Thank you so much to everyone who has shown interest in my blog! It's good to know that I'm not just rambling to myself here (although I'd probably still be doing it even if I was.) I got a few questions on my introduction post that I want to address. I guess I didn't really go too deep with my explanation about exactly why I'm doing this, so here it goes!
1. I've always admired people who are vegan. I LOVE animals, and it always felt sort of hypocritical to me to say that, yet still be a part of an industry that is a direct cause of their suffering. I've never liked to cook meat at home, but I've been so lazy that I just ate whatever fast food joints made available. That needed to change anyway, so I figured "why not just make vegan stuff if I'm going to be cooking all the time?" In my opinion, animal products like milk and eggs are worse than the flesh itself, because of the extra crap the animals endure while we obtain those things from them. Being vegetarian (but not vegan) because you care about animals never made much sense to me.
2. I watched a bunch of documentaries about the food industry and read some books by Michael Pollan (Food Rules and In Defense of Food,) and I feel like they really opened my eyes. I hate to be one of those people who reads/watches something and then acts/feels "so enlightened," and preaches about it to everyone else, but I can't help it. I thought I knew a fair amount about the subjects, but I was completely ignorant to a LOT of things about the food industry and nutrition. I feel kind of stupid now for admitting that I never really put that much thought into something as important as what I put into my body multiple times a day and where it comes from.
3. I've struggled with my weight as far back as I can remember. My mom says it started when we got a McDonald's in town, but I don't know if things would have been different if we hadn't. I grew up in a pretty stressful environment, and I've always used food to comfort myself. For years, I had little to no coping skills. To me, "stress management" involved a LOT of pizza and chocolate. Sometimes I considered it a success just to get out of bed and go to work... so what if it came at the cost of a 60 pound weight gain?
I've lost weight and gained it back more times than I care to think about. I really thought the last time would be the last. I got active by playing roller derby, and it was so much fun until I let other things in life (a job I hated) consume me. Everything became stressful... especially playing a sport that I wasn't naturally good at in a very competitive league. I gained back everything I lost PLUS 5 pounds, and playing at this weight would just be dangerous and stupid for me.
4. My current weight is where it gets very scary for me. Everything bad already seems to be hereditary (although a lot of these things *could* be the result of crap diets, so what I'm doing will be helpful either way.) My mom and dad both have high blood pressure, and at least one of them has high cholesterol. My dad had a near fatal stroke at age 56 and will never fully recover. My mom has had various other health problems that I'm sure she hides from me to keep me from worrying. My maternal grandmother has diabetes and has had at least one heart attack that required like 5 stents to be put into her heart. My maternal grandfather died from complications of a brain tumor when I was very young (I think?) My paternal grandfather died of leukemia when he was fairly young. And I'm more overweight and less active than ANY of them were at my age, and I also have access to more "convenience foods" chock full of deadly crap, courtesy of food science. Yikes.
So yeah, there are my reasons for doing this. I know there are multiple diets out there that people argue are the best for your health, but I really think that this is the best one for me. (Did I mention that I have REALLY bad allergies and dairy products make my sinus problems worse?) Like I said before, I don't want to be TOO strict about it, because I am a total foodie at heart and would miss certain things way too much, but the transition so far has been a LOT easier than I ever expected (stomach issues aside... haha.) I guess I also see vegan cooking as sort of a challenge, too. It's like, "What surprising thing can I veganize next?"
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