Food!

So now that I've been at it for a bit and it's remaining something I feel good about, I'm "coming out" as a for health, for now, flexible-ish vegan. I don't like sabotaging myself by spreading the word about weight loss efforts that fail. This is a weight loss and digestive health and overall health effort...meat and dairy both make my whole entrapped hernia thing way more uncomfortable, dairy in general makes it like I have a cold and am itchy all over all the time. And both of those things (along with many other things) make me continually get fatter. So. This is my indefinite experiment.

So far it's working out really well and is almost shockingly easy (especially compared to the strict rigidity of Eat to Live). I have coconut ice cream in the freezer and coconut milk and creamer in the fridge, and dark chocolate is hidden in a closet. Neither coffee nor alcohol contain animal products of any kind ;) I will continue to consume honey, to eat animals at holidays and special occasions, and to not be hard to accommodate when I'm someone's guest.

The rest of the family is still eating whatever they want, though I feel this is only having a positive effect on what my kids eat.

Anyway, this has been about a week and a half now and I've already lost 5 pounds. I'm also "going to the bathroom" at least 5 times as much as I was before...frequency and quantity, good grief, I mean damn. It makes me feel SO MUCH LESS freaked about my hernia! Constant reassurance that I am nowhere near needing emergency surgery ;) Really, though.

And, I'm kind of shocked by how much LESS I'm eating. I mean I'm not putting any restrictions on myself at all as far as how often or much I eat, and I think it's still probably more than most people eat. And sometimes reactionary/not hunger related...it's just ending up being a lot less. Because it's more filling stuff? Because it's more nutritionally dense so my body wants less? Maybe both? Or maybe there aren't as many rich things to entice me ;) Sort of irrelevant.

I'm posting all that because I want to write about my menu plans re: tonight's grocery shopping. I'm psyched! I've been eating a lot of standard fare of ours, like kale and bean soup, salads, fruit, chips and salsa, curried chickpeas with brown rice, lentils, carrots and peanut butter, and oatmeal. But I've decided to branch out based on some experiments I've done, recipes I've looked up and things I've had out places. Some of the things I'm planning to do include:

-quinoa with a bunch of little sauteed junk thrown in, i.e., corn, peas, diced red and green bell pepper, onions, garlic and black olives
-coconut curry of onions, carrots, celery, broccoli and who knows what else, with rice
-sweet potato and black bean enchiladas with green chile sauce on top
-cauliflower tacos

I'm also mixing salsa into hummus because I'm weird like that, and bringing back the old but good waheni and wild rice mix that's loaded with mushrooms and cooked in broth that I used to make all the time. And non-dairy risotto full of mushrooms and almond slivers.

I am soy-phobic in addition to having a legitimate nasty reaction to concentrated soy protein, and Elise is out and out allergic, so standard "vegan alternatives" and manufactured fake foods don't work (or appeal, honestly). I've been doing some (non-protein) Odwalla bars and toasted edamame here and there and things like that seem to agree with me ok, as does soy sauce as a condiment. Also taking B12 every day, and I use nutritional yeast which has it.

Very much kicking around making this a permanent change. A real lifestyle change is what I need, and if I am not in a position to really alter my trigger-y and emotional eating, I can at least make sure I'm eating way better stuff. It's green and factory farming is horrifically disgusting. I've gone through weird meat aversions before and not eaten dairy for months at a time since I know it messes with me - it seems doable in many ways and much less restrictive than stopping to add up every calorie on Weight Watchers or stick to some precise very difficult formula with ETL.

I am totally reserving my right to watch Earthlings if I start to slip up too often, because I've been avoiding that, knowing it will ruin meat and cheese for me, like, forever.

I also think I found the place I'd like to get my surgery done when the time comes. It's in freakin' NYC, but having spent a week there that seems a lot more doable than it did when New York was like the moon to me. If I can go to Boston for months to have a baby, I can spend a week in New York for a surgery, right? It's not like it's happening tomorrow. They cater to and specialize in hispanic women, meaning this body type and this skin type. The galleries are SO much more things I can relate to (and would desire) than typical plastic surgery before and after galleries, I mean, gah. So while I don't feel GOOD about it...I feel better than I have.

It's interesting, not living in denial about my body. I have the peace that comes from accepting that I'm a work in progress and the hope that comes from knowing I'm doing things differently. But those are mixed in with the soul killing sight of myself as I actually am, rather than my standard idealized version. Don't get me wrong, I think in many ways I still have more confidence in my looks than many women do...but it's a whole hell of a lot less than I typically would. Being present in my own skin to experience my back aches and foot pain and hip weirdness is as jarring as looking in the mirror honestly is.

Also - I realize I'm "supposed" to be against street harassment, but damned if it isn't exactly the boost I need sometimes when men are telling me I'm beautiful or asking if I'll stop and talk as I ride by on my bike.

(no subject)

As traditional and even Catholic as my reproductive views have been over the years, I have never understood for a moment people who oppose birth control on a political level. I mean...it truly just blows my mind.

I'm thinking about this because there are a lot of people on facebook who think the Obama administration's mandate that all health insurance must cover 100% of bc costs is an infringement on the rights of religious employers who supply health insurance. This is one of those times when, try to see outside perspectives as I may, I am just aghast and embarrassed that people are actually speaking out that way. I mean...

-There is no way to ensure your employees are not using their wages for abortions or their 401ks for wild weekends in Vegas...you don't get to decide how the people who work for you use their pay or benefits
-You don't know why women need birth control - whether it's someone like me who has to avoid pregnancy for medical reasons and has consulted with priests about it, or someone on the pill who is not even sexually active but has to regulate their periods. Both of those NOT UNCOMMON situations are not sin by even the most orthodox standards! It's just not your bosses business to make judgement calls about this, AT ALL.
-My understanding of this situation is that Obama even went back and rewrote this thing so that actual churches employing people do not have to obey it - only church affiliated/operated outside employers, such as Catholic hospitals. Which I thought was literally more than fair, because truly, why in the hell doesn't the agnostic secretary or Jewish janitor who just works at the church deserve normal legal American health care benefits?? But hey, they can know that when they decide to work at a house of worship.
-The reality is that Catholic women are using birth control at the same rate as non-religious American women. There is literally no statistical disparity.

As a person who has seen The Good Earth and understands the crippling overpopulation problem that led China to enforce absolutely horrific one child laws, AND loves having a big family, I can't help but think that aiding people who do not want to have lots of babies in avoiding pregnancies is a good thing. I don't believe we have a true population CRISIS like some do, but I believe part of why we don't is obviously the widespread use of birth control. I like it that I know so many childfree people. It means I have less to bother feeling guilty about, raising my own large brood well.

As a person who thinks abortion is tragic and a bit gut wrenching, and has a huge sex drive, I feel like anyone who claims to be pro-life in this culture while speaking out against birth control is just insane. I get the Humanae Vitae culture of life/death thinking, I do, I've read that, it's beautiful poetry. But it's not real life on this planet.

Blah.

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ETA

I don't have time to individually respond to private messages I've gotten on this before class this morning, but I wanted to throw in some other thoughts I've had after talking with Grant last night and participating in some facebook threads yesterday. Random thoughts and I'm in a hurry, but:

-What is on the table here is not forcing churches to supply condoms to their employees or to donate to Planned Parenthood...it's offering health insurance that includes THE OPTION of bc...that sounds to me like free will. Churches can continue to have a solid anti-bc stance that they teach and preach, they just can't actually stand in the way of poor people having the option of expensive birth control

This is somewhat personal for me as a person who nearly had my utilities disconnected over the summer when I spent $700 on an IUD. But I had waited YEARS already to get it and it was needed, so I bit the bullet.

-Who out there would oppose health care covering blood work/transfusions/etc despite the potential outcry from Jehovah's Witness institutions? It is totally against their religion on a level deep enough to die for, but we see it as basic secular human rights regardless. We WAIVE THEIR RIGHTS to deny treatment for their kids and do these things to the children under court order when they see it as playing God and subverting God's will. That is pretty big national precedent for the legalities here, in my mind...

-the bible - not the old testament nit picky laws that atheists like to point out, from leviticus, rules that Jesus overturned, but the GOSPELS - say to keep your body as a temple unto the lord. Yet I can eat crappy sugary processed food until I'm diabetic, and then my health insurance has to cover my insulin and hospitalizations as I continue to eat outside of my prescribed diet. The church doesn't get to say, "we will not support this sinful downward spiral that's destroying your life and your family". I mean, they can SAY it. But they can't actually police behavior, because that infringes on free will.

-I am not sure of the validity of the statistics I've been seeing but they place "women taking the pill for non-reproductive reasons" at 58%. FIFTY EIGHT PERCENT being more than half! They're keeping themselves from hemmoraging to death, trying to "fix" their weird cycles so they can get pregnant, PRESERVING THEIR FERTILITY by avoiding hysterectomies, even getting rid of their acne. It is just not the place of any employer, religious or otherwise, to evaluate a woman's reasons for needing them and make a judgement call about their behavior to evaluate whether to help :/ That's crazy!