Day 227: Artificially Sweetened Brown Stuff

  I am the oldest and wisest of the siblings in my family.  My sister Jenn was the only competition, but it was still a close race.  I came in last in the following categories: looks, financial responsibility, general odor, and long flowing hair.  However, I am still the oldest and since wisdom is a product of mistakes, I win that category too.

I have a Twitter account, @Atkins2Vegan,  that’s dedicated to veganism, plant based dieting, health, and environmental content.  While I skim relevant articles during the day, I’m hoping to find some content that seems appropriate so I can send it out to everyone.  It is a daily job, but I perform the task because I believe I am doing my part to spread the good word and effect positive change.

About two months ago I was retweeting some of my Tweeps’ link-tweets in the Tweet-o-sphere.  If you thought that sounded like bird song, I will translate for you.  About two months ago I was sharing some vegan and health related articles with some friends I’ve never met and my sister.  I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the content and sent out an article I only half read about the dangers of diet soda.

Two weeks later I received an email from my sister.  She handles all of the heavy lifting that is associated with the Twitter account while I get to do all of the fun stuff.  In her email she said that the diet soda article was a real wake-up call for her.  She spent a few paragraphs talking about the dangers and negative effects and how I had inspired her to stop drinking diet drinks.

As I read through her email for the second time, I drained my tall glass of diet Pepsi and reflected on her comments.  Then I refilled the glass and made some connections.  Jenn read my blog post from 220 days ago when I talked about giving up diet soda and didn’t realize that I’d started back up a month later.  Then she read the tweet and thought I was still going strong and living the clean life I’d claimed to be living.  I drained and refilled the glass while continuing to think about diet Pepsi and why I was still drinking it.

I grew up on Coca-Cola.  I wore the shirts, hung the posters, watched Max Headroom (a spokes-being for Coke), and even aspired to one day drive a VW Bug that was painted like a Coke can.  I loved the brown syrup.  It wasn’t something that was in my house growing up, but anytime we stopped at a convenience store I was able to get my fix.  As a child I drank a lot of the super saturated sugar solution.  I continued to drink Coke until I started my Atkins dieting phase eight years ago.  At first I gave up cola completely but I eventually found that diet Pepsi was an acceptable substitute since it didn’t contain any carbs.

If you asked me to drink diet anything before that point I would have either laughed at you or flipped you off… possibly both.  I considered diet drinks to be horrible nasty things that tasted like chemicals and had a bitter aftertaste.  However, with just a little practice they became my artificial sweetener infused life-blood.  Now, sipping actual Coca-cola tastes like an abomination and diet Pepsi tastes like the nectar of the gods.

After thinking about my sister’s email for a few months, I think I am ready to live up to the picture I painted of myself.  The plastics are killing the planet, the artificial sweetener is slowly killing me, and since the cost continues to rise, I have finally reached a tipping point.  In honor of my sister and in honor of myself, I am done with diet and regular soda.  I’ve lived without it for periods of time before, but I am renewing my commitment to living without it- PERIOD.

If you had stock in PepsiCo, sell now.  You have been warned.

Day 170: Tough Choices

*note: this was posted on April Fools Day- it turned into a kind of War of the Worlds reaction, so I thought I should add this note.

Well friends and readers, 170 days was a great run.  When I first started this experiment, I never thought I’d make it past 2 weeks much less 25.  Being vegan and living plant strong seemed like the hardest thing in the world to do.  However, with the support of good people like you I was always able to find the will to dig down deep and keep avoiding the animal products.  After a while, I found that the herbivore lifestyle was one of diversity and choices.

I am proud of this accomplishment and honored to have met so many great people, which is why making this announcement is such a difficult thing to do.  I’m especially concerned about upsetting my sister, who has been very involved in my “transformation.”  However much I might like to curl up and hide from the truth right now, I believe honesty is the best policy.

Today I am transitioning back to Atkins dieting so I can lose weight faster and reach optimum health sooner.  I did not come by this decision lightly.  I’ve spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons, and this is the better choice for me.  I will feel bad that animals have to die to feed me, but I am willing to deal with this for a year or two while I lose more weight.  Maybe when I am done I can cut back on the meat again.

I visited my old doctor in Gainesville, and he said that my protein and B-12 levels were too low and that if I didn’t start drinking milk again, my bones would break.  I know a lot of you told me that this kind of thing can’t happen on a proper vegan diet, but I’ve known my doctor for almost five years and I trust him.

I was worried about my blood pressure going back up and my gout returning if I started Atkins again.  We also talked about my recurring bowel infections I used to deal with.  He said that all these problems have solutions provided by modern science, which put my mind at easy.

I have learned a lot about compassion for animals during my 170 day vegan run.  It wont be easy for me to chow down on animal protein again.  I feel bad for most of the mammals.  I am not saying that I wont eat beef or pork, but I will be eating mostly chicken, fish, eggs and dairy. I will try to keep my beef and pork intake to less than 25% of the total meat consumed.

I hope that you will understand that I had to do what I thought was best for my myself, and in this case, with bathing suit weather around the corner, animals are going to have to die.  Happy April Fools Day.

Day 111: Shopaholic

For some time I have been promising to compare and contrast plant based dieting and veganism.  Many people incorrectly use the two terms interchangeably.  Now, having studied both of these animals closely, I am ready to dissect them and explain how their different organs function.  However, as a vegan, I am unable to use that analogy and besides, I’d much rather talk about clothes today.

People that know me just spit coffee all over their laptops and iPhones.  For those of you that don’t know me well enough to spit beverages on electronics, I will try to explain the surprise.

I am to fashion, what school lunch is to fixing the national health crisis.  I consider red shirts and pink shorts a perfect fit.  Flip flops go with anything.  Holes in clothes are “hip and with it”.  Boxer briefs are so similar to shorts that they can be worn in public.  My daughters have many more examples they encouraged me to add here, but they are both grounded now and wont be talking to anyone for a while.

I blame my lack of fashion sense on my hatred of clothes.  When healthy people with normal body shapes go shopping for clothes, they look for stylish garments that show off their healthy midsections and accentuate their lightly muscled limbs.  Then they add accessories that add to the look.  With very little effort they cover their bodies in clothes that help tell the story of who they are or who they want to seem to be that day: seductive temptress, professional man about town, hipster with attitude, or even jaunty pirate.

Large people, and by large I mean fat, generally do not like clothes.  Sure, we wear them but not because we want to show off our svelte bodies.  We want to hide them.  I hate to speak for a third of the US population, but since they are all busy in the Taco Bell drive-through line waiting for Fifth Meal, I’ll tell it to you straight.  Clothes shopping for the health impaired sucks.

For one thing, most stores don’t carry enough Xs for us.  When I needed 4X shirts, I had to go on a quest to find a store carrying something so big.  I was essentially shopping for the least muu-muu like garment I could find, preferably something without giant pockets or florescent hibiscus print.  The real test was to try the brightly colored tent on and then raise both arms in the air.  If my big, pasty-white belly was exposed, the shirt was worthless and the painful search for a “shirt” continued.

Pants, underwear, winter clothes and suits are equally hard to buy.  When my brother from another mother was preparing to interview for a spectacular new job he was forced to go suit shopping.  While complaining about the cost to a thin friend of his, the tiny guy said, “What’s the big deal? You can get a suit at J C Penny’s for 89 bucks!”

Rather than choking him or explaining the painful reality about big guy suit shopping, he called me so we could laugh at the little guy’s naivete.  Normal sized people have no idea what it is like for the other third of the US Population.  J C Penny’s biggest suits were still 75-100 pounds away for guys like us.  Instead we have to go to the Big and Tall Clothes Store which should be called the Expensive and Shameful Clothes Store where you need to wait for a BOGO sale because they need to combine two suits to make one for us.

So imagine my surprise last week when I walked into Target and located a sale with racks full of clothes that I can wear.  I attacked the racks like I used to attack a breakfast buffet.  First I got one of everything, then I went back for seconds and thirds of my favorites.  The clothes were very cheap and not covered in a gaudy flower pattern.   I was giddy to be surrounded by affordable clothes that fit.  It was such a refreshing change of events that I think I may finally understand the allure of shopping.

I filled up my red shopping cart with more clothes than I’d bought myself in the last 10 years.  When I got the giant plastic bags home I held a mini fashion show and pranced around the house in most of my new duds.  I didn’t even get to show all of them off yet, but I plan to do so as soon as I upload this blog post.  I just wish my daughters were allowed to join the festivities.

Day 100: Year of the Dragon

I really like it when things line up naturally.  100 days ago, when I had my first day of living animal free and plant strong, I had no idea that I would be celebrating this base-10 benchmark on the first day of the Chinese New Year.  Amazingly enough, the Year of the Rabbit has been retired and the Year of the Dragon is dominating the Chinese lunar calendar now.

I was born during the Year of the Rat.  I know this because I spent most of the 90’s in various Chinese Buffets reading the paper place mats and doing my best to make them regret calling it All You Can Eat.  In fact, it was during this time that a lot of restaurants changed the verbiage to All You Care to Eat.  I always assumed it was in an effort to reduce the amount that I devoured but unfortunately for all of us it backfired horribly.  As it turned out, the amount I was able to eat was even less than what I cared to eat.  I would finish the fifth full plate knowing that I’d packed every square inch of available GI tract with General Tso’s Chicken and egg rolls.  Sick as it was I wanted to eat one more plate despite my body’s warning that another bite might cause a partially digested Mt. Vesuvius style eruption.

Obviously, there are many factors that cause humans to do this to themselves.  It would be easy to say it was the fault of meat, cheese, media, and the government.  I know it is easy because I do blame them too, but never without framing it in the context of the real issue: me.  It might take two to tango, and according to some reports, three people might be needed for changing light bulbs, but only one person is ultimately responsible for opening their mouth and putting food in it.  If you are willing to accept that you are the reason there is a problem then you are able to make the shift in yourself that is needed to change.

Last night, as the Year of the Rabbit hopped into the record books, Shannon and I enjoyed a New Years Eve party with dancing dragons, fan dancing, acrobatics and the most amazing food I’ve had in a while.  My favorite part of the the food was that it was a meal of things I would have never eaten before.  Without joking, I can say that in years past I would have left the barrels of food behind this event and visited a buffet of some sort on the way home.  The food being offered was everything I ever avoided on a standard American Chinese Buffet.  It was green, not fried, not covered in a sweet sauce, and not named after a General.

However, 100 days of living a new life has caused a fundamental shift in my brain.  There is no other way to put it.  I have been won over to the Green Side.  The way the Hot Pot Dinner worked was communal cooking/eating/sharing at its best.  A cauldron filled with boiling water, along with cabage leaves, roots, and vegetables was in the middle of each table.  It was up to the revelers to decide what fake meats and extra veggies to add to the boiling water.  After five minutes of boiling and steaming, the lid was removed and the 6-8 people seated at the table reached in using chop sticks and ladles to retrieve their specific contribution to the mixture.

My favorite part of this community food trough is that whether you dumped tarot root, mushrooms, or fried gluten in the mix, when you retrieved your portion of the grub you were bound to have a sampling of bits from everyone’s additions.  I tired everything available and was beyond amazed by the entire event.  The food was divine, but the way that a quiet table full of awkward strangers transforms into a sharing and caring family with the mere addition of food amazes me.

100 days seemed like an eternity of herbivore eating when I started.  It seems like only yesterday and also 100 years ago at the same time.  I have a new life and I am a new man.  This new way of living has become the life I look forward to leading and not one that I was forced into with fear and self-preservation as the driving force behind the change.

Happy New Year to you all, and may the Year of the Dragon bring peace,  prosperity, and Hot Pot Dinners to you and your loved ones.