The sad thoughts that I have as a 22 year old

Today I live the last moments of my life at the age that my dear friend Jacob will eternally be. Being 22 connects me to him, and I release that connection in mere hours. At midnight tonight, I will be of an age that he never got to experience, and will never have the chance to do so. It pains me that my life moves on when his was cut so short. I battle this internal conflict, not knowing whether to be sad that this day has finally arrived or happy that I was blessed with this gift of time. Once I turn 23, I will no longer have that small connection to him anymore, but I know that in future years, as birthdays come and go, I will embrace my age. As others may shy away from the years that age them, I shall happily welcome every single one, knowing that I could have just as easily not survived to see that day. Not a day has gone by since his tragic death seven months ago that I have not thought about him. Every single day, he comes to me in my thoughts, and I miss him dearly. I know that he will be with me as I grow and age, but he will always be 22. I, fortunately, will not. I will grow up regardless of his absence in this world, and it is so painful to come to that realization. When I am 24 and accept my first job as a teacher, he will be 22. When I turn 30 and give birth to my first daughter, he will be 22. When I am 50, and am able to retire, he will be 22. When I am 77 and celebrating my 50^th wedding anniversary, he will be 22. And when I am 85, white-haired, and telling my great grandchild about my high school best friend Jacob, and the laughs we shared and fading memories I have of him, he will still be 22. Today I am 22. Tomorrow, he will still be 22.

Wrapping up the Summer that Changed My Life

So let's get some Disney stuff in this Disney blog! During this summer, I made it to Disneyland several times. The day after my birthday, Kris and I got to Disneyland super early so we could get a pin for out pin collection. It's a Lion King pin from the 'Piece of Movie' series. All I can say about that experience was NEVER AGAIN. It was such an ordeal that I walked away from it all with a stomach ache. Kris and I had been collecting these pins since the Snow White one came out last year. I got this massively expensive ($19.99) pin when it first came out because I love Snow White and I found a cell with Bashful in it. I decided to keep collecting the series because it looks great and is just a really nice set.

But then something terrible happened. Something that all pin buyers hope happens AFTER they have already collected all of their pins for the series; the greedy Ebay hounds caught onto the scent of the potential gold mine that lay in these pins. If you search Ebay for my Snow White pin now, you will see it going for upwards of $350. But I'm not in it for the money; I simply loved the series for myself. Before the hounds were all over these pins, Kris had a friend in Anaheim that would go to the parks for us and pick us up some pins: that is now no longer possible, and we found out why. We got there at opening and were the 10th people in line at The Little Green Men store in Tomorrowland. They ran out at the 9th person. We ran over to Frontierland where the line stretched outside, almost to Main St. I figured it was hopeless, so I went to the pin shop in New Orleans Square where I waited in a line for half an hour, as Kris ran to the Emporium where he had caught wind that there were a few pins there as well. I luckily was able to get two from the shop in New Orleans, while Kris got one in the Emporium. The most upsetting thing about this whole ordeal was the fact that the reason that they were selling out so fast was because the people buying them were store hopping (since the limit is 2 per store), and bring along tons of friends to buy pins for them so they could turn around and sell it on Ebay. People in front of us in line literally had bags completely full of these pins, and we were sweating and struggling to get one for each of us! It was really disheartening and I was just so upset. We were true collectors, when all of these people were here for the money. It sucks that people have to ruin a good thing. Made me kind of hate Disney fans... crazy pin traders, at least.

Since then, we visited Disneyland for Destination D, which pretty much was a panel of people who worked in the company over the years. There was a lot of cool things that we got to see, like performances by Dick Van Dyke and his barbershop quartet (may I say, for an 86 year old man, holy crap! He still dances and sings like his old self. VERY impressive), along with a very rare performance by Alan Menken, the composer for the new era of Disney films like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc. Those two performances were definitely worth the price of the ticket. They also had the body model and face model for Tinkerbell there, along with the model for Snow White. Snow freaking White!!! The movie came out in 1937, and this lady was 14 when she was the model, so she was now 93 years old. I REALLY hope I am as articulate and healthy as she is! I was floored when they were interviewing her and she answered every question without missing a beat. She was incredible.

And for those of you wondering how I can possibly survive my vegan diet at a theme park full of churros, turkey legs and ice cream bars: all I can say is thank you Disney for catering to the vegans! In Downtown Disney, the Taqueria at Tortilla Joes has an awesome veggie burrito with black beans and green sauce. The vegan chili at Boudin Bakery in DCA was pretty alright with some Tabasco, and the mother of all vegan dishes was the vegan gumbo in New Orleans Square. The chili left me missing my old clam chowder, but the gumbo was good enough to rival the chowder any day. Oh. My. Goodness. is all I can say about it.


Kris and I made a trip up to Heber to escape the heat in the valley. It was a lot of fun, and we even got to go hiking with our little Phoebe! Now granted Phoebe is a little 13 year old Boston Terrier, so we had to cut the hike a little short of what I would've liked, but we had a great time getting away for a little while. Here are a couple picture of that day! 

And for anyone who is curious about my vegan diet, the results are still fantastic. After all of the trips to California, and not being the best fruits and veggie eater during these trips, I was still able to lose weight! Seriously, this IS the miracle diet everyone has been asking for. The only thing is, it's not what people want to hear. They don't want to hear "eat more fruits and veggies, give up the meat and dairy, and try to eat the least amount of processed foods as possible". They want to hear "eat 3 Big Macs a day and still lose weight!" or "eat all your favorite foods, and never step foot in a gym". In reality, those are scams and I think deep down, we all know that. But I am here to say that vegan food is fucking amazing! Like seriously really really delicious. PLEASE ask for my help and I will help you. If you think this is for you, then try it! Just for a month. See how it works out and decide from there if you want to keep going. It will change your life. This summer has been nothing short of miraculous for me, and I can't wait to lose the rest of the weight. I had a doctor's appointment 3 days ago. My weight loss results since the last time I saw her, about a month ago, is 13 pounds lost, for a grand total of 37 pounds down since mid-June! Oh, and I also lost 3 more pounds since that doctors visit, so I have officially hit the 40 pound mark!! I still have a long way to go, but I am beyond thrilled! Thanks for reading, everyone! And don't be afraid to ask for help, if you want it. I've already helped convert people (including my sister) and they are already seeing their own results. :)

Vacationing and Veganism

Kris and I got back from our two week vacation on Wednesday and I must say that I had a fantastic time. Our first stop was in San Diego. We spent a week at the Beach Cottages, as we do every year. The weather was fantastic and we got to spend a lot of time in the water boogie boarding, which was a blast. One awesome thing that we got to do this year was spend time with Kris's friend, Cameron, and his wife, Alanna and their adorable baby, Nolan. We all went to Sea World and since Alanna had previously worked there, we got to do some great behind the scenes stuff. (This is me petting a baby penguin).

  Even better than going to Sea World (in my opinion) was when Cameron and Alanna had us over for dinner and cooked a completely vegan and gluten-free meal for Kris and I. Alanna is already vegan, so the meal wasn't much of a stretch for her, and I just have to say thank you, Alanna! You showed Kris and me that vegan food can be fucking amazing!! Seriously the food she cooked that night is probably the best vegan food I've had so far. I still can't get over the chocolate mousse that was made with only avocados, cocoa powder and agave nectar. Blows my mind! Thank you!

Our last leg of the trip was New York. Kris and I went pretty much to keep Kris's dad company because a daughter of his friend's was getting married in Ithaca. I really didn't care why, I'd gladly take any excuse to go to New York. Now, the first time I had ever gone to New York, I went with Kris 3 years ago, but that was only NYC. This time around I was excited to get to see some of upstate New York.

The wedding was held on the Cornell campus in the Sage Chapel. The campus was beautiful and had some amazing architecture. One thing that I thought was beyond cool was the fact that there was a crypt in the chapel that housed the bodies of some of Cornell's founders. It was eery to walk around it knowing that there were bodies lying in the cement sculptures of the deceased.

The wedding itself was interesting to say the least. The groom was Sikh and Indian and the bride was Chinese and Jewish, so they had a few different ethnicities to represent for the wedding. The ceremony took a total of 2 hour and 45 minutes and even had an intermission in it! It was like nothing I had ever seen, but cool nonetheless.

Ithaca was a great place to find vegan food. It is a college town with a lot of unique and trendy restaurants. I've found that these are the best places to eat vegan. Most chain restaurants do not offer a vegan dish, and their vegetarian dish most likely can't be modified to be vegan because cheese, cream or some form of dairy is the staple of the dish and they don't carry vegan substitutes for it. So this has meant that a lot of salads are ordered when eating out. This was not the case with Ithaca. We went to dinner the first night at Simeon's. Their menu had one lonely vegan item on it, but I was still happy to see it on there. It's always nice to have a warm meal when you're so used to eating salads. Their one vegan dish was a tofu curry. It was my first time eating curry, but I thought it was fantastic. The next day for lunch we stopped at a bagel shop. Again, I figured I would probably just have a fruit cup or something of the sort, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out they had a vegan lunch "meat" and some gluten-free bread, so I was able to eat a sandwich that fit my dietary requirements. Ithaca was so vegan friendly, it was incredible. There was even a Mexican food restaurant there that was vegan friendly. Unfortunately I didn't have time to try it, but I was amazed at the selection of places that I could go there.

We traveled east to Cooperstown. Kris and his dad wanted to see the baseball hall of fame, so we went there the next day. I tried to find a vegan friendly restaurant in Cooperstown with no luck. I even went to the information booth to see if the lady there could suggest anything and she had never even heard the word 'vegan'. It was definitely weird, but I figured my good luck for food would run out somewhere.

Now I must confess, if Cooperstown gave me any doubts, New York City did a great job of redemption. There were so many vegan and vegan friendly restaurants, it was a little overwhelming. I found this awesome place called Otarian that was about a quarter mile from our hotel. I went there twice while I was there because it was frickin delicious. I ate a quinoa mushroom burger in a gluten-free wrap and it was seriously REALLY good! It was so exciting going on vacation and trying all of these new places that I never would have found if it wasn't for my dietary restrictions. (The picture is of Kris and I enjoying Central Park.)

If you're thinking about adopting this lifestyle and are worried about all of the limitations, don't be! I was terrified at the thought of giving up all of my favorite foods, but truth is, I don't even miss them anymore. And guess what? In the 3 weeks between doctor's visits, 2 of which I was on vacation, I still lost 8 pounds! Can you believe that? 8 pounds down while still on vacation! And that was me eating all of that good vegan junk food. I didn't get nearly as many fresh fruits and veggies in as I should have, but I still dropped nearly 3 pounds each week. I think that is incredible. I can't remember the last vacation that I didn't gain weight, let alone lose it! So no more excuses! Go read Skinny Bitch and watch Forks Over Knives!! It'll change your life and you will hardly miss the old food once you find all of the awesome alternatives that you have.

Oh! And as for my current weight loss results, as of this morning, I am down 27 pounds in 37 days. I haven't been going to the gym hardly at all, so I'm thinking once I get my lazy ass over there, the weight will probably be coming off a lot faster. Anyway, thanks for reading and for all of the support I've received. If you think you might want to give this a try, get in contact with me and I'd be happy to help! It's truly an amazing feeling and I am so thankful that I found this lifestyle. :)

Vegan Diet Update

So some of you might be curious about how my vegan/gluten-free diet is going, and some of you just couldn't give two shits: the more likely of the two. Well this update is for the former, and the later can stop reading now. ;)

So as you know from the post I wrote a few weeks ago, I was frustrated with some unexpected weight gain and wanted to change things. The doctor told me to give a vegan gluten-free lifestyle a chance, and it could help. Now let me just say that I was totally one of those people who thought that vegans were absolutely nuts/extremists/hippies/fillintheblank. Also, meat and I have a wonderful relationship. To me it doesn't get much better than a carne asada burrito or a rare steak. I ate meat and bread like it was going out of style: of course I ate fruits and veggies too, I mean come on, my dad works in produce, it's not like I'm a stranger to spinach or broccoli. But meat and bread were a huge staple in my daily diet.

I went cold turkey. For the first two weeks, I ate nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables: a completely raw diet. I think the strangest thing about it was that I was rarely hungry. I thought I would be ravished without meat and bread, but in reality, I rarely felt the hunger pangs that had plagued me and led me to check the fridge/pantry ever two hours. On the flip side, since I was not compelled by hunger, I did not eat as much as I probably should have. I mean, I'm not going to force broccoli and carrots down my throat if my stomach isn't yearning for it. So in this respect, I was probably getting too few calories to keep my doctor (and my tummy) happy. But other than this, I was following everything about the diet to a tee.

Through these two weeks, I made myself suffer. How did I do that you ask? I didn't step on a scale once. We all know that the home and doctor scale are two very different demons, and instead of subjecting myself to both of them, I figured I'd trust the doctor's scale and go by that one only. So I was following this radical diet change for two weeks without any proof of it working or not (except for fitting into a pair of shorts that hadn't fit in a year, just in time for my San Diego trip, yay!!), and I was exceptionally excited to step on that doctor's scale.

Two weeks had passed. Kris and I sat in the waiting room of the doctor's office, my palms sweating out of shear anticipation. Finally I was called in, got on the scale and was floored at the results.

16 pounds lost in 2 weeks.

I was fucking ecstatic! I couldn't keep the smile off of my face during the whole appointment. All my doctor could say was, "Wow!" She was thrilled, of course. She told me to up my calories a bit with some avocados and sweet potatoes, but other than that she was very impressed with my results. She wants me to stay with the program I am doing, but I now get to cook some of my veggies and add some beans, nuts and seeds into the mix. She still wants me to stay away from grains for now until I'm farther into my journey, but honestly I'm fine with that. I'm just glad I get some variety now.

So anyway, that's how it's working so far! If you are interested in following my diet plan, watch "Forks Over Knives", or ask me and I'd be happy to share! My next appointment will be in two weeks from this Thursday, most likely. I am a little nervous for spending a week in San Diego followed by a week in New York, because I'm just not sure how easy it will be to stay on this diet (especially New York, they're like KNOWN for their amazing restaurants), but I will just remember the feeling of stepping on the scale and seeing those results! 

My experience at the Cars Land opening!

This past weekend Kris and I decided to brave the crowds and be among the first to experience Cars Land on opening day. For anyone living under a rock, Cars Land is the new land in Disney California Adventure based of the Pixar movie "Cars". The land is supposed to make you feel like you are immersed in the movie, walking right into Radiator Springs, the cutest little town in Carburetor County. The land itself is incredible, and I don't want to ruin the experience for any of you, but I'll share our day. First we got to the Esplanade around 11:30pm and camped out. Kris was nice enough to let me go back to the car for a couple hours and take a nap while he slept outside to keep our place in line. Around 8 they let us in the gates to watch the grand opening ceremony led by Bob Iger. We were then taken to Cars Land where most people bolted to Radiator Springs Racers (the E ticket ride of the land). This was our original plan, but we decided that trying to get a Fast Pass would be our best bet. Believe it or not, we got a Fast Pass for 9:05am; that's right, pretty much the earliest possible time. Since everyone was hauling ass to Racers, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi's Flying Tires were left virtually untouched. Fast Passes in hand, we hopped on the other two rides, each have a zero, yes zero minute wait. We walked onto both rides, when we were expecting 2-3 hour waits for each one. When it was time for our Fast Pass, we went to Racers and right as we sat down in our car, the ride broke down. It took about an hour to fix, so when all was said and done, we waited for a total of one hour to complete everything in Cars Land. I honestly think camping out was 100% worth it. For anyone wanting details, all I will say is that Radiator Springs Racers is one of the best rides that Disney has ever come up with. The animatronics floored me and I was completely speechless after riding it. However, on opening day it got up to a 5 hour wait and since then I have not been there without it being around 3 hours; fast passes ran out at 8:45am. So be warned that it will be busy when you go, ESPECIALLY during the summer. I'd wait until September or so to check it out, but if you just can't wait that long, get there very early. Overall Radiator Springs is worth all the hype. It is incredible what they did there, and I am thoroughly impressed.

Me? A VEGAN?!

So for the last month, I've been living a life without wheat. The whole wheatless thing was inspired from a book that I read called "The Wheat Belly". It was very interesting, and I enjoyed how I felt when I didn't eat an abundance of wheat like I was used to eating. It was for weightloss mostly, although I do have a skin condition that is supposed to clear up by removing wheat from my diet.

So what happened to get me to the doctor was I was getting super strict about my weightloss, I was writing down everything I ate, keeping it at 1500-2000 calories a day (I'm 6'1'', so this is cutting back for someone my size) and I was working out 5 days a week for at least 1 1/2 each day, and at the end of 2 weeks of doing this, I GAINED 7 pounds! This not only frustrated me, but got me a little worried, so I went to see my doctor. She did some blood work on me and it turns out my thyroid is on the low side of normal, nothing to freak out about, but it could be a contributing factor to my sluggish metabolism.

My doctor decided that a radical change was something that I really needed; taking out all animal products, gluten and processed food from my diet. I'm not going to lie, when she told me that she wanted me to go on a vegan gluten-free diet, I kinda freaked the fuck out. I had tried being a vegetarian once... yeah, that lasted all of 2 months. Being a vegan was way too crazy for someone like me.

 I'm doing a liver cleanse right now (doctor's orders). The cleanse consists of drinking 16 oz of room temperature apple juice for breakfast and lunch, followed by a dinner of raw fruits and vegetables, while drinking 8-10 glasses of water throughout the day. That goes on for 5 days, then on the 6th and 7th day, I have to drink a solution of water and epsom salt. This binds with the toxins in the liver, allowing you to poo out the sludge and waste being stored in your liver. It comes out as little bb sized lime green stones, and you are supposed to count them. A healthy liver will have very few, but my doctor has had patients who have had thousands. So that is my first week, after that I am on all raw fruits and veggies for another week, then I am to see my doctor again where she'll see how I've done and probably introduce nuts and beans into my diet after that.

After I'm off the strict diet that she has me on now, I think the biggest problem will be cooking. I've never cooked without using oil before: I didn't even think that was possible! I'll need to find all new recipes and try to incorporate them in my new whole foods, vegan and gluten-free life. It's life changing to say the least. But the cleanse has been awesome so far. I haven't really been hungry, because the apple juice does a good job at filling me up. I also find that I have a clear head and I wasn't tired or groggy this morning when I woke up.

I still struggle with my food addiction. My parents brought In-N-Out Burger home last night for dinner, and I had to sit there and watch them eat it and SMELL it... while I was chomping on a carrot. I can tell it's going to be a struggle. But in times of weakness, I'll just have to pop in the dvd "Forks Over Knives" to remind me why I'm doing this. I know it's good for me, but food addiction doesn't go away over night.

So that's about it. As of now I am a gluten-free vegan. Technically I'm a raw gluten-free vegan, but the raw part of that will only be for another week or so. This is a huge lifestyle change for me. I fear that it could change the dynamic of my relationship with Kris. We had, up until this point, always bonded over food. It was a big part of our lives. We love trying new restaurants and we eat out more than we should. Now everything of mine has to be made at home. It will be a huge change, but Kris has been extremely supportive and happy that I'm working so hard to get healthy. He's been great, and I appreciate his help!

I'm absolutely beside myself with disappointment. I have been beyond excited for my upcoming Disney trip, but I've been looking at the forecast and it's supposed to rain the two days we're there! Now usually I would be stoked about this because rain= way less idiot tourists with thumbs up the butt and asking when the 3 o'clock parade is. HOWEVER I have been planning on a big group dinner at Big Thunder Ranch BBQ and because of its outdoor seating, it will close when we are there. I want to get reservations other places, but it's peak season, so I'll have a hell of a time finding a restaurant during peak season that can fit 8 people this short of notice. Such a bummer.

However one of my best friends is getting into town this week, so I'm definitely excited to see her! Haven't seen her in a few months, so it should be some fun times.

I feel like a poor little rich brat, complaining about my Disneyland vacation, but sometimes you just can't help but want things to go right for once.