“Savory” (Day 10)

One third of the way!

With the exception of the hiccup from yesterday, I’d say I’m doing pretty well. 100% vegan for 10 days. Not one cigarette or puff in 10 days but plenty of pushups, articles, writing, sun salutations, breakfast selfies, meditating, blogging with a very admittingly meager attempt with the languages.

Feeling very positive and proud of my accomplishments thus far! When I rolled in to work today around 2:30 – extremely hot, dehydrated and hungover all I could think about was the food I wanted to devour. With about 2 or 3 hours of a moral dilemma trying to decide if I should in fact cash in one of my “meat cheats.” I did decide against breaking vegan eating due to the fact that I decided to get drunk and that doesn’t really warrant a treat, it warrants a nasty hangover and some powerade.

I stumbled into the kitchen around 6pm, still hungover, and asked for vegan pasta with as much vegan food in it as possible. It was surprisingly helpful and healing. Again, another small accomplishment where my mind was strong and decisive. Surely had I caved and ordered a burger and fries it would have just extended the cycle of bad decisions and feeling crappy.

I’m really enjoying this challenge because honestly eating vegan is not something I ever would have thought I would have done. It is a very foreign idea to me – not having meat with a meal. I mean of course I have had vegetarian or vegan dishes inadvertently. I am struggling with deciding if I like it though.

It is getting a little more difficult as we progress further into the challenge. Now there is an awareness that I’m unable to eat whatever I’d like and have to be more careful and conscious about buying, preparing and having food on hand.

It is also a little redundant, I was telling my mom, preparing meals around a veggie base vs, a meat base. It often feels like “I’m missing something.” Then I eat and feel happily full and nutritionally contented and the feeling of missing fades. However I still am a big supporter of the paleo lifestyle as the reasoning behind it makes sense and resonates with me strongly.

Not that saving the animals isn’t a great cause…

Another secret facet to this challenge for me, is I’ve been researching veganism as often as possible trying to learn the different sides and perspectives behind it. It’s been some very interesting reads, let me tell you. I would say the strong majority of Vegans are so because of animal rights and environmental concerns. Which are two very noble causes.

The inner debate will continue with me as I continue to broaden my knowledge and awareness of this other lifestyle. As of today I can’t imagine turning vegan full time. Howeveer, I would really like to marry Paleo and Veganism (Vegleo? Palan?) because an ideal me would cut out a lot of the processed foods for a mixture of both health and environmental reasons. Perhaps a plant based diet, with meat, sometimes.

I will keep you updated on my thoughts for the new super-lifestyle-diet as they develop.

Was very interested to read about a possible connection between eating vegan and gnarly hangovers. What I discovered was this:

1) I drank entirely too much last night. 2) Vegans tend to have a low fat diet and fat is what stops the absorption of alcohol, so without that it just saturated quickly within myself. 3) I drank entirely too much last night.

I’m so happy I’m doing this challenge now. I feel like the past few days were destined to happen as they did. I feel that I truly had a breakthrough the other night and yesterday was a reaction to such a big change, since getting drunk (and the urge to get drunk) just means wanting to evade dealing with emotions and feelings. At least for me it is…

As my time wraps up here in the outback and I’m within just over 3 weeks until departure and turning 30 I can already feel the beginning of the end. I’m currently in some sort of cycle. A growth, no doubt which has now become evident through this challenge. Like a wave I’ll ride this out and when I leave I will be on the next chapter – chapter “30 and better off for it.”

Now I’m working on incorporating my new breakthrough into my lifestyle as these are hard habits to break. The realization alone will not “fix” me. That is just the beginning and this too will be a long process of un-weaving all the damage I’ve done to myself to start fresh with a positive foundation.

Tonight while eating my veggie filled bowl of spaghetti I said a few times “I’m eating this because I’m taking care of myself. Making good, healthy decisions.” A very good first step, I think.

I’m really so happy with the progression of this challenge thus far and eager to see how the next 20 days go!

Thank you for reading and following and supporting me! I value your support so deeply!

Off to sleep I go. Big day tomorrow – it’s grocery day!

(After I wrote the blog this morning I decided to have my weird avocado and lentil mix on toast. So good. So. good.) (I was too hungover to walk to get tortillas.)

I love me.