Simply Fresh Living

When my husband and I started on this “adventure” we had absolutely NO idea what we were getting ourselves into. I will start with some background in hope of inspiring and providing guidance as we were probably as “normal” as they come-in addition to being complete foodies and entirely obsessed with cooking, eating out, new restaurants, and all other food inspired gatherings/events.

Part 1: Going Vegan

How we got here was not life changing, altering or painful in any way. In April I decided to stop eating meat. No reason really. I had worked at a “vegetarian” restaurant since I was 15 and working with a lot of different people that were vegetarian and vegan I never really thought any more about it. I tried being vegan once, I ended up just stuffing myself with pasta and “accidental” vegan snacks like pop tarts. It didn’t last and I felt a lot more healthy going back to my norm. But in April I had a conversation with a coworker that was a pescatarian, a fancy label that means he doesn’t eat meat, but eats fish. He didn’t really have anything that convincing to say, but I looked at it more of a personal challenge, could I really go with no meat? It was fun for me honestly! I liked trying out different things instead of meat and found that I was actually eating more veggies. I was also eating a lot more pasta and cheese though (in conjunction with less exercise) an inevitably in about 2 months I had gained 12 pounds. In July I decided to read Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. I had heard some hype from various people and heard something about vegetarianism, I thought it might have some good alternatives to meat.

That book changed my life. My ideas of healthy have certainly evolved A LOT since reading it, but it will change yours too. After reading the book (in a day-I couldn’t put it down) I was a die hard-never looking back vegan.

This is honestly where almost all of my problems were solved.

I was a compulsive eater. Although I was always pretty healthy and maintained a very average healthy weight I was never happy with my body. I have had stomach problems since before I could remember. They would get so bad a certain times I wouldn’t want to eat just thinking about how I would feel after. I went to tons of doctors, colon hydro-therapists, specialists, etc. and nobody ever really gave me any certain answer or solution. I always wanted sweets and I had no self control. Honestly, none. I would give up bread/pasta for awhile and then fall off that wagon. My weight was constantly up and down 10-15 pounds as I tried my hardest to “diet” and make it through holidays, vacations, birthdays, etc.

Skinny Bitch not only made me so aware of what I was putting into my body and how it was affecting it but it made me so entirely disgusted by meat and animal products in general I honestly can not even think about taking a sip of milk without being completely overwhelmed. That day and every time after that my husband and I went shopping for entirely vegan options. We also checked the labels on EVERYTHING, we didn’t buy anything that didn’t have whole natural ingredients. If we didn’t know what one ingredient was we didn’t buy it. We still splurged on things like vegan ice cream and cookies, although they were definitely not all natural, but with the progress we had already made, we liked to treat ourselves once in awhile!

I did a quick search online looking for farmers markets near us. We found one that was open during the summer and was only 20-30 minutes from our home. We LOVED Ahwatukee Farmers Market from the first time we went. Everybody was super nice and friendly and there was such a wide variety of fruits, veggies, and tons of fresh jams, salsas, etc. Up until this point my husband had not even been vegetarian, he stayed away from red meat but that was it. After me pouring out all of the research and ideas I had about veganism he decided he was going to try it too. We had so much fun! It forced us to cook more and eat out a ton less which was great as our battle with our budget was the same battle with my bad food addictions. Before we had always tried really hard not to go out to eat, but we always ended up giving in, justifying, etc. By eating in most of the time we came up with creative meal ideas like my absolute FAVORITE veggie fajitas, and even found vegan tamales at the farmers market. When we wanted to splurge Whole Foods has awesome vegan paninis and pizzas and we even found a couple vegan restaurants in the Phoenix Area.

It made us completely aware of everything we were eating, we checked labels diligently but I still indulged in my vegan sweets. There are tons of vegan brownies, ice creams, etc. on the market as well as tons more baking recipes.

And then we started discussing soy. There was conflicting research out there and basically decided to make up our own mind. Soy in the United States is very highly processed, even GMO soy and the fact that our whole point was to stay away from “processed” foods, we decided to do without. We tried to focus more on veggies than on faux meats, and replacing our favorite foods like chili with no meat/no soy alternatives as well as soy free desserts (coconut ice cream) and soy free burger patties. We ate SO much good food through our first few weeks being vegan and we loved it! We cooked together, we shopped together on the weekends, it forced us to think outside the box and we were completely satisfied.Anything that I craved: pizza, cookies, yogurt, there was a vegan alternative.

Most of all, it really helped with my compulsive eating and lack of will power. Extra large muffins at work breakfasts, I already ate at home, I wasn’t really hungry, but I would totally snack on one just because it was there. Same with free pizza, packaged snacks, you get the picture. I didn’t feel deprived in these situations either, I felt great about my choices. Not only because the choices were way better for my body but I was also choosing not to support the ongoing harsh realities that so many animals lived through in order for that muffin to be in front of me. It is a lot easier when the decision is not just a product of self will power but of something bigger than that, bigger than you. It really makes a huge difference!

Here are some of my favorite vegan sites:

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/

http://www.vegan.org/about_veganism/index.html

Vegan Fashion:

www.mattandnat.com

http://www.cri-de-coeur.com/2009/spring2009.html

http://www.veganqueen.com/intro.html

http://www.tomsshoes.com/content.asp?tid=356

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under My Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.