A Dose of Reality

Ok, it's time to tell the truth....the whole truth...

My life is a bit of a mess.  I am fat beyond recognition.  I am mentally taxed and uncomfortable in my current body, and I am physically miserable in countless ways.  I need to lose 75 pounds, like yesterday.   And don't even get me started on the issues with my whacked out hormones.  In a nutshell, I am a mess!  Inside and out.  An overhaul in every area of my life is long overdue.  To paraphrase a quote by Kris Carr - it's not just about what I am eating, it's about what's eating me.

It hasn't always been this way though.  In fact, I was really happy and skinny for a lot of my life.  Occasionally I would gain a few pounds, but I would generally stay at a healthy weight.  Dieting and weight loss were non-issues.  Then I became a vegetarian/sometime vegan....and that is where my troubles really began.  I mean, yay for me...and an even bigger YAY for the animals!!   However, I didn't educate myself on plant-based nutrition, and I didn't know how to prepare proper, balanced meals without meat.  I didn't even think about it really, nor did I care.  I know, crazy, right?  How hard could it have been?  Apparently, pretty hard.

In my defense, information on this subject wasn't as readily available 10 years ago as it is now.  And I was too busy and cavalier to invest any time in finding out this critical information.  I didn't think to replace meat with tempeh, edamame, quinoa, or other healthy alternatives.  I didn't worry about getting enough B-12.  I didn't understand about toxins building up in my system from all of the processed food I was eating (I am looking at you Morning Star "corndogs" and Sweet & Buttery popcorn).  It never dawned on me that cereal was junk food.  How could I have known that too much soy would cause so many issues with my delicate hormonal system?  And then there are those liquid calories....a monster problem in its own right.  Oy.   All I knew was that I couldn't allow myself to eat an animal.....so I just stopped doing that.

Basically, my diet consisted of pasta, bread, sweets, fruit, pasta, processed "meat" alternatives, pasta, pizza, veggies, cereal, pasta, and occasional dairy.  And did I mention pasta?  So yeah....not the healthiest of choices.  To make matters worse, I started eating like this at a time that would turn out to be the beginning of one of the most tumultuous decades of my life.  In short, I was a disaster waiting to happen.

Today I am more aware and better equipped for a plant-based lifestyle, but I have to undo the damage of the last 10-years before I can go forward properly.  I have learned quite a bit the last couple of years actually.  Whether it was through personal research, the experience of bad choices, opening my eyes to the obvious all around me, or just flat out using my God-given common sense.  I don't know everything, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do feel I am ready for this change!  Time for a reboot!   I know I have a long way to go both mentally and physically, but a journey begins with a single step, as they say.  Let the journey begin now.....

Rock on.