Tastebud Success!

One of the things I had researched about people who became vegans was that their tastebuds changed. And not just changed, but you’ll be able to taste and smell things you haven’t been able to before. If I’m going to be completely honest, I must say that I thought this was a bit of a joke… I mean how can your diet dictate how well you can “smell” or “taste” things?! It just sounds ridiculous…

But… I stand corrected.

My husband and I have been going to this stir fry place for a couple years. Though my stir fry mix is always with veggies now instead of meat, I still always ordered coconut rice with my stir fry. I used to have no clue why they even called it coconut rice because it tasted so much like plain, white rice to me. But I always got it just because it sounded better than the alternatives.

Last week (post month being vegan), we went back and I got a veggie stir fry with coconut rice like always. But I kid you not, I had definite coconut rice! I tasted the coconut! Oh my goodness.

Not planned, but we went back the very next day, so it was definitely a new batch of rice, but it tasted like coconut! My tastebuds have seriously awakened! Many things taste saltier than they used to, sweeter than they used to, and just better. This is so neat!

Living With A Car SalesMan

So, as many of you know, my grandfather was a car salesman. You think I would be used to the hours one works. But I don’t think I was quite as prepared as I should have been.

My husband has been a car salesman for almost 2 months now. And I’ve learned a few things along the way.

#1: Your working hours are not your set working hours. If you have a potential customer come 1/2 hour before your shift is over, you can be there up to another 3 hours just to possibly sell them a car. Sometimes, you will be working 13 hour shifts unplanned. Your scheduled hours in no way dictate your actual hours.

#2: There are ways to avoid extra hours, but that may include having a lower income. Car salesman get a commission off of the vehicles they sell. However, if you don’t complete the whole sale, delivery, etc.. by yourself, you have to split your earnings with the other salesman who helps you. Even if that simply means handing over the keys when they officially come to pick it up. The smallest thing can cause half of your money being given to someone else, so yes, you’ll want those extra hours to make sure you receive the whole income.

#3: Your working days are not your set working days. And even so, the days are extensive. Just like you can be working extra hours, you can also be called in extra days. However, even going by the scheduled days, my husband averages 4 days off a month… essentially 1 day a week! That’s not much for time off at all. People in the oilfields get more time off than that.

I don’t regret my husband being a car salesman. He really enjoys it. In fact, today he is starting at Dodge where I knew he should have been all along. He loves Dodge, has only ever owned Dodge trucks and a Jeep (with the exception of the Audi we owned once). I think he’s where he’s meant to be.

But with things you love often comes sacrifice. And unfortunately for us, it’s some time. But hey, that gives me more time to clean, work, and blog… right?

Successes of Going Vegan (Approx. 2 Weeks Solid)

I’m so happy to report I’ve been consistent in sticking to my vegan lifestyle, and especially the RawTill4 principles. Since I’ve been solid with it, I thought I should share some of the amazing things I’ve experienced because of it.

Here are some things I’ve noticed:
1. My energy is much higher and lasts throughout the day.
2. My attitudes/emotions are so calm and patient (not that I wasn’t before, but even more so!).
3. Acne scarring honestly seems to be getting better, though improvements on the actual acne still need to happen.
4. When I eat tons of fruit, smoothies, and some extra water, I NEVER have to worry about becoming dehydrated. Remember: The way to tell is the colour of your pee! Clear is best!
5. Digestion, not a problem. I’m getting in so much fiber from the natural fruits and veggies. I grew up with bad digestion problems, so this is amazing!
6. My strength/endurance in the gym has not been affected negatively, but rather they have increased! Mind you, my consistency lately of getting to the gym has not been good, so that needs to be worked on too.
7. I’m not starving… ever! I eat as much fruit as I want, and as much vegan cooked foods (preferably more starches and veggies) in the evening. I’ve never been this satisfied before!
8. I never feel bad about what I eat. I can feel that it’s healthy. No more upset stomachs or anything. (As long as you combine food properly!)
9. My house smells like fruit. Not the going bad kind. No wasting food anymore around here!
10. I don’t have cravings. I really wondered about the cravings thing… but honestly, when you’re full of sweet fruit, you crave NOTHING. Even going to the movies, I don’t want any of the concession stuff. My husband has cookies and things in the house, and I don’t want any of it. I use to make cookie dough by the bowl just to eat it, but not a chance anymore. This is the hugest blessing… I can’t even begin to express what it’s like for food not to have that power over you!
11. I have the satisfaction of knowing I’m eating things I should be eating. I try to be as organic as possible, and the less chemicals, the less animal fat, animal stress, decomposing flesh, etc… is not going in my mouth! I’m getting first hand nutrients from the earth, and I’m not killing animals to try to get as many second-hand nutrients to satiate my body. There is a definite feel-good feeling with this!
12. Most restaurants have some sort of vegan offering or substitutions. I never have to feel left out when joining people for supper!

This lifestyle is awesome. Honestly, try it for a month and see the difference it makes for you! If you’re curious about what exactly I typically eat? Then check out my post entitled, “Now That I’ve Got It – A Typical Vegan Day“.

Not Sure How We’re Supposed To Live?

Now I know many of you are from either the States where you have to pay for health services, or from other countries of which I’m highly uneducated of how your health systems work, but here in Canada, we are known for our free health care. This has both been a good thing and a bad thing because waiting times are usually outrageous.

Recently, the province I live in, Alberta, has had a budget renewal. Due to the price of the Canadian dollar summiting so low, and the price of oil dropping off, our economy has done little but crash and leaving us in a current 5 billion dollar deficit.

So what does the government decide to do amongst other things? Start charging us for health care. Now keep in mind, I understand that others will look at us and say things like, “We’ve always had to pay for it. So stop whining about it.” But what I’m asking you to remember is that Alberta is one of the most expensive places to live. Just because gas prices and things have gone down, living costs have far increased past wages in the past many years. You can come here to make money, but you also come to lose money.

Aside from that, you have to remember that health care was one less thing we had to budget. Yes, we still have to pay for the dentist, chiropractors, and medical needs of that line. But this is the direct access to a doctor that will now cost us.

I wouldn’t even be complaining if we had to pay something like 10-20 dollars a month for health care as I feel that is a good introduction to the paying of health care. But they are going to ask us to pay $1000 per year for health care. Combine that with the fact I’m almost getting 60% of my net pay already by the time they take out taxes, and the fact that I just barely am over the limit of which you have to start paying for health care (people under a net income of 50,000 do not have to pay), I’m not sure where it is going to come from right now. Maybe if I didn’t have so many taxes taken out, I would find this easier to accept. But when my account is pretty much dry by the middle of the month simply paying bills, and I’m living off 100% of my husband for the second half already, and we’re barely making it month to month as it is, how am I supposed to come up with a possible $2000 for the both of us?

On top of all of this, there are many refugees and immigrants from various countries that are somehow able to live in Canada getting $24,000+ per year from the government just to sit home and take English classes. Yet my husband and I are in debt because he was unable to do anything for 2 years and has been working for less than a year. Aside from all of the many dollars we have had to pay to Immigration, I can’t seem to catch a break.

The worst part of all of this is that my husband has not been “home” to see his family in almost 2 years. The government did not allow him to leave the country, and only in a few months will be his first time to leave. So we had plans of trying to save up some money to drive down and see his family, finally.

This whole fee thing would probably be even less of a deal if it weren’t for the fact this budget is supposed to go into effect THIS JULY. So somehow, I may be $1000 or $2000 out (our entire trip if not more) just for health care and my husband not able to see his family, his grandpa that is sick and his brother who he wasn’t even able to travel to see during his surgeries last summer?

My head can’t even wrap around this right now. I don’t even know what to do. It seems like the world keeps demanding money, specifically the government, but our wages don’t rise, and instead we get less and less to live from. I don’t know how I’m going to do this…

Back on Track

I have to admit, I have taken a long break from tracking my food. I didn’t always make the best food decisions, didn’t always eat as often as I should, and though I made sure I made choices with protein in them, I didn’t always aim to have the most protein either.

I also haven’t been going to the gym for about a month between being sick and hurting my rib. I basically “quit” my everyday life for a bit of time.

Normally it would bother me as I reached a higher weight and then somehow stayed there (my own fault). But the fact I was maintaining was also a sort of good thing as my weight was not continuing to rise. I chose to look at it as somewhat of a healing phase as well. I needed to rest and not stress about lack of gym time.

My clothes don’t fit the way they used to. Obviously I’ve gained some size. But instead of that causing my world to crash, I decided to focus on how I felt otherwise. In fact, a pair of dress pants that used to be too big for me now look awesome on me (as much as I don’t encourage that type of transformation).

But after all this, and really not wanting to go back to the task of tracking, I’m back. I’ve set my calories at 2000 (I’ll explain reasons why later). My protein is set at 0.8 per pound of bodyweight. And this is my first day back to tracking.

My workouts (I’ve done 3 so far), are modified in such a way that allows my rib muscle to still heal and yet lightly work at the same time. What I’ve noticed is that mainly and PUSH motion is what aggravates it the most so I avoid those. But a lot of things I thought I’d have to go super light weight in, I’m actually as strong, if not stronger. The month off from the gym honestly did nothing in hindering my strength progress.

Sometimes it’s all about listening to your body. Do I wish I controlled what I ate a little more? Yeah, I probably do. But I’m not going to let that ruin my happiness and motivation for the future. So I’m back to working out, and I’m back to eating properly. Let’s see how this goes!

Week 13: Day 4 Extended

I REALLY did not want to get out of bed this morning. I was tired, my body was tired, my body ached all over, and I was just in bad shape. The warm shower really helped with all of those symptoms, except for the fact I was running late, again.

School went well. We had tutoring after school and that was a little bit crazy, but overall it went good again. We’ve finally made plans that after Christmas break, the three of us supervisors don’t need to be there every week, and one of us can do it at a time. That saves me about 3 days of work per month! I can handle that!

I stayed after school to get some grading done. I think I will appreciate later the fact that I’m getting work out of the way so that when deadlines approach, I won’t have quite as much to do. No more procrastinating!

After I went home, I had my celery and protein peanut butter again. Oh my goodness, how I look forward to that treat! As low as my calories are, that specific combination is a taste of paradise. Yum!

My husband was hungry and so we went out to eat. I had just enough macros to save for my protein shake after my workout and a salad with a chicken breast on it while eating with my husband. That way, I didn’t have to watch him eat. Though his burgers did look really good…

Tonight’s workout was hard at the beginning but in a way kind of got easier. I started off with a massive lack-of-food headache and had to have a coffee to get my body and mind in the game. Squats killed me. But I successfully completed the leg workout with 20 minutes of HIIT afterwards. Oh how was I ready to drink that shake 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.

Week 5 Day 7

Today, I’m not hungry again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Someday my appetite has to come back… I already went to bed without fulfilling all of my macros yesterday, I’m not going to do that today!

This was my rest day, but we had a morning full of drama with family issues. And yet, somehow, we still managed to get ready and make it to church on time. I’m really not sure how we pulled this off, but I was so happy we did. It was a great service about opening our spiritual eyes. Excellent sermon!

We then came home and basically did nothing for a few hours. We did take a nap, so that was nice.

Later, we decided to go out after sunset (when Sabbath ends). We got ready, made sure our animals were taken care of, and left. We stopped at Mac’s for my husband to get energy drinks (to get out of his sleepy slump), and I made a stop at Tim Horton’s for a quick pumpkin spiced ice coffee. I love pumpkin everything!

We then went to Bulk Barn where my husband picked up some candy and treats. Oh how I used to love picking stuff up at Bulk Barn too, but I fought the desire better knowing I had a snack in my purse that I had packed to fill me later. Planning ahead is a great idea!

We then went to Chapters. Oh how we both love books! We actually had to stop going to bookstores for awhile because we were spending way too much money on books. It was honestly like an addiction. Obviously it’s not a bad addiction other than it was taking our finances, so tonight was a real treat. We allowed ourselves to go through the entire store and pick a couple books. We probably won’t be back at the book store for at least another month or more so this was budgeted and allowed.

After some time at the bookstore, we sat in the car while I ate my snack (picture of it later). It really helped when we went to the theatre, and my husband got popcorn and chocolate for the movie. I wanted some of that stuff so badly. But I kept telling myself that one piece would break me so I needed to stand strong against even the smallest piece. And I did it! Yahoo!

When we came home, we basically had enough time to eat and go to bed. I wasn’t hungry, but the food was good and I managed to shove it in. So here was my food for the day:

Meal 1

I didn’t take a picture because we were in a rush to church. But this was the protein muffin I had several days ago, just chocolate flavoured instead of oatmeal. They are really good!

Meal 2

Tuna Salad Snack with celery, tomatoes and rice crackers.

Meal 3

Spaghetti Bolognese using lean ground beef.

Meal 4

Oatmeal Bake with Strawberries.

Meal 5

Cinnamon Cottage Cheese with finely chopped honeydew and cantaloupe. Took this with me and ate it before the movie.

Meal 6

(I normally don’t eat 6, but I had to make-up for the previous day and it all fit my macros.)

Sirloin Steak (I finished cooking to well done), potato mash and veggies. This was really delicious.

Week 2 Day 3 : A Hard Day

For the first time EVER, I woke up at 4:30 and went straight to the gym! I completed my circuit training and was able to make it home in time to help my husband get ready for work as well as do some laundry and take care of our animals while still getting ready and making it to work on time! What a morning! I also took delight in cooking and eating my breakfast at home, something that rarely if ever happens.

Of course, once I made it to school, I realized the pit in my stomach. My Jewel was leaving today. I was filled with sadness, anger, and several different emotions. I really am trying to stay positive about my neighbours, but I really have little good to say.

The day turned into an incredibly long day. I was at work from 7:30-6:20 in meetings and not accomplishing half of what I needed to. I estimate there are at least 5-7 hours worth of grading waiting to be done and huge paperwork deadlines for the end of the month that I have not had time to do.

Of course with the longer hours, I did not have enough meals with me to fill that time span and I was extremely hungry and tired.

I then became quickly stressed as I knew we were meeting my dad, my sister, and her boyfriend for her birthday supper and also so that my dad could take my baby. The only bad news is I couldn’t get ahold of my husband who was supposed to be coming with me. It was a couple hours before I could reach him.

I ended up packing up the dogs myself, and drove in my car to the restaurant, noticing along the way that I had forgotten some items Jewel needed for the flight and having to make a pitstop.

I was the last one to arrive, and we put the dogs in my husband’s truck with the windows down as people have a habit on calling Animal Patrol on all people, especially with dogs in the vehicle regardless of how they are prepped. In my husband’s tall truck, it is less likely people will climb it to see in the windows.

Supper was good, the food was excellent. I ordered a salad as you can always pick and choose the toppings: get a good chicken breast for protein, a couple nuts for fat, lots of greens and other veggies, and I also had quinoa on my salad for that extra carby protein. The salad was excellent!

We had a good time, but when it came time to say good-bye, I had a hard time. My baby was leaving and this was it. We took pictures, I went through thorough instructions, and did all that I could to say good-bye.

On the ride home, I went alone. My husband had the dogs with him in his truck, and I wept driving in my car. I began reflecting on life and how it seemed such a mess. I thought about how my husband and I are living in a city that we both don’t like, beside unfortunate neighbours, and things seem to be getting ripped away from us without us having any control. We’re both not happy where we are, as busy as we are, with the rules we have to face. The only thing in my life that seems to be somewhat controlled is my diet and the gym. That honestly is all I have control of. The government restricts my husband from school over a paper they refuse to admit they lost. The government restricts me from my babies that I never planned on having but have adapted and made my own sacrifices in order to keep and take good care of them. Those higher than me in my career control the amount of meetings and extracurricular activities I must do which take up more time than I would like to allow with no financial compensation. My husband’s job is controlled by the journeymen he works with and has to work the hours they set out each day. We are stuck in a city where jobs are more abundant to ensure that our bills can be paid since my husband cannot advance in his career without the government papers and thus needs a company that can take him on for now. Everything about my life seems to be controlled by someone or something else. I’m stuck. I’m a mess. The one thing I have is the gym.

And so even though it was late when we got home, we unloaded the dogs, sat for a minute, and went to the gym. The man at the desk recognized me from earlier that morning when he was ending his night shift and mentioned how shocked he was to see me twice in less than 24 hours. I smiled and continued to walk. The gym is the one thing people cannot take away from me. And so my cardio became complete; 12 minutes of HIIT on the stairclimber. And the day was done.