Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Choices: How and why

Here is the run down of how I started the process of cutting out any animal by product, processed sugars and flours (really processed food in general, as much as possible anyway), fake sugar (NEWS FLASH: worse than processed sugar), Soda, coffee ("Coffee is for pussies."), medicine (you know, the Tylenol for headaches (wah), cold medicine (double wah) ) and how I began putting the good stuff back in.

WARNING: I do go on a bit about my choices and why they were made.  If you don't want to know about this stuff, stop here, otherwise, continue.  I'm not trying to preach, convert, or in any other way convince you to change your ways.  I'm simply explaining why I chose to change mine. Thankyou and have a nice day if you chose to read on, if not.....fine, stay close minded...kidding, I'm kidding..

Soda: Red because, say it with me, "Soda is liquid Satan."  Did you know it can acctually increase calcium loss?  And if you're going to drink soda, please drink the real stuff.  Diet is so much worse for you!  At least sugar (in it's original form), is NATURAL.  The crap they put in diet soda is man made.  Aspartame, an ingredient found in diet soda (check) contains methyl alcohol.  When this substance enters your body, it turns into formaldehyde! That's right. sick.  "Perhaps you have a lumpy ass because you are preserving your fat cells with diet soda."  Plus all these artificial sweeteners were denied 7 times by the FDA.  Makes ya feel good, right?  It gets worse, just read the book if you're interested in the politics of the government controling our "health".
This was a pretty easy choice for me and I have already done it for 2 years before.  Done.

Coffee:  I love coffe.  Especially with the right creamer.  Yum.  Mr. AP and I love trying new kinds of coffee and creamers.  Drink it every morning.
That said...one should not need coffee to wake up.  "If you can't wake up without it, it's because you are either addicted to caffeine, sleep deprived, or a generally unhealthy slob."  Yikes.  Caffeine can cause all kinds of issues, including many that I had: consipation, fatigue, headaches, ect. On top of that, coffee is highly acidic.  If you remember anything from health class, our bodies have a ph level they like, blah blah.  So, too much acid and your body just rebels and says Oh yeah, well here's some more fat!  Or it makes more fat cells to keep the acid away from your organs.
This was hard.  I love the smell of coffee.  But, it's done. After I read the coffee section, I was done.  Haven't had it 2 weeks now and I"m going strong.

JUNKFOOD!: Oh junk food, how I love thee.  I will miss you deeply, but I will not miss the icky things you do to me.  Sure, they're full of hydrogenated everything, sugar, fat, blah blah...what got me was the chemicals.  There are enough chemicals in most packaged junk food to make it last for years. "So your junk food has a shelf life of 22 years and will probably outlive your fat, sorry ass."  Fat free and low fat are worse, shocking, I know.  "..Chemical shit storm." 
Now, this almost made me cry, until I read about all the great "junk food" that's out there! And I've tried some of it.  For instance, Newman-O's Hint o' Mint cookies taste just like Oreos, for real.  And the cook book Skinny Bitch in the Kitch has tons of recipies for cakes, cookies, frostings, all those yummy things! There are even chips out there that don't have the nasty stuff in them, so you can eat them, just moderation.
You're really not giving up that much. So this job was easier than planned....until.....
Easter! Candy candy everywhere! AHHH!  Ok, so I had some.  It was here and I had some. Bad mama.  Now it's gone and it's ok.  I know I'll slip up, but it's OK!

PAIN MEDS: Ok, so I get (got!) headaches alot.  So....I took alot of pain meds.  I never fully looked at the reason for the headaches.  Sure, I could've tried cutting something out here and there to see if it helped, but that seemed like a lot of work at the time.  Now, I can cut out all of it! At one time! And I want to! And I did! 
I'll be honest, I did get a couple of headaches the first 2-3 days, from the sugar and caffeine withdrawls.  But since then, none.  I honestly feel so much better.  I know I will get the occasional headache (because big boobs + small shoulders = sore muscles = headaches) but nothing like before.  HOORAY.
If I get a sinus infection, I'll get antibiotics, don't worry, I'm not going crazy on you.

Refined/processed sugar/flour: This is no brainer, we all know it, we just don't do it.  I don't feel the need to go into this one.
Easy choice: if it says high fructose anything, enriched, fortified, or refined, DON"T BUY IT. done.

Dead, rotting, decomposing flesh: giving up meat was also a pretty easy choice for me.  I don't eat much of it anyway, I can't stand the look of raw meat/chicken/seafood, and it smells horrible.  As I said before, the things I learned in this book (which we all kind of already have an idea about) about the way the animals are "grown" and slaughtered literally made me sick to my stomach, I had to stop reading.  I didn't need anymore reason to quit right there and then.  But what really surprised me and made total sense was that we are not meant to eat meat.  Our bodies were not made to digest meat.  You have to read the book to really get the story, they put it so great.  But here's the gist:  we don't have the God given abilites to hunt and kill animals with our own two hands. We were smart enough to create tools and weapons to aid us in this, but real carnivors do not use tools or weapons, they were given their claws, teeth, talons, speed.  Sure, we were smart enough to create the tools, but we were also "smart enough" to creat cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.  On top of that, our digestive tracks are much longer than any carnivor.  Their meat passes through very quickly, but ours takes a long time and gets clogged and begins to rot and ferment. gross. One more note, carnivores have acidic saliva, ours is alkaline, not made for breaking down meat. 
Easy. Done.

All Other animal crap:  Eggs, eh. I never loved them, deviled? Yes please. And the line that really got me? just think about what you're eating for one second...On the whole, not tough. Done.
Cheese....cheese is the one thing that tops junk food.  I shouldn't even talk about it.  I've only tried one vegan cheese and I didn't love it, sad face.  I'll keep trying.  THis is aparently the worse thing for you.
Dairy in general...first line in the dairy chapter: "Go suck your mother's tits. Go on. Suck your mother's tits."  These ladies mean business.  We are the only species that drinks milk as adults and another animals at that!  Here's some perspective.  Babies nurse from their mothers for the first 1-2 years of life so that they  can quadruple their size.  The same thing happens for many other animals, including cows.  Cows create milk to grow their babies into 2000 lb giant cows.  Should we drink this and expect not to get fat? Probably not. Fat free?  Nope.  There are ton of other reasons, too many to chat about, but do you need more? Really? Ok, got allergies? Maybe not. Eat lots of dairy? Dair produces mucus, lots, your body will develop a cold/allergies to fight the dairy.  There is so much I want to write, but this would become a book. Oh wait, there already is one. 
Hard? yes. Done anyway? yes.
Rice milk isn't bad at all on cereal and in smoothies.  Chocolate soy milk is delicious!  Veganaise (yep, mayo substitute) seriousley tastes just like real mayo and wayyyyy better than the low fat crap.

So, this has gone on wayyyy longer than intended.  I'm going to call it a night.  Tomorrow I will let you in on what I acctually have been eating (yep, I am still eating).  This is my number one question: "So, what do you eat then?" we are so brain washed! I eat everything else!!  Number two question: "How will you get enough protein?" Answer: we eat waaaayyyy too much protien as a nation! So, I'll get what need easily thankyou.

Peace love and no more dead, rotting decomposing flesh!

end note (of sorts): All information is from either my head (opinions) or the book Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. All sentences in quotations are direct excerpts from said book.  (Think that will cover my ass should I get sued for plagerism?)

8 comments:

  1. please tell me you watched the doc "Food Inc." It changed our lives. Read skinny bitch- liked it. I can't give up cheese- yet.

    Our new motto- say no one time in the store instead of 100 times at home. We just don't keep crap in the house now! (well less crap... the cheese...)

    Tell us what you are eating! Lord knows I need ideas!

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  2. This is pretty intense, but it's good for you. When are you inviting us over to a healthy vegan dinner? I will just have to feed Bryan some meat before he comes over. :)

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  3. Joy- I have not watched Food Inc yet. I want to and I want Bret to, but I don't know if he will. Realize he was raised with grandparents that raise cattle for consumption (so, he had good meat all his life, and they do it all the right way and the cattle graze and are happy) I don't think he could ever give up meat. I do have a friend that wants to watch it, so I plan on renting it one day soon.

    Morgan-It is intense and I think that's why it works for me. I will totally invite you over for a vegan meal! We can use fake meat and not tell the boys and see if they can figure it out! Or not. Either way, there will probably always be meat here, for the big man.

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  4. Oh and Joy, don't get me started on the cheese. This will be my nemesis. I have tried one cheese that I don't like, I will try more before going...there....

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  5. Holy Moly, sista! It's funny because as I was reading this I thought, "Hmmm, is she reading Skinny Bitch?" and then the next line made a comment about Skinny Bitch, so I was like, "AH HA! I knew it!"

    Anyways, I admire the changes you are making in your lifestyle (some of those I definitely need to make myself) but I feel at this time in my life, I won't be able to make some of those changes. Especially the "whole wheat" part. I'm interested in hearing more about how this goes!

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  6. Thanks Amanda! It's really exciting to me. And I"m interested in how it goes too :) You have to do the "now wheat" part right? You can't have any flour of any kind, correct? That would be tough, but at least for both of these things, they are both becoming more and more common and there is more and more demand therefor there is more and more product.

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  7. one should not need coffee to wake up. "If you can't wake up without it, it's because you are either addicted to caffeine, sleep deprived, or a generally unhealthy slob."
    THIS DESCRIBES YOUR BESTIE IN A NUTSHELL!!!! HOPE YOU LOVE ME ANYWAY ;) I have been contemplating quiting my diet soda for some time, just haven't done it ... pretty sure I could easily live without, but coffee....eeeek! just not at that place yet... 5am comes WAAAAYYYY too quickly. I have many many many excuses of why I NEED coffee in my life and the slob example may be one of them ;) Love to my vegan!

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  8. Of course I love you! And I don't think you are a slob! I think you work a lot, have to get up really early, come home and be a wife and mom and do it all over again! Someday you can try giving it up...if you put your mind to it, you can do it, this I know about my friend :)

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