Historically, week three is when I throw in the towel and go back to my old habits. I’m usually bored by now, and the scale is usually a jerk telling me my efforts are worthless. But this time around… I’m putting it all into perspective…
Sure, losing weight and inches is a great goal… but they are arbitrary numbers and honestly, who really knows how fast or slow I will loose those? No, this time around it’s about how I feel. I wasn’t feeling good, and so I decided on a few new habits to change that might get me to where I would feel better.
I’m actually doing really well. Has it been easy? No, not at all. I have days where my cravings are major. I have days where I can easily talk myself out of doing exercise. But for the most part, I can see the changes, and actually feel the changes in my body. I’m paying attention to what my body is telling me… I don’t push myself just because I had it scheduled to go jog that day if I’m having pain in some part of my body. I learned long ago that an injury can really lay you up for months, so a minor set back for a day to let my body rest is far better than the consequences of ‘no pain, no gain’. I hate that saying… if it hurts, you guys, you are doing it wrong. I’m more of the mindset of finding your edge and then backing off just a bit… your body will get there, allow it the opportunity to get strong enough first.
So yes, I’ve had a few set backs… I shared a candy bar with my husband on Wednesday night, but you know what? My stomach was rather irritated with me the next morning… hmmmm. Then last night, I had two bowls of cereal way past dinner time… Guess what? Yep, my stomach was very upset with me this morning. I think I’m getting the message…. my body really, I mean *REALLY* likes the new changes… and slipping back into my old habits is not welcome.
I’m finally getting better sleep… the first two weeks I was still struggling with that, and I’m pretty sure a lot of that is hormonal changes, but I’m hopeful that food and exercise will continue to play a healing part in that area of my life.
I also had migraines the first 5 days, but that could have been something in the air, and again, hopefully food and exercise changes will continue to play a healing part in that area of my life.
Rather than being disappointed that I *only* lost 1/2 a pound this week… I’m putting it into perspective that I’ve actually lost 3.5 lbs and 4.5 inches overall (in the three weeks)… but more importantly…
I’m getting outside again…
I’m playing with my food again…
I’m picking up my camera again (more from this photo shoot in a future post)…
And I’m drawing too*…
I’m feeling good in my skin and I actually have energy to do things.
Another big thing I’ve started is journaling… not just keeping track of the foods I eat to monitor my vitamin/nutrient intake, but actually journaling… as in, writing down affirmations at the end of the day… I have a negative voice that talks to me all the time, and reminding myself of the good things I’ve accomplished at the end of the day reminds me to keep it in perspective.
Until next time…
~nic
* This zentangle was inspired by a desire to try Carpet Daisy and coming across a post where someone had combined Fengle with Chainging.
Photography by Nic 
Too much health is not good….. I put on 800 gm, and told the dietician that I now need to eat some mutton roganjosh
Ummmm… as a vegan, I’ll have to take your word for it… I’m guessing that this dish is rich and high-fat? I googled it and roganjosh means “cooked in oil at intense heat”. 😛
You are a vegan? Hoo boy!
I am very much of a mutton and beer chap!
Yes.. Roganjosh is all that, but a properly cooked one is the stuff culinary dreams are made of
Yep. Vegetarian for 18 years, vegan for 8 years… but vegan doesn’t necessarily mean ‘healthy’… you can totally be a junkatarian… which we’ve been for longer than we care to admit. French fries are totally vegan… but too many and well… you find yourself needing to go for jogs. My weakness, besides french fries, is chocolate… specifically cookies and cake. I have eaten my fair share and someone else’s share of Newman O’s, Back to Nature – Chocolate Chunk cookies, and this delicious magic chocolate cake (posted on my old blog).
Well. I tried turning vegetarian… After a month i wad dreaming of chicken and mutton curry..
My wife, and all her side of the family, are vegetarian.
Yes. Being vegan does not equal healthy.
I love chocolate
I grew up with meat at every meal. We decided to go vegetarian after one summer when my mother-in-law came to visit, she had lost weight and looked 10 years younger… we asked what she did to look so great. She said her doctor had put her on a Dean Ornish diet to lower her blood pressure. The Dean Ornish diet is actually a pretty strict low fat vegan diet. We didn’t go that extreme, instead we eased into vegetarianism… I stopped buying raw meat, but we would still have meat if we went out to eat… then slowly we stopped eating meat at all. The same slow progression is how we became vegans. We had stopped drinking milk and had switched to soy milk early on, but cheese and eggs were still in our diet. Once I figured out how to make cakes and cookies without eggs, it was an easy transition. As for cheese, I just stopped adding it to food… I figured out other ways to make my food creamy without the need for cheese. And before we knew it we’ve been vegetarians for 18 years (vegan for 8). 🙂 I had a food blog for about four years where I explored and learned my way around the vegan lifestyle… I stayed vegan, but my interests became more about photography and I went back to school for two years to get a photography certificate. I started this blog once I finished school to focus more on photography.
What my husband and I came to realize was that we didn’t so much like the meat, it was the sauces we liked… you can put sauces on just about anything. So I don’t crave meat, I crave bbq sauce, peanut sauce, curry sauce, etc. 😀
Huh! Sauces! I did try the Dean Ornish diet as well… It drove me nuts! I take your point on the sauces and curries.
I spent a week in Inner Mongolia eating boiled mutton. Blech!
You will hardly ever find a vegan in India. we consider dairy to be vegetarian…
We also consider dairy and eggs to be vegetarian (ovo-lacto vegetarian)… vegan is a subset of vegetarian that not only doesn’t eat eggs & dairy, but also doesn’t wear or use animal by-products (like leather shoes, fur coats, etc.). 🙂 We have made changes in what we wear and use when and where we can. There are some *really* militant vegans out there, but we are not part of that ilk. Sure, I’d rather people didn’t eat meat, but I’m not going to throw blood on someone wearing a fur coat, ya know? I talk about it if I’m asked, but I don’t preach about it.
Yeah, I read about the lead singer of this death metal band called Arch Enemy. She is strongly vegan. These things really are lifestyle decisions
I’ve watched many of the Black Metal Chef’s youtube videos… I don’t listen to death metal, but these videos are fun and the food is really good. When he created a kickstarter for a cookbook, I added my pledge. I received the cookbook and tried many of the recipes… it’s very good. 🙂
Oh.. I have a couple of CDs of goth metal, and pagan music.
All stuff from Northern Europe. Germany, Holland and Scandinavia
I like the pagan stuff
Oh.. I cook Indian food, by the way
I purchased a vegan Indian cookbook and the food I made was great. I bought all kinds of spices and I realized that I’m in love with the smell of Hing (Asafoetida), I spent 5 hours cooking one day and made like 3 dishes I think (that lasted the week). I need to do that again real soon. 🙂 I’m a big fan of Chana Masala.
Oh really? Chana masala is very Punjabi! I am from the Punjab… But, Americans pronounce Punjab incorrectly!
Yeah, we Americans tend to murder most other languages, sorry.
I’m afraid, I don’t know much about India, I had a college dorm friend who was from Sri Lanka, but that’s about the extent of the knowledge I have of the area. (Yes, I am aware they are two different countries.) Unfortunately, we tend to lump the entire countries’ cuisine (Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc.) into one pile, not giving credit to north, south, east, and west nuanced differences… perhaps other countries do the same for the United States’s cuisine?
But with my limited knowledge of Indian food, what I’ve tried most of the time I’ve liked (as long as it was vegetarian), it’s probably been Americanized in some way though, so I can’t say for certain that I’ve had authentic food. I tried my best when I cooked from that cookbook, that was written by an Indian… but having never had the ‘real’ dish, well I just can’t be certain.
I currently live in Southern California, which is quite a bit different from the other places I’ve lived. It is interesting to see how each region changes just a bit as you travel across your own country. 🙂
Southern California ? My older sister lives at Redwood Shores near San Francisco. I have been to San Diego and Santa Barbara.
Oh.. there is no such thing as one type of Indian food. Too much diversity.
Honestly, I don’t know too much about American food. The perception we have here, is that it is full of giant sized steaks, mashed potatoes, fries, fritters etc.
I was once at this food court, and the lady offered to pile more on my plate if I added a dollar. I told her that I would give her the dollar if she would take back half of what she had given me. There was no way that I could have finished what she gave me
Yeah, I live in San Diego, when we moved here it seemed really important to the locals to differentiate themselves from Northern California, so they refer to themselves as SoCal. We visited the San Francisco area one weekend and that’s what made us want to move to California, it took us a few years but we finally got here, I figured San Diego was close enough. 🙂 I like it here, it has a laid back surfer vibe. 🙂
Viewing American food with the skew of a vegetarian eye, it does seem that this country LOVES its beef, and bacon. On weekends with the holidays 4th of July, Memorial Day, and Labor Day it seems that everyone is sticking some kind of beef (steak, burgers) on the grill outside. My husband used to travel a lot and I would try to help him find places to eat that were somewhat vegetarian friendly… some places that is super hard to do. California is easy. Ohio not so much. Washington D.C. fairly easy. Utah turned out to be easy, which we weren’t expecting. So yeah, we are a nation that loves its meat and giant portions… but there a few of us trying to eat a different way. 🙂
Yeah, I do like San Diego. I have been there just the once. My sister has lived most of her life in the US in the SF Region. She lived in Boston for a while.
My younger sis teaches at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
I once spent a weekend in Morristown, NJ, and thought I would die of boredom!
Since you are a yoga mistress, have you tried the chandra-namashkar?
I have lived in or driven through 41 of the 50 states… I have not been to Alaska, Hawaii, and several of the New England states… so I’ve never been to NJ… but I’ve never had the desire to go there thanks to TV shows like Jersey Shore. 😛 I’d like to visit Boston some day… but the longer I live in San Diego the less I want to return to East Coast winters and summers.
I looked up chandra-namashkar, and I feel like I knew about moon salutations but don’t recall the sequence… I’ve done many sun salutations. I’ll have to try it some time. I like to do yoga in the B.K.S. Iyengar style where focus is put on alignment and props are used to help when you can’t reach. I also like Anusara which also focuses on alignment. I don’t really understand the concept of “Power Yoga”… I think they are missing the point of preparing your body for mediation. I like slow movement, good stretches, and proper alignment. I’ll look into the poses for moon salutations and give it a try. 🙂
Well, the word yoga, it seems, comes from the root that means – to yoke together.
Yoga is supposed to yoke the body and mind together. Essentially, it prepares you for meditation. But, most people believe that it is a physical exercise and that is all. I had never heard of these various things like power yoga until I started to live outside India for a while.
My yoga teacher does not follow any particular method. Many yoga teachers in India, by the way, are not well trained… Neither do they care.
I have lived in, or travelled to, most of the states of India.
The area I love the most, are the hills of India. That is where I spent most of my school years
I mainly do yoga from DVDs and some online videos… I was in dance class as a kid for 8 years, and I’ve done jazzercise during my lunch breaks at one of my old jobs (it was part of the perks of the job to have a workout room with an instructor)… but I’ve never gone to a yoga class. By the time I got into yoga I felt too fat to do these things in public and so I practiced in the safety of my home. I now just enjoy the alone time so I haven’t explored it in a class environment yet. That’s when I look around and see all the aerobic-type yoga classes being offered, and I’ve heard stories about strict yoga teachers who expect you to be in perfect position, and I don’t feel comfortable with someone adjusting me in a pose… so I stick to my DVDs where I know what to expect from the sequence and I can pick and choose the one I want to do that day based on how I feel. And if I want to spend more time in child’s pose, there’s no one there to make me feel like I should push myself. All of the teachers in the videos I watch have yoga certifications. They have 200-hour and 300-hour certifications here, where they have you attend classes, read books, and teach classes to be certified. Some even go to India… so it’s odd that your teachers are not trained.
One of my photography teachers was big into yoga, he went to India to practice yoga, and he loved it so much he was planning to go back. 🙂 He said at first it was difficult to get used to all the people. He said it got easier when he stopped trying to fight the flow on the streets and just go with it. He also told me that the car honks are a language too, and it was neat to experience. Once he got back to San Diego, he said it was sooooo quiet and unnerving.
I searched for hills of India, wow so pretty and vibrant green in some places. I like places with character like that. I like the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington) for it’s green and mountains. 🙂
We do have some excellent teachers, and there are a bunch of cheats. When i was in singapore, the three best teachers i had were indians.
The bihar school of yoga is fantastic. Truly so. The old institutions are committed to true yoga. But then.. You have the riff raff as well…
Yes.. You have to let the traffic and people “flow”. You cant fight it
I can only imagine… I tend to avoid crowds. 😛
if you ever come to India, you will find that impossible!
Yes, I’m sure of that! 😀
Yeah! On another topic – don’t worry about Americans murdering Indian words.
Have you heard the many Indian accents murdering the English language? You must.
A Tamilian, for instance, cannot say, ‘simply’.
He says, ‘simbly’, with a waggle of the head, and a sing-song emphasis on the ‘imb’ of the word!
A proper Punjabi cannot pronounce the word ‘school’ . He pronounces it as ‘Seh-Kool’!
Yes, a different topic! 🙂 I’m hard of hearing, so other accents are hard for me to understand, equally, it is difficult for me to speak other languages. I tend to be able to sort of understand a few words written in another language, but I’m not good at pronunciation. I’m always amazed at anyone who can speak more than one language. 😀
Well, I speak three – English, Hindi and Chinese. I must confess that I have forgotten much Chinese. I understand my native language – Punjabi, but don’t speak it. And, I understand a bit of Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi. The South Indian languages are a complete mystery to me
Wow! That is impressive! 😀
It is called osmosis!
Heehee 😀
Oh… We love our meat as well… Fish, chicken, mutton.
The Hindu madcaps have put a ban on beef in most parts of the country, which is sad
Yes, I was wondering… I have heard that many Indians don’t eat beef, I didn’t know if dairy was included in that. I was also wondering if Pig was not allowed either. You have mentioned mutton quite a bit, which isn’t a thing here in the U.S. – mostly cow, pig, chicken, turkey, and fish.
Oh, dairy… We, as a country, are probably the world’s largest producer of milk.
Dairy product consumption is intrinsic to our life. Nowadays, with time becoming scarce, we buy products, which we would make at home earlier. We still make yogurt at home. But others, like ghee, paneer (cottage cheese), butter (white), kulfi – we increasingly buy from the market.
Beef? Some Hindus do eat beef. They do eat beef in the southern state of Kerala, and Goa. Muslims do. We export a lot of beef.
Pork, i avoid. Barring Goan pork, its not very clean meat in India
You know, now that you mention it ghee and paneer do make sense, but for some reason in my mind thinking of the sacred cow I thought no dairy. I had no idea India was the largest producer of milk… hopefully you treat your cows better than we do here. I’ve never heard of kulfi, I had to look it up. 🙂 Interesting to learn about another culture, thank you. 🙂
No, we don’t treat them so well. Many of them die by eating plastic from the street
That’s disappointing. 😦
It’s like that old song by Roberta Flack – Killing Me Softly…
The song is actually originally by Lori Lieberman, if you wanted to know. 🙂 I like the Roberta Flack version too. The song is about feeling emotional at a concert, like the singer knew her pain and is singing it for all the world. I think about the cows and chickens, which is why I prefer to refrain from dairy and eggs. I’m really sad that the cows aren’t treated better in a place known to revere them. 😦
I didn’t know about the original version of the song!
Yes, we revere our cows…’
You see, killing them with a blade is a sin. It is an act of violence. However, a slow death by plastic is acceptable. No blood. Therefore, it is not an act of violence.
You see the irony?
I do… interesting way for them to rationalize it.
Oh yes!
Black Metal Chef looks like a cool dude!
The videos are fun! 🙂
Your food blog is so cool!
Oh, thank you so much! I did put a lot of work into it. I learned some HTML and I gained a love of photography because of that blog. I also became a better cook. 🙂