30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 3

Twelve thoughts on becoming a Vegetarian for 30 days...

#1. Strawberry smoothies stick to my moustache. This is really more of a moustache beef than a 'going vegetarian' beef however. And my use of the word beef in the previous sentence was not meant to be a pun, but whatever. I started growing the moustache back in October in preparation for "Movember" and then I decided to keep it until March when the snow melts. It keeps my face nice and warm all winter long.

#2. Strawberry smoothies are really good. I should make these more often even when the "30 Days as a Vegetarian" experiment is over. The recipe I am using for making the smoothie is:

+ Approx. 1 and a half cups of strawberries, stems and leaves removed.
+ A splash of milk (about 1/4 cup).
+ Stick in the noisy blender for about 90 seconds. Pour the top of the smoothie into a glass, reblend any chunks at the bottom for 60 seconds, add to the glass. (I don't like any chunks in my smoothie.)

#3. Seeing my friends post images of "bacon wrapped potatoes" on Facebook is not helping so I have decided to limit my use of Facebook for the next month. Probably a good thing anyway, people spend way too much time on Facebook anyway when they could be outside exercising.

#4. I don't feel hungry as I am eating lots, but I do suddenly have a craving for bacon. I blame the friend on Facebook for posting those bacon wrapped potatoes.

#5. After I drink a strawberry smoothie, hours later I may belch and suddenly my breath smells like strawberries. [Note - I am not eating just strawberry smoothies, I have only had 1 so far, but the experience has resulted in many thoughts on the topic.]

#6. I am eating leftovers a lot more often I find. eg. This morning I had leftover corn and veggie pasta. This suggests that food will be less likely to go bad in the fridge because I will just go to the fridge and say "Ooooo! Leftovers!" and it will disappear quickly.

#7. Last night I joked with friends about breaking down on the 29th day and gorging myself on bacon. I don't think this will happen, I just thought it was an amusing idea. More likely I will have a burger with 2 strips of bacon on it, on the 31st day after the 30 day experiment is over.

#8. Before meeting friends last night I went to the Johnny Rockets near Yonge and Dundas and had the special, which was loaded with lettuce, onion, tomato, etc. The beauty of Johnny Rockets is that particular restaurant you can substitute their beef patty with a veggie patty instead on any of the burgers (with no extra cost). On the side I had a caesar salad (which had a surprising amount of dressing on it) and to drink I had water with a squeeze of lemon (the lemon came with the salad, but I used it to add some flavour to the water). [See 8 Benefits of Lemon Water in Your Diet.]

#9. My girlfriend was a vegetarian (pescetarian technically because she still ate fish) for approx. 11 years, from 2001 to 2012. She didn't do it because of her love of animals, but she does love them too - she did it because back in 2001 she found she suddenly didn't like the taste of meat. When she resumed eating meat it was when she visiting Haiti, but it was during a cholera outbreak so she ate meat because she couldn't trust the seafood there during the cholera outbreak. What happened was she ate some bad fish, got a really bad case of diarrhea and decided to temporarily go back to eating normal meat, and ultimately decided her previous disgust of the taste from 11 years previous had changed. This isn't so much a personal thought from myself, but some background on a conversation I had earlier today.

#10. I will be outside in the cold (2 degrees) this afternoon for a little more than 3 hours so I am packing a thermos of boiling hot green tea. I will be having hot mushroom soup before I leave so I should be plenty warm and well-fed.

#11. Last year a friend of mine got cancer and it struck me that he is way too young to be having cancer. It was just plain wrong that someone my age or younger should have cancer. However it did get me thinking about all the vegans and vegetarians who talk about how they cured cancer simply by eating healthy food. Given the choice between dying of cancer and becoming a vegan, I think I would rather choose the veggies. I don't think I would even have to become a full blown vegan either, but simply increase my intake of vegetables to the point that I am 95% vegetarian and 5% meat eater (or some similar set of numbers). So if you are reading this and you have cancer, you could consider that to be an option. You would still be able to enjoy meat once in awhile, but get all benefits of a very healthy diet.

#12. Eating hot soup on a cold day is always awesome. Mushroom soup goes well with a sprinkle of parsley on top.

Notes

I weighed myself this morning at 9:40 AM. My current weight is 196.4 lbs.

This change suggests I lost 0.6 lbs per day during the last 2 days. However weight fluctuates often just because of the amount of water in your system, bowel movements and when you last ate a meal, but it is a positive sign. I will be weighing myself every 2 days and posting the results.

If I continued at that rate of 0.6 lbs per day I could in theory drop 18 lbs of fat in 30 days. This would be consistent with what I did several years ago when I cut bread from my diet, ate a mostly vegetables diet, and only ate meat once per week. During that time period I lost about 20 lbs in approx. 40 days (averaging 0.5 lbs per day). I should also note that during that time period I was also weightlifting and doing between 1000 to 1500 jumping jacks per day as cardio to keep my heart rate and metabolism high.

My waist circumference at its widest point is currently 42 inches (down half an inch from two days ago) so that is likewise a positive sign. I am curious to see what the difference will be 28 days from now.

So far so good!