Monday, January 17, 2011

Vegan for a Month, post-script

You know how the holidays roll around each year? And how people tempt you with delicious, non-vegan foods at every turn? Yup, I know all about that time of year, too.

The wheels came off the vegan train during the latter days of December, but not before some good work was done. After talking to Dr. Duckworth, I feel better about the fact that almost everyone faces a certain weight-challenge during not just the holiday season, but during the winter. Weight stays on during this season; our body wants to hang onto it, for a host of reasons.

The good thing about an attempt at turning vegan for a month is that it cleans out some bad habits. For example, after deciding to eat fish about three years ago, I realized that I wasn't just enjoying a fine cut of tuna, or some high-grade salmon, from time-to-time. Instead, I wound up enjoying the heavily-battered, deep-fried weekly fish-and-chips special at my favorite pub. That kind of sloppy thought process (equating quality fish consumption to health, but then heading to the least-healthy version of some type of "trash fish") gets reconsidered.

So, a couple weeks into January, I've followed the vegetarian diet that I adhered to for 20 years, with the exception of a cup of shrimp bisque on a very cold night spent outside.

Attempts... sometimes you don't make it all the way. But the partial victory is there. You take and it realize that Lent is just a few weeks away. Another perfect time for dietary experimentation, whether, or not, you're even Catholic.

Happy eating, friends.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you, Thomas. For the smiles and sharing parallel experiences with food demons and habit demons and irrational behaviour of a rational being (oh heavens~!)demons. Yah, you don't need to be catholic to practice cleansing at spring time. One year I was looking at the calender and realized that there was a 2 week space between the Spring Equinox and Easter Sunday, so I fasted those two weeks - I didn't have the Christ-like experiences that Jesus had when he fasted 40 days in the desert but it was lightening, enlightening and quite influential. Thank you Thomas for taking us on your journey.

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