New Year, New You

So, I'm way sick of hummous.

 

I've spent the last couple days rolling my eyes in Eat, M&S, or Sainsbury's on my lunch break, gazing at the incredibly varied vegan selections of hummous wrap, or...hummous sandwich.  While generally enjoy a falafel here or there, after eating hummous pretty solidly for a couple weeks now, I'm well up for something not made of pureed chick peas.

 

You would think food-savvy companies like M&S would cater more willingly to their vegan customers, especially considering I've met two more fellow non-meat-product-eaters in the past week.  I mean, can you imagine one of their sexy food commercials featuring a sultry-looking hummous wrap?  Me neither.

 

I was thankful to stumble upon a Roasted Butternut Squash & Orzo Pasta salad this afternoon, however.  It did not have hummous.

 

I am also thankful for my annual Thanksgiving meal, which we had early this year due to a house-move later this month.  We piled 21 people into our little flat, borrowed chairs and cutlery and tables from pretty much everyone we knew, and covered the place in Thanksgiving deliciousness. I did end up making a 5.5kg turkey, which I bought fresh from a dude at Borough Market, and then came home & had to prepare.  I thought it only fitting that my meatlicious hubby take part in the turkey preparations, which includedd plucking some of the big bird's quills that were left in.  For anyone who hasn't had the experience of plucking a fowl of some kind, I can tell you it's an absolutely shiver-inducing experience, like attempting to get a splinter out of some old dead person.  Not that I've done that before.  But you get what I mean.  Anyway, I was hoping the experience would give Jon some memorable idea of where his meat comes from, but I think it was more an unpleasant necessity.  Much like cutting his toenails, although I have a feeling he might enjoy that.

 

We had a few vegan dishes for Thanksgiving, including a Root Veg gratin, a nut roast, various salads and cranberry sauce - but I must admit I did taste my turkey - more for it's honour than for anything else.  Kind of like pouring some out for my homies.  Except with eating.  And turkey.  And no homies.  There were plenty of imbibes wandering around - and we managed to drink through about 12 bottles of red wine that have been lazing around our wine rack for years.

 

Overall, I'm feeling really, really good.  I don't feel like I'm dieting or keeping myself from anything.  If I want choc, I have dark; if I want a coffee, I have it with soy milk.  My energy levels are high, my mood is good, and I guess I couldn't ask for more.  Except for legs like Charlize Therone.  I'll have those, please.

 

 

Right.  It's been awhile.

 

For those of you who have read my trials and tribulations at the mercy of my personal trainer, Gavin, a year ago, you'll be happy to know two things:

 

1. I ran and completed the London Marathon in April, despite ungodly temperatures and a terrible puking spree.

2. The quest for health is NOT over.

 

After Gavin's incredible help, I transitioned easily into piling on the mileage for my marathon.  I would whip eight miles around the city after work, and then come home and make dinner.  On weekends I rose early in drizzle and courted the shores of a lake for 17 miles.  There is a strange fifth dimension which is called 'Marathon Training', whereby people constantly calculate distances, have an intimate relationship with talcum powder, and shed tears when they run off-pace or miss a run.  My fifth dimension was a treasured place for me, and I left it altogether too soon.  I finished my marathon, laid on the beach in the Dominican Republic for a week drinking cocktails, and then came home and promptly got a hip injury.

 

While I should be thankful I ran the marathon wholly injury-free (save for all that puking), it was quite a morale killer to be limping around London and coralled into a curtained room with a physiotherapist.  Yes, I ran the marathon, and now I can barely walk to the door.

 

ANYWAYS, the hip is slowly on the mend, I'm on my bike and in the gym, and in between I discovered the wonder of a little book called Skinny Bitch.

 

I recently reviewed the book for the MSN Health Channel, and in the spirit of this blog, I've agreed to put the principles in practice for one month, or as long as I deem necessary.  I'll excerpt some of my review:

 

 So you see, this isn't really a normal 'diet' from a boorish old diet book.  I'm not sipping cabbage or whipping out my calculator (thank GOD).  I'm trying, in the next month, to discover and explore the sixth dimension.  This one's called "Veganism", and I used to think it involved kaftan wearing hippies who threw paint at farmers.  While my perception has swayed after Posh Spice was seen posing with the book in an LA bookstore, I'd like to think the truth behind it is a bit less trendy.

 

Thought I've already had experience with the vegetarian diet - that is, if you count six months during my first year of University where I ate nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and chips, and gained 20 pounds - I'm hoping this will pan out a bit differently.  I'm familiar with the whole 'meat is mean' side of things, but I was most surprised to learn from the book just how much the meat/dairy industry effects the environment, and our health.

 

 My brother was a vegan at sixteen and almost got expelled from high school for letting all the science class mice run free.  Since then, he's moderated his diet into enjoying mostly locally-produced, seasonal veg & meats, and getting Harry Potter tattoos, but I was surprised to hear him giggle at my challenge.  "You're going to get fat, " he said.  What?  He said, most of the vegans he knew were fat, because they were always eating.  They never felt full, he said, because they never had that bit of heavy protein from meat.

 

I find this information dubious - unless they're on my Freshman Year Diet Plan (also known as:  "Everything That's Fried!") - but it will be interesting to see how the lifestyle stands up.  It's not really about the weight, anyway.  It's about feeling good.  And in the week or so that I've been slowly weaning meat & dairy out of my diet, I have felt good.  Some observations:

 

1.  Dairy was less difficult to take out of my diet than I thought.  I figured I'd really miss it, but I've been taking my coffee black and using a soya-sour cream (from Holland & Barratt) for my requisite enchiladas, and soya milk for any other things.  Hmm.

2.  I live with the most fervent carnivore, ever.  When I was having some 'scrambled' tofu earlier this week, he was having this Meatastic Pizza, which had like seven different kinds of meat and no veg.  He puts up with my meat-free pasta dishes, and last night I made some soup and felt guilted into adding chicken chunks to his.  I have a feeling this is going to be quite the challenge.

3. I'm hosting an early Thanksgiving dinner next Saturday, where I've promised to cooke a turkey for 20 people.  Huh.

 

Anyway.  Wish me luck!  Leave any tips you have - especially if they involve recipes!  I'll include the one I made last night because it was SERIOUSLY delicious and if you make it you'll think it is like eating a spicy version of heaven.  I tweaked it from a great recipe I have for Caldo De Pollo, but as we're sans pollo ('cept for the hubby, 'course), it is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I've just been granted a spot in the London Marathon.

 

Eeek!

What it is, Gavin said the other week, is that I'm 'unconsciously' consuming too many calories, because my body's metabolism has gone all ADHD and thinks I need more food than I actually do.

 

What did he suggest?  Whipping out the calculator, friends, and punching in every morsel.  We gathered I need about 1700 calories to sustain my weight (hello, desk job), and less 20% to actually lose weight (1360), which meant I needed to keep close track of everything I put in my mouth.

 

Now, I'm not good at maths to begin with, but combine math with hunger, and oh my god MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN.

 

After Jon politely refused to be in the same room as me during dinner, I decided it might be better to calculate my calories earlier in the day, and plan dinner according to how much I consumed previously.  I did not consider the implications of Burrito Thursday or champagne & chocolate girls day, which meant that some evenings I was like, "Yum!  A nice glass of water!"

 

Still, I'm slowly falling into a pattern of knowing how it feels to consume 1360 calories a day, and how many calories things contain (skim milk, 1/2 cup, 45, etc).  If I pace things right, I don't feel deprived or bored - and it has somehow spurred my body past the plateau where I had been steadily lurking.  I've lost a full kilo, a half inch from the dumps in my truck, and my body fat percentage is at 19.4%.

 

This, considering the massive-attack amount of butter and double cream in my Thanksgiving dinner, and that I took nearly a week off of working out because I couldn't breathe out of my nose.  Or breathe at all, really, without hacking germs on the nearest entity.  Who was usually Jon.

 

Anyway, it's empowering to see the self-awareness amount to something.  Or at least NOT amounting on my ghetto booty.

 

The clincher is that Ross, MSN's trusty health editor, and I have a semi-ongoing race to be the first to successfully complete one-arm pushups.  Considering Ross keeps throwing up at all of his workouts (due to his very delicate nature), I think we can safely assume I've got the lead.

 

Yes, he might've run the London marathon twice already, but have you seen my biceps, lately?  They're huge.

 

Haven't heard back from the London Marathon, yet, but at this point, if I don't get in, I'm considering it strongly fated.

 

 

I didn't write last week for two reasons:  1)  I became extremely busy at work, and 2) I was probably still catching my breath from the sprints Gavin made me run earlier that week.

 

Yes, you heard me correctly.  Sprints.  As in, High School Gym Wearing Knee Socks With Braces sprints.  As in, "To the wall & back, six times."

 

It was quite funny, actually, the first time, because we were running at the back of the gym, next to a set of boxing bags.  Some guy was doing an impressive turning-kick-thingy into the bag, but as I started the Phoebe-flail around him, he immediately moved to the bags that were away from the girl who has motor coordination difficulties.

 

So, ha ha ha Gavin, those sprints were real funny, I said in an email.  So funny, he thought, that he demanded another round at this week's session, probably so his friends could come in and video it for YouTube.  It would be entitled Girl Who Runs Wierd, an honest viral sensation, and the clincher moment would be when I finished and hugged a punching bag to steady myself - wait, title change:  Girl Who Runs Wierd And Likes to Gently Hold Punching Bags.  Tah-dah.

 

I did close to five thousand sprints along the back wall, and by the time I was finished, I had cleared out most of the area, including the skip-rope dude and the people boxing in the actual ring.  While it might've been my heavy breathing or stench of day-old Thai food exuding from my pores, I'm pretty sure it was the actual, physical pain my running step causes onlookers.

 

It has been said that I run like a fat girl.

 

Jon videoed it once, and while I don't have delusions of being obese (I could stand to lose a few, sure, but I'm not fat), I wholeheartedly agree.  As my work colleagues discussed yesterday, the fat person's run has something to do with kicking out one's legs awkwardly behind the body, as if to say, "These two things do not go together."  And me, with my royally terrible ankles and ghetto booty (all kind gifts of a gymnast youth), somehow fits the bill.  The difference?  I like running.  I can run.

 

That said, this fat-girl runner has just applied - EEK! - for the London Marathon.  On behalf of fat-girl runners everywhere.