Vegan Journey Update

Ok. I have LOVED seeing everyone’s vegan success posts! I fully believe in a vegan lifestyle and have taken much backlash for it. I began my vegan journey in June/July 2015. I had a week’s transition where I was battling cravings for cheese. Who knew I’d hit severe withdrawal over a food.

At first, I was leaning towards a more RawTill4 version, but found also that I had addictions to cooked lunches. So then it was more of a raw breakfast with cooked meals afterwards.

I did alright until the fall when I started teaching again and began buying a lot more pre-made vegan foods and trying more vegan junk foods.

Prior to all of this, I had won a fitness competition at my lowest weight of 129 lbs (I believe… my husband seems to remember a different number in the 120 lbs range). I won free coaching for two months and did fairly well continuing to stick with an extremely low carb, higher protein and moderate fat meal plan but my results stalled and as I started avoiding meals just so I didn’t have to keep eating the same things, my results started to reverse.

I found a group on FB with a coach that designed his own workout plans and diet. Many people have seen results on his plans, so I decided to enter this challenge as well. About half way through, I was tired of being tired. I was tired of being unhappy with my food. I was tired of always restricting. And when I finally asked the coach why I was no longer losing weight, he told me to cut my calories down even more. I think I thought about it for two days before deciding that I’m not doing this anymore and I’m going to “intuitive eat”.

Now, my intuitive eating was not a binging session. I don’t think I’ve ever binged. But I did start eating whatever foods I wanted with no regards to macro counting. Obviously this included more cheese for my cheese addiction. Needless to say, I started gaining weight.

After awhile, I started being so unhappy because I knew something was wrong and that there had to be something better for our bodies than this. With my dissatisfaction, and being vegetarian for many years before entering the bodybuilding/fitness world, I started looking at being vegan. I researched for days, watched YouTube videos by the hour. I finally had found what made sense to me. Hence my journey began in June/July 2015.

Though I’ve enjoyed the success stories, I’ve always wondered what was going wrong. When I first switched to vegan, my weight slowly kept creeping up until I hit my all-time high over Christmas at 196 lbs. Sure, it’s easy to say you shouldn’t worry about the weight, but from winning my competition at 129 lbs to gaining up to 196 lbs, I’m sure you can understand the mental troubles this can give you, especially when your husband thinks your current diet is to blame.

Deep in my heart, I knew this was the right way to eat so I didn’t give up. Sure, I indulged a little in junk over Christmas Break since we went on vacation to Colorado, but I never quit being vegan, and at home I have been cooking more than before and eating as much whole, plant-based foods as possible.

Since Christmas, I just wanted to see the scale move down into the 180s. That’s not a huge fat loss, but enough for some confirmation. Since Christmas, I have found my all-time best routine. I get up at 4 am, go to the gym, do my workout fasted: usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours of weights and 30 minutes of cardio, come home, eat breakfast because I’m usually starving after the gym, take care of my dogs, get stuff ready for my husband, get myself ready for work, go to work (elementary teacher), come home or stay at work after and do what needs to be done. It honestly gives me so much energy for the day. Yes, physically I have felt a difference for sure! No more coffee, never tired except for at night, no stomach issues, etc.

Yesterday in the gym, while doing lateral raises, I thought I noticed a slight difference in my chest/shoulder area. My shoulder muscles are starting to show again like they used to (though there is still fat covering them that needs to go). Then when I was doing shrugs, I noticed the top half of my stomach area (chest down to “love handles”) is actually slim (I carry all my fat in my bottom part of my stomach). For once, I could see/vision myself athletically fit and not stare at myself with criticism. However, I will say that until this point, the scale had barely moved (though I do not check everyday).

This morning, and yes, I know the scale isn’t everything, but what I saw was confirmed. I am back on the 180s side at 189! 7 1/2 months of keeping faith that this is the right way, and I’m finally starting to see results and not just feel them. I am so happy!

I just wanted to share my story for anyone else who may get frustrated that their weight is not coming off. Being active and eating whole foods is honestly the best way to go. You will feel the results first, and that’s what counts. The physical results will come later. I haven’t had a blood test done yet to make sure all of my levels are ok, but that is on my to-do list. All I know is I feel great, my strength and endurance have actually increased in the gym, and I will never eat/live another way again!

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 12 Day 2

I started off the day in such a great way! I was motivated, working hard, accomplishing a ton of little things left and right. I felt amazing!

As usual, the kids got a little out of hand, but it was nothing too serious. I even took them outside for both recesses regardless of the fact that it was -20 C and -19 C respectively. It was nice and refreshing the first time, but by the second recess, I wish we had stayed inside.

At the end of school, we had an IT meeting which took awhile. I also learned I had to very quickly clean my room and basically throw my stuff into the hallway because they were using my room for another meeting I didn’t know about. With the results of being late and frazzled, I went out to my car to finally get it ready to come home. I let it warm up for quite awhile, and scraped and brushed it off so it didn’t quite look so much like an abandoned car in the arctic. Although my engine light is on, my car made it home and drove incredibly well. I love my car.

Tonight at the gym, I really wasn’t feeling my workout. I just wasn’t in the right mental state for a couple reasons, one being that I was home from work late again, and I also was still physically worn out from that crazy leg workout the day before. Not to mention tonight’s workout and every workout this week is now 4 sets instead of 3. My body just wasn’t feeling it today. But I did manage to finish the chest/triceps/abs workout including 12 minutes of HIIT afterwards.

I’m tired and worn out, but I’m about to go to sleep and hoping for the deepest sleep so my body can recover better for tomorrow’s back workout.

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 4 Day 5

Am I ever thankful I took a rest day yesterday! I still feel tired, but my body physically feels so much better than before.

Getting up for work still was not the easiest, but I had a pretty good day at work, and felt like I had so much more power for my workouts this evening.

The workout is still on a circuit style of training, covering most parts of the body. Pretty soon the program will be separating into separate body parts and eventually phase out of circuits.

RIght now, I’m feeling great!