asked to leave Canada? (My equivalent was where I was born), Do you have any dependents? and Have you been convicted of a crime in Canada? We only had the one incident where the border patrol and immigration didn’t agree when my husband was told he should leave by the border patrol but was told he never should have left by immigration, and I was a little worried about that. But I do know and firmly believe it is better to be honest than try to hide something. So I was anxious at this point to see what she would say which turned out to be nothing other than “So they asked you to leave and then asked you to come back?” Yup. That’s pretty much it.

She entered a lot of things into the computer, printed some papers, asked if we had any questions for her, signed some papers, was instructed on the steps from here, and was out of her office by 9:30 with proof of residency for my husband! Ahhhh!!!! For those of you who have been following our 2 1/2 year struggle with Immigration, this was such a happy day for us! He can’t leave the country yet as we still have to wait for his PR card to come in the mail, but that paper is proof and promise that it is coming and he can finally go see his family this summer. I’m so excited!!!

Week 10 Day 6: A Bad-Happy Day

It was so nice to wake up and feel the relief of parent-teacher interviews being over. In a way, I felt free.

I had a chiropractor and massage appointment today, but my car is still not running. So I booked a taxi ahead of time, something I haven’t done in a very long time.

Because I booked my ride ahead of time, and had not fallen back asleep after my husband left for work, I noticed I actually had a bit of time to play with! Something I haven’t had in months! So I did a couple loads of laundry and took the time to call my French grandparents, my father, and my mom, stepfather, and brothers. I feel like I accomplished so much in that short amount of time.

I went to my appointments and got surprising comments from my massage therapist (chiro I think was a hair worse than normal). During the massage, the only tight place she encountered was actually in my arms, as surprising as that was. But she was not overly concerned about that.

After the massage, she asked me if I had been doing the stretch routine we had designed over the summer, and I told her that I had to be honest, and that I haven’t been as much as I should. She then asked if I had been working my legs hard, to which I told her yes especially after PR’ing my leg press this week. She looked at me strange and mentioned how this is the least tight I have been since starting my massages several months ago.

Together, we figured that my body was in fact being overstretched, even though I was almost religiously doing a 15 minute stretch routine everyday. Sometimes my body would regress rather than progress, and since I’ve given it a break, it’s actually progressed more. As strange as it sounds, that’s honestly what has been happening, and so she encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing while making sure to listen to my body. She was sincerely impressed.

I came home (another taxi ride) and shortly after received a phone call. Those neighbours that called about my dogs before to both our landlady and Animal Patrol? Well apparently they called our landlady again, but this time saying we slam our doors all hours of the night. Um, I’m a Christian school teacher who doesn’t drink, doesn’t party, quite honestly doesn’t have many friends in the area whom I go out and do things with ever, and realistically, the only thing I do is go to the gym. But slamming my door? And all hours of the night? I honestly don’t know what I ever did to these neighbours. I know this building is 50+ years old, and there have been several times where I’ve run to open our front door when it was only people knocking on our neighbour’s door. You can honestly even hear every time they run up and down the stairs. One time, we could hear the tv through the wall at 3 in the morning. I don’t call on them because I get it. I don’t expect perfection when the building is this old. But I am wondering if this is the same thing they’re calling me on. And my biggest thing is why they never even say hello let alone ask me about it.

At our school, when a parent has a problem, the principal directs them directly to us before she’ll step in. Why can’t a landlord do the same? I have never heard boo from either of my neighbours, except once to find out if we knew anything about the car being broken into, and once about the first flood we had. Not even when we’ve seen parties on their deck at early hours of the morning. I don’t understand…

This little incidence kind of shut down my progress with the house cleaning for awhile. And so when my husband got home, the only thing I wanted to do was to sit and cuddle with him for a bit. It was actually nice because I haven’t felt this free from school work in so long to completely dedicate my attention to him, rather than only half-listening to him while I’m working.

We went to the gym, and I’m telling you, I didn’t even have my regular coffee before the gym, but I smashed every back record I have! My single arm dumbbell rows went up by 5 lbs a side, my t-bar row went up by 10 lbs (husband encouraged me), and my reverse lat pulldown went up by 5 lbs. I was loving it!! And I even found my side planks significantly easier than normal. Oh how happy I was! Although I was burning from the inside, hoping that was the fat burning off! 😉

I went to bed fairly satisfied last night, just somehow need to tackle this neighbour issue and maybe consider moving…

Week 10 Day 5

This morning, I absolutely did not want to get out of bed. I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s the dread I have for parent-teacher interviews this evening. No matter what, I always get nervous. But either way, they must be done!

The work day was short, and even further shortened by the fact we had our Student Association speeches and elections today. It went very well, and I believe the students selected very good representatives for our school.

After the students left, instead of going out to lunch with my colleagues, I stayed at the school to prepare. Preparing for parent-teacher interviews is not easy. You have to re-read your comments, review the student’s work, select examples of student work to show, etc. I also like to have pen and paper ready to go in order to write down notes of what we talk about and suggestions that were made.

When it finally came time for parent-teacher interviews to start, I felt better but as always, like I couldn’t be prepared enough. Either way, the 13 interviews I had scheduled all in a row began. I was surprised how well the parents accepted some hard information, and how willing they were to work as a team on their students. As any teacher reading this will know, it’s a very relieving feeling to know that you can work as a team with parents and that you can support each other for the betterment of the students; something I appreciate so much!

It was a long evening, and I didn’t end up leaving the school until after 8:00 pm. I also hadn’t eaten much as I didn’t have any breaks since 2:00 pm when the meetings started. When I came home and ate, the carbs hit my system and I started fighting to stay awake. I didn’t want to take naps anymore as they always seem to make me feel worse instead of better. But when I’m sitting and trying to talk to my husband, yet my eyes keep shutting on me, I know I might even fall asleep on the 2 minute drive to the gym, and who knows if I might fall asleep at the gym? It hasn’t happened before, but it may.

So, we took a nap. But when the alarm went off, my husband looked at me and said he was too tired to get up. I can’t drive his truck and my car is still not running. So unfortunately, this meant no workout. But on the other hand, I got extra sleep. I will be playing catch-up with my workouts, but I can do that. My husband’s health is equally as important as mine and so I wasn’t going to argue, though I felt like it. I know love is not just said, but must be shown, and I’m not always good at that part. But tonight, my husband slept and I will definitely catch-up in the gym when he’s awake and ready to go!