Last night for dinner, I was at a friend’s who had forgotten that I was coming and made a meat soup. If I had been on it, I would have brought some kind of vegan dish with me, but the time I could have spent preparing  that I was busy cooking carcinogenic bison for other people ( see yesterday’s post).

So, I had salad and bread. A LOT of bread. Well, a lot is relative, right? A lot for me given the way I have been eating which has not included a lot of bread. I ate maybe 5 inches of a baguette- a local, artisanal, organic baguette. And it was quite delicious. I love bread- really good bread is pretty much my favorite food ever.

But the thing is, like many people, bread doesn’t love me. It makes me puffy. And when I woke up this morning, I could feel it in my body and my mind like a doughy filter. It really didn’t feel good. So that was interesting to observe. I am definitely becoming way more sensitive.

I also avoided a kerfluffle this morning – a moment with a loved one where in the past I would have leaped right into battle, today I opted to not take it personally and simply schluffed it off. Kerfluffle schluffing, good side effect of veganism.

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Taught class all day again.

Green smoothie for breakfast (I am sort of addicted to those at the moment. Except as of this morning I exhausted my stores of frozen bananas and I just forgot to get more at the store, so I am going to have to figure out something else for breakfast tomorrow.

Came home hungry at lunchtime because I forgot to pack a mid-morning snack and had a carton of organic butternut bisque soup and some rice crackers. Then back to work and forgot to bring a snack again.

We went out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant. They had a special quesadilla: portabello, spinach, onion and goat cheese. I really wanted the goat cheese. But I asked for avocado instead.

They put too much avocado in it. I was disappointed. I was wishing I had it with goat cheese instead. BUT I decided to stay true to the experiment.

At least I enjoyed the rice and beans and chips and salsa.

After dinner, I went grocery shopping. And – this was weird – I was actually KIND OF GROSSED OUT BY THE MEAT DEPARTMENT. I hadn’t expected that. So not only do I not want meat, but now it’s sort of repulsive even. 

I have been being a little slack with the sweet tooth thing, which is something I have had no problem with in the past. I was off sugar for most of the  year, and even off maple syrup and honey for most of this past summer.

I’m not pigging out on anything, but definitely having a little sweetness every day. Yesterday I had some maple sugar candy after lunch and after dinner. Today I had some of those Hail Merry macaroons.

I wish I could eat just one or two at a time but they are so good! 4, 5 – occaisionally even the whole bag in one sitting. Well, I’ve only done that once so far – hopefully I won’t again!

Feeling on keel and energetic. I had a green smoothie for breakfast (and almond milk in my single cappuccino), a salad with a veggie burger on it for lunch, and am contemplating dinner.

I taught class all day – I am teaching a  Level 1 Sound Balancing class this weekend, Friday- Sunday – and I never really am up for cooking much when I teach all weekend. I think I am putting a frozen pizza in the oven for the boys and maybe a frozen Amy’s vegan entree in there for myself. 

I had a few clementines for snack, spinach for breakfast and spinach and other greens and veggies for lunch, so feeling a bit better about my fruit and veggie inputs today. And I had plenty of time for lunch, which was good.

No egg, cheese, or dairy cravings today. But I do want some sweets. Oh, I forgot, I did buy some maple sugar candy for dessert after lunch – just a few tiny little maple leaves, and they hit the spot.

It is 7:30 am and I am committing a sin. I forgot to soak almonds last night to make almond milk this morning, and I did not want to go without my morning cappuccino.

So I made it with raw milk. And it is soooooo good. OMG, like, heavenly.

Of course, my conscience (and my husband) were quick to point out to me the error of my ways. But I was defiant. I am on  my 2nd one.

Did you know that the word “sin” is an old English archery term that means “to miss the mark”? I am missing the mark of avowed veganism this morning with my choice to have milk.

Seeing as how I am at the halfway point today, I’m taking it as an exemption. Or a Mulligan. Tonight, I will be sure to soak those almonds…

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Green smoothie for breakfast, a bowl of carrot soup and some gluten free crackers for lunch. It has just occurred to me that in 14 days I have not craved meat once. Eggs, yes. Cheese, yes. Even raw milk. But not chicken or fish or beef. Interesting.

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Looking back over what I have been eating, it’s clear I’m not eating enough fruits and vegetables. In fact, I see that what I have been doing is careening – and I will explain this –

It’s my aim with my blog to be as candid as possible about my experience. This is an experiment. But it is also a chapter in my story about my relationship with food. It is my struggles with food, with how and what and when to feed myself, that has driven me to the healing arts.

When I became bulimic as a teenager, all I could think was “Why?” and “How do I get better?”. My need to get well, on every level, drove me to many books and workshops and classes, and slowly – ridiculously slowly in many ways – I have grown to greater and greater levels of balance and wellness with food and with my body. Not easy to do in this culture that seeds us with self-loathing.

But I’m not completely there, and looking back, for the first time in my life keeping a food journal, I can see a pattern playing out and have some perspective on it.

And what I mean by careening is not taking the time to feed myself properly, getting too hungry, and eating large amounts of carbohydrates as both a soothing gesture and a reward. This is a lifelong pattern that started with the box of Lucky charms in the closet  (see earlier post).

This is what I have been doing the last few days, and it makes me crave pizza for breakfast and entire bags of macaroons in one sitting. Today I ate an entire bag of gluten free seed crackers with my carrot soup.

Now, I know that compared to how many people eat, what I am doing is really tame. But it’s not my aim. My aim is to feed myself as well and as mindfully as I possibly can. And doing that takes time and planning.

I know that I am luckier than most in that I make my own schedule and walk home for lunch. I think I need to add an additional 15 minutes to my lunchtime so I don’t feel pressed and really give myself time to stretch out the preparing and eating of my midday meal. That’s what the Europeans do. Makes sense. And then I will just work a little later in the afternoon.

I’m going to think about slowing down, expanding time so that I feel that I have enough time to nourish myself properly.

That pizza I wanted to have at 10pm last night? I had it for breakfast. In stages – an 8 am stage and then a 9:30 stage. Very satisfying!

Although I do notice when I eat wheat, which I try to minimize but not necessarily eliminate, I get puffy under my eyes. Probably better avoided altogether, but sometimes, a pizza, even if it is cheeseless, really hits the spot.

For lunch, which was very much on the fly, I grabbed a tub of hummus which I had with blue corn chips in the car. Followed by an almost entire bag of Hail Merry chocolate macaroons.

Yikes, entire pizzas and entire bags of macaroons. NOT the best choices. Luckily I have been redeemed by dinner – my friend Lisa who is a tremendous cook brought me a fascinating looking vegan salad. Which saves me figuring out what to make for myself because I always think first of what I am going to make the boys and then my own food is an afterthought, a hodgepodge of what is on hand.

I love my boys but this would be sooo much easier if all I had to worry about was myself!

I had quinoa flakes for breakfast – an instant hot cereal that I tossed a handful of trail mix into and  a little bit of almond milk and it was really quite good.

Lunch was more canned chili, a different kind that has sat a lot better than the one I had a few days ago.

And dinner was angel hair pasta with marinara sauce, minus the cheesy bread and sausage that the rest of the family had.

I’m deep down hungry today. My ribs are starting to stick out a little. I am tempted to make the vegan pizza I have in the freezer and eat the whole thing (at 10pm) – but I’ve learned from experience that eating entire pizzas at bedtime really isn’t a good idea.

Today, I am irritable.

I used to start off each morning with 2 cappuccinos – made in my little Krups cappuccino machine with freshly ground organic fair trade coffee and raw milk. I never got coffee jitters or coffee stomach ache and was quite happy with that little ritual.

This morning, and this is something I have been noticing building for a few days, one cup – made with almond milk- gave me jitters. I didn’t have two.

I seem to be becoming more sensitive. As if I wasn’t already sensitive enough!!

I’m drinking another green smoothie, somewhat truculently. Whose stupid idea was this diet, anyway?

Eggs, bacon, cheese, coffee!!  I want you!

I would plow into a plate of Eggs Benny at the Stonegrill restaurant with great gusto at the moment. And, why, yes, you can top off my coffee, thank you very much.

No doubt it would make me sick at this point though. So I will sip at my green drink and think about what to make for lunch….

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I never did figure out what I was going to make for lunch and as it turned out, I didn’t have to! My 11:30 client delivered lunch to me – spicy red lentils. She even included some chopped up cilantro on the side, some lime wedges, and a little paper bowl and spoon. How incredibly sweet of her! And they are super yummy. I am not irritable any more 🙂

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So – dinner. I didn’t eat dinner last night. I  made beef stew for my family, in the crock pot. “Are you going to eat some stew?” asked my 12 year old son. “No honey, I’m not eating meat at the moment, remember?”. “But Mom, you make the best beef stew in the whole world!! What are you going to eat??”.

I’m not sure whether it was genuine exhaustion or detox or just overwhelm from having to think so hard about food (or repressed depression about not being able to eat stew), but I actually went to bed at 6:30 last night. Slept right through. So at least I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to have for dinner.

Tonight, I made the boys steak and cheese subs. You wouldn’t think that is very special, but my steak and cheese subs are practically famous. I even made them for a dinner party one night, with chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and everyone was like, Wow, steak and cheese subs, like, who knew?

I don’t ever eat the subs- puffy white buns haven’t ever done it for me – but I usually take the  meat and the onions and the mushrooms and mix it up with some goat cheese and throw it in some kind of wrap.

Well, not doing that this evening. I put some hummus on an ezekial tortilla – which I intended to unfreeze into softness and wrap with some veggies and greens as well. But I managed to overheat it in the toaster oven and it came out just sort of stale and stiff. So I broke it into a few pieces, put some hummus and  sauteed mushrooms and onions on the pieces and ate that. Uninspired and not really sitting very well. Dinner FAIL. Oh well, at least the boys were happy.

I had a green smoothie for breakfast. Not exactly eggs benedict but satisfying nonetheless. I’m back to feeling vaguely detoxy again. I’ve had a busy week and next week is the same. Today was supposed to be a day off but I allowed myself to be talked into doing a sound session down at the spa – maybe while I am there I will go in the sauna and soak in the mineral soaking pool. Nice perks involved when you work at a spa.

I am intrigued by my bean experience of yesterday. On the one hand, I’m not happy with how indigestive they made me, but on the other hand, I wasn’t hungry for EIGHT hours after I ate about 3/4 cup of canned black bean chili.

So I think I need to play around with various kinds of beans cooked in various kinds of ways to see what works well. I do have a mild and somewhat silly trauma around beans that has always made me slightly averse to them.

My childhood (and much of my adult as well) nickname was Bean. As the youngest of 6 and the smallest in my class at school from skipping a few grades, the name Bean (shortened from “Eileeny McBeany”) stuck. It stuck further when I came up with the idea for the Vanilla Bean Cafe when I was 18.

When I moved to Vermont in 2002 I told people my name was Eileen. I was 34 years old after all. But no one ever remembers the name Eileen, whereas everyone always remembered Bean. But this is not my point.

The trauma came from a song from the musical “Paint Your Wagon” that my brothers (and maybe even my parents) used to sing to me when I was little :

Well hand me down that can o’ beans
Hand me down that can o’ beans
Hand me down that can o’ beans
I’m throwing it away

Out the winder go the beans
Out the winder go the beans
Out the winder go the beans
I had a lucky day

except that they would say “We’re throwing HER away”.

Of course they were being playful, but I was “overly sensitive” and got quite beside myself from it.

So I’ve never been big on beans.

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For lunch I am having a repeat of the tempeh and shitakes over salad that I had two days ago. I am pleased with myself for feeding myself healthy food. It takes time and energy and money and self respect to feed yourself well. No wonder most people don’t/can’t do it.

It’s been a long road of steady effort for me to get to this place.

My earliest “memory” about my relationship with food isn’t even a memory – it’s a photograph. I am about three, perhaps, and I am lying, like an overstuffed little doll, on the floor of the pantry with an open box of Lucky Charms next to me, having clearly just eaten myself into a carb coma. That inclination towards overindulgence in carbs/sugar became a pattern for a long time.

While I was never exactly fat as a kid, I was a little pudgy, soft in the middle, inclined towards ice cream and saltines and candy. My mom was a good cook and I got three squares a day, plus dessert and plenty of snacks.

Things got troublesome when I turned 16. Up until that point, I had been a brainiac, a geek, a dork – too little for my age, glasses, braces. But then suddenly I “blossomed”. On a whim, I entered the Miss Teen Connecticut pageant, and much to my surprise won both runner up and “Miss Photogenic”.

Now, suddenly, I had all the pressures of being a “pretty” girl, which meant I needed to be Skinny. I’m not really built to be skinny – I’m built to be medium-sized. But medium-sized, in my teenage head, was Fat.

My inner conflict, around my natural build, and my need to conform to social expectations, resulted in me becoming bulimic at 17, a miserable condition that I was finally able to free myself of by the time I turned 20.