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.

Day 18 – “You Got A Problem With Me?”

I have a problem. I brought home that veggie burger last night (and felt the misery of so much grease this morning), and do you think I did “RawTill4”? Absolutely not! I knew that burger was in there, and that’s what I went for. I’ve gotta learn to order only what I can eat that night, and not take things home. It’s not mentally working!

Meals:

Breakfast – Veggie Burger
Lunch – Vanilla Iced Coffee (I know, not much of a lunch…)
Late Snack – 4 Freezies (so hot here!)
Supper – Black Bean Burger, French Fries
Late Night Snack – Blood Orange Kombucha, Vegan Vanilla Cake

I didn’t workout today, but it was a bit of a weird, interesting day.

It was late this evening when we went to Planet Organic. I honestly love that store, and I needed some last minute items to take with me while I’m camping this week with my students.  When we got to the store, there was a very intoxicated man standing outside the doors. As soon as my husband got out of the car, he yelled at him saying something along the lines of, “You got a problem with me?”. Um, no Dude… we just pulled up and we’re going to get groceries. We hadn’t had a problem with you yet… But as we kept walking inside, repeating the word no several times, two bicycle policemen were walking towards him. As we went through the sliding doors, the store manager came over asking if he was still there, and was happy to see the police were there. I’m guessing this guy had been hanging around, causing trouble for awhile. What an extra little “spice” to the night.

Then it comes to me sitting here, eating this vegan vanilla cake. It takes me back to a whole different world…

A couple years ago, I was sitting in my apartment, my husband still unable to work, and living paycheque to paycheque. At times, I had to juggle which bill I could let slide for a month or two. Half of the time, our car didn’t work. It was such a different world. For us, it was such a treat to eat at Tim Hortons or McDonalds, McDonalds being the most frequent because it was the shorter walk from our place. We did what we could with what we had.

One day, we had taken the bus to go shopping down this road, covered with stores on both sides, and that’s when I saw the organic food market. I remember walking through there, not being able to really buy much (much more expensive than a McDonalds-night-out budget), but I so wanted to try this vegan vanilla cake. I had been vegetarian for many years and had heard lots of criticism about vegans and how the lack of dairy made everything taste bad. I so badly wanted to see for myself. Luckily, they sell pieces of the cake for a couple dollars, so I was able to get that and I think one special drink (I believe it was also the first time I tried kombucha). I couldn’t believe how good it was. In fact, I remember sitting at the bus stop, not realizing kombucha was carbonated, had shaken the bottle, opened it, and was quickly covered in what I immediately thought smelled like vinegar. What a smell for the ride home!

Sometimes I think it’s important we look back and see how far we’ve come. My husband is now on his third job in this country, we live in a 3-level townhouse instead of a 1-bedroom apartment, we have 2 working vehicles instead of one that continuously broke down, we have our own washing machine instead of using coin laundry, and I’ve gone vegan, eating as organic as possible. We NEVER eat at McDonalds anymore. So much has changed. It doesn’t mean we’re quite comfortable to where I’d like to be, but we’re in a place where don’t have to worry about bills not being paid, or fun not being had (though still smaller scale). And as I’m sitting here eating this vegan vanilla cake, I can smile and know I’ve come a long way from the first time I was blown away with this delicious treat, and look forward to where I’ll be the next time I have it again.

Day 9

I woke up several times through the night last night, each time feeling like I was ready to get up and start my day. Something is going on with my sleep and somehow I need to get down to the bottom of it.

I had a later breakfast this morning, well after I got to work. I drank 1.75L of pulpy orange juice.

The juice ended up being both my snack and lunch. I was handed back my students’ PATs to grade for myself, something I had not done in past years. If you can imagine my students writing stories and newspaper articles for 2-3 hours each, and then me trying to get these graded… it’s taking forever!

As an afternoon snack, I ate my last mini red banana, two small tangerines, and two small apricots.

By the time the day was done, I was drained. And yet I looked at my grading table (overloaded), and I looked at the PATs that were only half-graded, and my pile of ESL papers I was returned to also grade. There’s no way I should leave it like this. So I spent an hour and a half finishing the PATs, grading Bible books and Spelling tests. I even managed to get Handwriting books graded. But after that, I left knowing my mental capacity was seriously about to break.

Meanwhile, as I was dying mentally, I started thinking of all the fast food places I could go. I started thinking of Wendy’s, of Subway, of tonnes of places. I even started thinking some ice cream and a nice big burger would be so good right now. I must have spent a good 20-30 minutes grading and trying to talk myself out of going somewhere and just eating at home. My mental exhaustion was getting a bit extreme.

Somehow, I drove myself straight home. I defeated all of those tempting thoughts I had. I sat down to some corn chip crumbs mixed with some salsa. I also took out the fresh mango cake I made last night and ate about a quarter of it. I also had got this Natur-a Cappuccino Soy Beverage. Oh my goodness. So good. I’m going to finish this thing tonight! I also wanted something not so sweet, and there weren’t enough chips left to satisfy me (literally crumbs left), so I made some popcorn with salsa on it. This is when I realized how hard it is to give up dairy. That was the only reason I couldn’t do vegan before. I like butter and cheese. But I’m doing it for my health and the welfare of animals, so I have to keep my mental battle going.

I went to the gym and did an awesome circuit of jump rope, overhead squats, walking lunges, push-ups and planks. I did my chiropractor’s exercises and left feeling amazing.

After returning home, I finished that Natur-a Cappuccino Soy Beverage. Oh yum! Wish I had one of these every day!

As a last meal, I blended up my last 4 organic bananas from my first Organic Box. They were pretty much as ripe as they could be before they started going bad. I blended them with some unsweetened almond milk, 2 medjool dates, and a tablespoon of organic coconut palm sugar. It was a yummy, filling way to end the night.

Why Go Vegan?

Hello everyone!

This is a huge decision, as you can imagine. I want to explain myself as to why I’m choosing this venue. Let me explain my history.

My father was very young when his family went from Quebec to New Brunswick. Speaking little to no English, they struggled for awhile to because accustom to the new province. My grandfather was a woodsmen complete with a team of horses and later big machinery. My father quit school after grade 9 to work with my grandfather. And so the lifestyle of “meat and potatoes” began. Whatever they shot was their meat, and whatever my grandmother grew in the garden was their produce. A very simple, carnivorous life.

Naturally, I grew up eating A LOT of meat. Not because we didn’t go shopping, but I was still a hunter’s daughter, and meat was a regular, every-meal thing. When I was young, it would be no big deal for me to sit down to a pound of bacon myself. It’s a miracle I wasn’t obese!

When I met my first vegetarians in grade 8, I was amazed. This concept that I believed to only belong to celebrities belonged to real life people! I was the only vegetarian in my area, and the lack of knowledge was evident in a quick trip to a hospital with extensive stomach pains. The doctor then informed me of some vital nutrition I was missing, and instead of telling me to eat meat again, told me some vital vegetables I needed to be sure I ate daily.

I was vegetarian for around 10 years. I quit meat cold turkey. My grandfather of course was convinced I was going to die, and was continuously trying to feed me meat. My only family was shocked, but my grandmother on my mother’s side, who has always had an interest in health, was happy. She basically went vegetarian with me! (She never was much of a meat eater).

When I met my husband, he was vegetarian and had been his whole life. My university graduation had led my brother to convince my future husband to try the “real stuff”. From then on, he was hooked.

Eventually, it was the smell of beef jerky that won me back. That smell in my very house all over again won me in. In fact, it opened up the whole new realm of macro counting with my interest in fitness peaking too. With the high levels of protein “needed”, it seemed as if I couldn’t survive without meat. And so I ate meat again for roughly 4 years.

Now, I’ve done so much research. And to keep it short, there is so much evidence that a plant-based diet is the way to go. I would like to think of myself as “getting back to the basics”, naturally. The world of fitness and diet will continuously battle itself. All information can be conflicting. But nothing can deny the way you feel both mentally, physically, and spiritually. Mentally, I’m not hating my food, I’m not worried about going over my “macros”, and I’m not worried about having to stop myself from eating while still feeling like I’m starving. Physically, I feel better. I don’t have to worry about eliminating things to figure out what’s wrong with my body, I get to look forward to younger, more flawless skin. And spiritually, I can feel good about being accountable for selecting the best foods that I can. I can also feel good about my choice not to inflict pain on animals that I myself could not kill. If I couldn’t do it, why do I take part in the process at all?

Some things I’m going to be doing are:
-Trying to buy as much organic as I can
-Continuing my workouts
-Drinking 3L of water a day
-Learning more about, and sticking to food combining rules
-Cutting processed sugar 95%
-Eating mostly fruit until supper
-Eating raw 90% of the time
-Eating until I’m full!

I will keep you posted on my journey! I’m excited for this new phase 🙂

The Great 2015 Return

Hello everyone.

I’d like to personally thank everyone that has not given up on my page even though I have been M.I.A. for the past (almost) month.

I’ve finished my challenge (I’ll post about it later), and didn’t win. But by the end of the challenge, my motivation was not to win, but simply to defeat my bad relationship with food, to build strength, to learn to love who I am, and to feel good both physically and mentally. I can proudly say I succeeded in those things. So was the challenge really a waste? Absolutely not.

I then finished the school year, was depressed that I wouldn’t be with my students for 2 weeks (yeah, I know… I’m the teacher that calls my students my kids), went to New Brunswick for 2 weeks to visit my family, had an awesome time while I was there, and came back to a computer that needed to be fixed.

It was a teacher’s nightmare. The older Mac versions no longer would support our grading system, meaning I had no access to my grades, no access to report card comments (due at the end of this month), no access to what assignments my students are missing or anything. Everything was unaccessible. AHHH!

Thankfully, we have some highly educated tech teachers at our school that took my computer, wiped it clean, installed the updates, and gave it back. The problem with that was that it took 4 days. My cord was also falling apart (older computer) and so he took that to repair it as well. That took almost a week to get back.

Even now, that I have my computer back, it has twice shown me signs (in two days) that my whole hardware may be crashing. Not a good sign. However, I have everything backed up, and the principal has been warned that I may need a new one. It definitely would be nice to have a new computer, but inconvenient at report card time. Pray for me!

So long story short, I’ve been without a computer for a very long time. But I’m back! So here’s to more posts in a new year.

Talk again soon!

Week 13: Day 5 Extended

As sad as this may be, I think my body is adjusting to my macros. It is getting easier and easier to stick to them each day. However, I do go through fluctuations where my body is burning! In reality, it’s not so fun. But mentally, I’m saying “Burn, baby, burn! Melt that fat away!” and I’m satisfied!

Work was so busy today, I feel like I barely had a moment to breathe. Between discipline, teaching, outlining what needs to be done before Christmas Break, grading and organizing, I was literally on-the-go all day! And when the day was finished, we had an InReach meeting to finalize the details for the Christmas Staff Party on the weekend. This time of year is crazy!

After I finally got done with all of those things, I decided I should still get some grading done before I go home. I didn’t do much though because time was going by way too quickly.

Regardless that I didn’t get much done, it was late when I got home. And as unplanned as it was, my husband and I ended up sleeping the night away.

Week 13 Day 3: Extended

Today was a different day. It’s amazing how much a change in diet can change how you feel. But I expected this, and I knew it was coming.

I woke up feeling alright. In fact, I woke up feeling pretty good, especially because I got so much sleep. I love sleep!

The school day went alright, nothing out of the ordinary. And I actually didn’t have any meetings tonight, so I stayed for about an hour to keep up on the grading, and then went home.

It was once I got home that it started kicking in. I was hungry, but not for any more protein. All I ate all day was protein since I’m on such few carbs. But when I got home, I immediately went for two stalks of celery and filled them with Nuts N More Toffee Peanut Butter which is filled with protein as well as healthy fats. It was so good! But as we neared the time to go to the gym, I knew my body was starting to fade. I knew this was not going to be an easy workout. But I drank a coffee to help and we went on our way.

My husband designed my workout this evening. He had me do shoulders, chest and triceps. I did a lot better than I ever thought I would, even when eating my normal diet, in the beginning. But towards the end, it was almost all I could do to keep going. And I have my body to thank for the continuation of the workout because mentally, I was really weak by that point. In fact, I was at the point of being really grumpy with my husband. But my body just goes on autopilot and it does what it knows it needs to do.

I came out of that workout aching from basically head-to-toe. My body is tired. It’s not used to the low macros. And I simply just went home, ate, and went to bed.

Week 12 Day 5

I woke up not feeling so great this morning. I’ve been stressed all night about the meeting, and how I know I’m probably not going to agree with some of the consequences determined. However, when I got to school, it was announced that the meeting will be Monday instead of today due to conflicting schedules, and so I was put at ease for a moment.

My students have been asking me for quite awhile to go to gym class with them. They know I workout and live actively, so gym class only makes sense to them. And after this week’s events, I decided today would be a good day.

It was a fun gym class. I had brought my gym bag so that I was able to change. The students were able to postpone their 12 minute run since I was there, but of course, the gym teacher also knows that I like to workout, and so he made us do burpees in a football players form. I’m not sure if there’s a name for it, but it basically was the wider-spread legs almost vibrating/running in place thing that football players do, and then when he blew the whistle, it was dropping down into push-up stance and back up. Oh boy. Guess I was getting in a workout early today! Then we played a type of basketball. It was a ton of fun. I wish I had more time to join them more often. But it is my only prep time during the day, and so I’ll make my best effort to go at least once every two months if I can. The secretary pulled me aside and told me how excited the kids were on their way to gym that their teacher was coming to gym class, so I know that it made a lot of difference to them. And if that’s what it takes to let them know I care, then that’s what it takes.

The rest of the day went alright, although I hit a huge wave of tiredness early in the afternoon. I think the stress wore me out. So I did something I never do. I told the students that if we got all of our afternoon work done quickly, I’d take them outside for an extra recess. Let’s just say, their work got done quickly! And we were able to get some fresh air. I think we all needed it. Today was an awesome day.

Since I didn’t have my meeting, I was able to go home early. My husband and I relaxed a little, talked about a few important things, and decided to have a date night. We went to a new place that we’ve never gone before: a place by the name of Teriyaki Corner. I ordered a Canadian sushi (with cream cheese, cucumber and smoked salmon) and an egg maki (I forget the official name of it). Oh it was so good!!! Yum! I’m in love with sushi again!

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the gym tonight. But that’s ok. I’ve been so stressed, and so not into my workouts lately that my body could use a day of true rest and hopefully I’ll be mentally back in the game tomorrow.

Week 12 Day 4

Today was one of those days I kind of wish I hadn’t gotten out of bed. The school day seemed to be going alright, until the afternoon hit and it seemed like I was dealing with discipline problems left and right, and not just the kind that can be given consequences and be done with, the kind that require higher input. It’s days like this that I feel like a failure of a teacher. I can honestly say that I suffer along with them. But I know I must do what I can to help them become accountable and responsible, and sometimes that means learning the hard way. I pray for only good things to be the outcome.

After being stressed all day, we had our third tutoring session after school. Today seemed to go pretty smoothly. The principal came down to see how the program was running and she seemed to be impressed. So that was a good thing.

After tutoring concluded, I was finally able to talk to the principal about the things that happened today, and finally able to go home. I was frazzled and not really wanting to do anything. I simply laid on the bed for quite awhile, until my husband came upstairs and we were able to just talk. That helped immensely.

We finally mustered up all the energy we had left, and went to the gym. My mind was not in this workout at all. And to top it off, it was a leg workout, the one that requires the most energy. I somehow made it through because I knew I needed to. But I simply was not mentally there. There are too many thoughts and too many bad feelings right now. And with that, I didn’t even think about cardio, and simply went home, ready to eat and go to bed.

Week 11 Day 3

I battled between being mentally happy and mentally unhappy in regards to missing my workout last night. However, I decided to remember my body needed some rest to recover. There was just no way I was going to miss the gym tonight!

School went well. We started watching one of my favourite video sermon series by Louie Giglio, where he shows the grandeur of God in comparison to astronomy. It’s absolutely amazing and I highly recommend it!

We were supposed to finish our Planets presentations today, but instead only completed 5. Unfortunately, these were students that did not put as much time into their presentations as others, and we had to have a conversation about plagiarism, as most of the students were stumbling over the words on their presentations, some words more sophisticated than I would use in our Science study. This unfortunately made for a long end of the day.

Following the end of school, the teachers quickly dismissed and met at Moxie’s to celebrate one of our coworker’s upcoming wedding. It was a great time of just getting away from work, being able to socialize and celebrate. As usual, I looked up the food before I went. I couldn’t believe how much fat was in EVERYTHING at the restaurant! I did find a side menu they had to give healthy hints. So I followed one of the healthy hints, and ordered the fish tacos with grilled fish instead of fried, and had a small green salad as my side. This restaurant did seem to be pretty compliant with anything you requested of them, so in that way it was very nice.

After quite a bit of extra time (oops), we came back to the school, and I waited for my husband to come get me. He hadn’t had time to finish my car because he was putting his new mirrors on his truck! It’s so exciting to have mirrors again, and not just new mirrors, but brand new tow mirrors that he got for a third of the price since they were considered new after someone had purchased them and then exchanged them. It is my suspicion that God knew ahead of time our mirror would be broken, and provided these incredible mirrors just for us. I love a God that can see ahead.

I don’t know if it was the rush of trying to get some things caught up at work or what, but my eyes bothered me really badly today. They were watering, painful, almost doing that blurry thing they sometimes do, and I had to resort to wearing my glasses for the first time in two months. So when I went home, and could sit and be mentally awake, but physically had to close my eyes, my husband told me to go rest in bed while he made his food, ate, and changed the battery in my car. He didn’t have to tell me twice today. My eyes had said enough.

When he woke me up, I did not want to get up. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to do. But I knew I had to workout. I couldn’t miss again. So somehow, with my husband’s persistence, I made it out of bed and got changed to go to the gym.

I had a coffee, which helped some. But I was just plain tired.

I had a back workout tonight, and I cannot contain how happy I am. My weights keep rising every week, my strength is increasing all the time. I’m so in love with my body’s reaction right now. No, I’m not seeing the fat necessarily disappear like I’d like. No, my clothes don’t fit me as loose as I’d like. But the number on the scale is not rising either! In fact, it has been in the exact same place for at least two weeks. And for someone who hasn’t been counting macros, and instead have just been listening to my body’s needs, that’s amazing!

Someday I will cut again to get rid of the fat, but for now, I will go to bed content that my body is the strongest it has ever been, and perhaps the healthiest as well. My mental state is in one of the best places it has ever been and my relationship with food is one where food no longer controls me (for the most part). And that’s much better to me in this moment. I’m happy.