Veglectable

I am on a plane bound for Hawaii. My first trip traveling as a vegetarian. I am not all that worried as most places, at least in Anchorage, have salads. Some restaurants are even vegetarian friendly. A couple of my favorite vegetarian friendly restaurants in Anchorage: Snow City Cafe, Spenard Roadhouse, Bear’s Tooth, and Cafe 817.

Our first stop before even heading out of Anchorage was at Chili’s in the airport. I had a black bean mushroom burger. It was superb.

I have been on this burger kick lately. We have had burgers two nights in a row at home. I found the best burger EVAR (spelled wrong on purpose). The Tofurk’y burger. It has the best texture and it tastes really good. It also helps when we have homemade fries to go with it. The black bean burger that I had today at Chilis is the second best vegetarian burger to date. I am sure my trip will be uneventful but I will keep you posted on all the great new things I try.

Yesterday was the first instance since becoming a vegetarian (March 1) that I physically craved meat. Literally I almost just said forget it and ate some meat. I don’t know why specifically yesterday. The day before I had eaten pretty good and I believe had gotten plenty of protein. I suspect I will have more days like this but it is interesting to me that I am a month and a half in and this is the first time.

I did get the results back from my doctor. The things I was worried about the most, protein levels and iron, all looked good. In fact, my doctor said my iron levels were high and I can stop taking my prescription iron. Go me! The only thing that stood out was my vitamin B12. I am a little low. I need to do a little research and see what vegetables are high in B12 and start making those a part of my daily food plan.

I figured I would stop sharing my food diary since I am not keeping a daily blog. I had a bit of a disturbing thing happen last week. I went and got a pedicure at lunch and was sitting in the massage chair. At most chop shops they have a television going. The travel channel was on and low and behold, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman. He was visiting Chile and went to a Mapuche Ranch where it was bull castrating day. Not really what I want to watch while I am getting a pedicure. Ranch hands hold down bulls and then basically take a pair of scissors and cut its balls off. This saddened me and I found it very cruel. No anesthetizing or anything. They proceeded to make bull ball stew which also included the scrotums of the bulls. If that wasn’t enough to turn your stomach another long held tradition is bleeding the sheep out. They stick a knife behind the trachea of the sheep and bleed the sheep out but kept the sheep alive. They then proceed to eat the blood….at this point the blood is starting to coagulate. I about vomited. Just retelling the story makes me retch. I obviously would never make it on a ranch.

Exercise
Running 3.9 mile, 43:55

Sorry, I have been a slacker recently and haven’t been keeping up with posting. I am still feeling a little under the weather and have also been really busy. Little time for blogging but enough whining. I finished up a month of vegetarianism and I think I have been successful and plan to continue. I had made a deal with myself if I made it through a month I would head to the doctor and get some blood work done just to make me feel comfortable that what I am doing is okay and I am not hurting myself. I headed to the doctor earlier this week but don’t have the results yet.

Running club started yesterday and I will say that I need to remember to eat something before I go because at one point during the speed work I thought maybe I was going to pass out. Those crazy biatches run fast. Pokey pants cant keep up. My weight is holding at 173.5.

Learn from my travels grasshoppers: Pro-tip: If you are headed to an event and it is meal time make sure to take something that you can eat. We went to an event this weekend and as a guest I thought it would be nice to bring something to share. So I did this not thinking about what was for dinner and I am glad I did because we they were having hamburger sliders…not on a vegetarian’s menu. I learned this tip not the hard way but will remember this for the future.

Breakfast
English Muffin with peanut butter and low sugar jelly

Lunch
1/2 Hummus Sandwich
Small bag potato chips

Dinner
1/2 Hummus Sandwich
Green beans

Snacks
Coffee with cream
5 Pumpkin Cookies

Exercise
Running Club
1.2 mile, 5.5 Warm up run
2.5 mile Fartleks

Not much to report today. Funny thing happened last week that I forgot to share. Last Friday was my husbands birthday and we had a get together on Saturday. Potluck style. My husband picked hamburgers for what we were going to make. So when it came to cooking everything I decided to build points in the husband bank and agreed to cook the hamburgers. As I was standing at the barbecue it occurred to me that this just seemed wrong to me. The vegetarian is at the grill cooking dead animals. I wonder how far in it will be when I declare I wont cooking animals that I am against killing.

Breakfast
English Muffin with peanut butter and low sugar jelly

Lunch
Vegetarian lasagna

Dinner
Vegetarian Lasagna

Snacks
Coffee with cream
3 Soma Girl Scout Cookies

Exercise
None

I made vegetarian lasagna last night. Oh man was it good. I had to make small pans of it because as you know my husband can’t do cheese. You cannot have lasagna without cheese, it is just not possible. I was already ahead of the eight ball as I had some homemade vegetarian spaghetti sauce in the freezer that I already took out.

I added some Yves vegetarian morning sausages to the sauce. I tasted the sausages before placing them in the sauce and I did not like them. I am glad they were going into the spaghetti sauce I knew that sauce would overpower them enough that I wouldnt be able to taste them. I think I will have better luck with the morningstar brand. All in all it was faboo!

Day Twenty-seven Menu:

Breakfast
English Muffin with peanut butter and low sugar jelly

Lunch
Vegetarian taco

Dinner
Vegetarian Lasagna

Snacks
Coffee with cream
3 Soama

Exercise
None

I was at a board retreat yesterday. The hotel had been told we needed one vegetarian lunch. So when they brought out lunch and were placing dishes in front of each person mine was set down and the person to my left looked at his, which was a slab of steak and I was having tofu, and then looked at mine. And you could see the confusion on his face.  It took him a couple seconds to register but it was a little awkward because you could tell he wanted to say something but didn’t. I looked up and everyone at the table was starring as well. I don’t know why he didn’t ask because normally he throws me a lot of shit, maybe to not go down that road and have a big discussion.  Anyways, I guess you had to be there because I thought it was pretty funny.

Day Twenty-six Menu:

Breakfast
1/2 Toasted plain bagel with cream cheese

Lunch
Tofu with vegetables
Bread roll with butter

Dinner
Vegetarian Tacos
Cooked green beans (my favorite), snap peas, and asparagus

Snacks
Coffee with cream
3 Reese peanut butter cups
1 Chocolate chip cookies

Exercise
None

So I have been very sick the last couple of days and thus haven’t been keeping up with my blog.  There hasnt been any exercising going on either.  I can barely breathe after walking up a flight of stairs. Another thing to note about being sick, my snack monster goes into hibernation.

The husband’s birthdy was Friday and he decided he wanted sushi.  One of my favorite places to eat prior to vegetarianism – Samurai Sushi. Sushi is probably one of the foods I miss the most. Friday was the first day I was getting sick but we went out to dinner. I could still taste food at this point.  Bonus!  I ordered veggie yakisoba noodles, which turned out to be really really good.  I also had some veggie tempura.  Overall the food was really good and I would be happy to eat out at sushi again.   But I will say sitting across from my husband while he was eating ahi and salmon sashimi was really hard.

Day Twenty-five Menu:

Breakfast
Two piece of toast with peanut butter and low sugar strawberry jelly

Lunch
Garlic hummus

Crackers

Dinner

Vegetarian  tacos

Snacks

5 Samoas

Exercise
Nada

I signed up for the Gold Nugget Triathlon a couple of weeks ago. I have been needing to get some gear for the big day (May 20th). I headed to REI a couple of days ago.  Pro tip – get your gear early so you can use it and see if it is going to work for you. This way you can adjust the gear or get new gear if it doesn’t work.  I purchased the Zoot tri shorts and the Zoot tri top and put them to use today.  They are not flattering at all. Good thing the triathlon is only women. Looking in the mirror is super scary. Don’t even want to know what I am going to look like wet. The shorts were great to swim in. I need to try them out on the bike since they have padding in the crotch.  I think they will dry pretty quick with no chaffing. The top is going to need some help. There is a shelf bra in this top. That isn’t going to work at all. The girls are going to need more support than that. I am going to have to wear a sports bra with the top. No question about it. I also got some bungee laces. Haven’t tried those out yet but supposedly they work to slip your shoes on fast with no lacing. I am all set. Now all I need is to keep working out to build myself up. Go me!

Day Twenty-two Menu:

Breakfast
English Muffin with peanut butter and low sugar strawberry jelly

Lunch
1/2 Hummus Sandwich
Small bag of chips

Dinner
Peanut butter and jelly (low sugar) sammich
Serving cup of shells and cheese

Snacks
Coffee with cream
Oreo mini pack
Annie’s chocolate bunnies
Mini easter whoppers
2 Thin mints

Exercise
Swimming 25 minutes, 1088 meters

The husband is out of town which means I am a free woman…well almost. My mom invited me out for dinner. Which I talked her into me coming over for dinner. Way better when the mother cooks for you and all you have to do is lay around on the couch and be lazy (not this time!).  She said she would have to stop at the store but I told her nothing fancy a veggie omelet would be great!

So the grandbabies (the two weenies and the Ty Bo) and I headed over last night. She made artichokes, I ate two of them. She had also bought tofu and we decided to bake it but I had to run to the store for sesame and sesame oil (told you, no laying on the couch and being lazy). It turned out way better than the other two times I have made it. It still needed something. Marinating will be the next try for tofu. We also had an omelet with sauted mushrooms and Munster cheese. The mushroom were fabulous and my mom commented that her mushrooms are the best now after watching Julia and Julia – “Don’t crowd your mushrooms.”  I was so full by this time. After about an hour she pulled out the dessert. See, going to mom’s is the bestest. Diabetic chocolate mousse with free cool whip. I had to roll myself out the door when I headed home. All full!

Day Twenty-one Menu:

Breakfast
English Muffin with peanut butter and low sugar strawberry jelly

Lunch
Corn Chips
1/2 Avocado melt
Curry Lentil Soup

Dinner
Mushroom omelet
Artichokes with butter
Baked tofu
Chocolate diabetic mousse with free cool whip
Tofu

Snacks
Coffee with cream
Oreo mini pack
Cracker chips
Chobani blueberry yogurt

Exercise
None