My struggle with vegetarianism

Ok, sometimes I might slip and refer to myself as a vegetarian, but in truth I am not. My wife is, so almost all that I eat at home is vegetarian. This is simple because I don't want to go through the trouble of making two versions of most meals, especialy when she's doing the cooking. The other reason is that vegetarian cooking is not that bad, in fact it is kind of good. For that reason while at home, I don't find any reason to eat meat.

Intellectualy, I want to be a vegetarian. I can think of many reasons why to change my lifestyle to one that is meatless.

1. By not eating meat, I am also not getting all the fat that rides along with the helpful protein and iron. This choice of no meat opens my diet up for more foods to eat, and i love to eat!


2. Diets high in animal iron have been linked to marked higher rates of cancer, including colon cancer for one.


3. Diets that consume lots of meat (especially red meat) have higher rates of:

• Obesity


• Diabetes


• Heart disease


• Stroke


• Hardening of the arteries


• and the list goes on....

There is one thing absent from my list that my wife and other vegetarians would consider: the suffering of the animal. I admit, on an intellectual level that this is absolutely true. I also believe there is a spiritual component to eating. I believe if an animal is cruelly raised and slaughtered in an undignified way and then you eat that animal, you in turn are digesting all those injustices and they become part of you. I concede all of that...but i still love meat. I eat meat maybe once a month and even then it is in small portions.

So that is one of my current struggles.

Curry Lentils

The Beginning

So I'm officially kicking off this lifestyle change today....well, actualy it was yesterday, Sunday, August 3. I will be using a combination of resources to achieve my goals. This blog will be where I post my weekly progress and things I am doing to lose weight. This will include recipes that I cook. I will be posting on sparkpeople.com under the user name jchene2. On spark people, I will be posting all my exercise and all food intake, as well as my weight loss goals. If any of you are interested in what I have been eating to lose wieght, my complete calorie count is there.

Baseline: August 3rd
Weight: 248.6
Hight: 5'10"
BMI: 35.6
Neck: 17.5"
Waist: 49.25"
Hips: 46.25"

Energy:3
Wellbeing:3
Alertness:3
Assertiveness:3

My goal is to get to 165lb by my 2009 birthday. So I have to lose about 80 pounds. According to Sparkpeople.com, to achieve this I have several things I will be doing. I will consume somewhere around 2000 calories a day. This will put me initially at a 1600 calorie deficit. I will keep myself well-hydrated even though I suck at it. I will exercise at least 30 min a day. This exercise will be keeping me in my target heart rate, which is 135-159 beats per min. I will also try behavior and cognitive exercising to change my relationship with food. Lastly, I will seek support from my friends and family to help me lose weight.

Here are some helpful links that i will be using during my lifestyle transition:
sparkpeople.com

My Sparkpeople Page-track my daily food/excerise log

nutritiondata.com-This is powerful data base of nutritional data

Mapmyride.com-this website allows me to mapout my bike rides

So there you have it, my first entry. I hope it is not too boring.

What is My Food Philosophy?

It was little over 18 months that someone asked me that question. Up until then, I had been blissfuly eating whatever garbage I could get past the hole in my face. You know...the usual American diet of hamburgers, french fries and whatever else could be consumed from a bag. "What is your food philosophy?"...to be honest, I was not sure what she meant. I later married that woman, a vegetarian, and together she and I have been working on a new way of eating for me.
Before I go any further, I do need to stress something. This is more of an experiment then a directive. I have created a hypothesis, which is my very own food philosophy. With that, I have planned out an experiment. My method of measuring the results is by weighing myself and to track my exercise goals. In addition, I would encourage everyone that desires to lose weight or just wants to maintain a healhful lifestyle that you would use this as a starting point for creating your very own food philospphy. Everyone is different and we truly need a plan that is specific to each of us.
Food.....food is really just a part of the equation. There are other factors (at least for me) that contribute to weight gain. Depression, ADHD, sleep deprevation, sleep apnea, eating patterns, lack of exercise, consumption of high fructose corn syrup--all of these can contribute to obesity. In this blog, I will advocate for a complete approach to healthful living.
One thing I must stress is that this is not a diet...this is not something you go on then come off. What I am advocating in this blog is a permanent lifestyle change, in an effort to cease being the fat me (you) with habits that perpetuate an unhealthy weight. I am overweight. That means that I have caused a permanent physiolocical change in my body. My body will always easily store excess fat. So, the chances of rebounding weight gain is greater with me than with someone who was never been big to begin with.