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.

A Girl Can Only Take So Much!

So last semester I had the bright idea to take 3 online classes. I thought it would be cake, seeing as how well I have done in school before. But Oh. My. God. Taking 3 online classes is like taking the workload of 6 in person classes. I am just floored by how much reading there is! I mean, they are all literature classes, but still, I have to read (conservatively, usually more) a good 100 pages of text book every week on top of my usual 30-40 hours at work every week. I have noticed so much change in me lately too. I am ALWAYS tired, and I hate this. I feel like no matter how much sleep I get, it's never enough. Plus I have been sick every other week since January. I have never been sick so constantly in my life, and now my immune system is almost non-existent. That's something I miss having... an immune-system. Keep yours close to your heart. Cherish it, because once it's gone, it takes a LOT to get it back. Ughhh. So now I've been poppin' the Cuties like crazy, and hoping the vitamin C kicks in soon. I just can't stand being sick, staying up late doing homework every night, and working so many hours ALL the time. A girl can only take so much!

Disney Reunion

So I haven't been working at Disney for quite a while now, which is very okay. I need to focus on getting through school and starting my dream career as a high school language arts teacher. I feel that working at Disney was a great chapter in my life, but it's time to grow up and focus on what is going to provide a life for Kris and I, what's going to help us get on our feet and start a family. I miss being at Disney every now and then, but I also feel that I am doing something with my life again, which is not how I felt when I was working there. It's a great company, and it will always have a special place in my heart, but it wasn't where I belonged. Ultimately it's a business, and I am not a business woman.

I have been feeling recently that I NEED to get out of the house and take a vacation. When I found out one of my DCP (Disney College Program) roommates felt the same way, and the other was coming to AZ to visit, I KNEW we had to do a Disney trip! So the weekend of April the 14th, the BFFL DLFS will be going back to Disneyland, a place we haven't all been at together for three years! It's a great feeling to be reliving a bit of the past, and we are already planning the restaurants we want to go to and the rides that are must dos. It's like a bunch of kids trying to plan a Disney trip, but I'm honestly just too excited for it, it's ridiculous!!

Living in Arizona with a Premier pass makes me so damn antsy to get back to the parks. I know I won't be able to get back to WDW anytime soon, but it doesn't stop me from planning trips online, and seeing how much everything would cost... too much for me to afford, obviously. So getting back to Disneyland makes me feel good, like my pass isn't going completely to waste.