To eat meat or not to eat meat, that is not the question.

I am not a vegetarian; I just have vegetarian tendencies.


Since my three weeks of vegetarian living (and the 3.5 days of vegan living sandwiched in the middle), I’ve been more in tune with my body. It probably has just as much to do with my age as my diet. The older you get, the more evident the effects of restful sleep, nutritious food and vigorous exercise can be (or the absence of any of these very important elements of maintaining a healthy body).

I have been looking at a photo of myself from the trip to Las Vegas with Alex last spring. I am so thin in that photo! My hair is also super short, but that’s neither here nor there. I tried to tell myself that I was so thin because I’d just returned from my month trekking through Thailand with all of my belongings strapped to my back. However I believe that trip was Memorial Day weekend, a full six months after I returned from Thailand. The extra insulation I’m sporting now is just plain old gluttony and laziness. It’s coming off, but I determined yesterday that it isn’t happening fast enough to satisfy me. I am having a difficult time staying focused on the training. I keep veering off into vain pursuits. I even went as far as to take up corseting again. It didn’t last, but mostly because the corsets I have are too big to cause any physical changes. I should be happy about that, but naturally I am not. I ‘m quite obsessed. I would like to embrace this obsession with reshaping my body, but that will only cause it to become so intense that it burns itself out before I get any results. I need to calm down and be patient. If I can bring myself back to the training, I will be fine. The goal is to run the half marathon, not to lose weight. It is for that very reason that I do not weigh myself. I’m not going to start counting calories either. I know when I need food and when I don’t. I’m trying to teach myself how to distinguish what type of food I need as well.

I haven’t felt very motivated to run. In fact I missed my long run on Sunday. I should mention that I was incredibly exhausted that day and trying my best to function on just a few hours of sleep. Even so, I still should have at least attempted the damn run. Now I’m beating myself up about it and will probably be so wracked with guilt on my run this evening that I end up having a crazy negative self-talk in my head the entire time. Oh OCD, go away!

So anyway, back to being 85% vegetarian. When you don’t eat meat, you don’t have to push. You know what I’m talking about. I know it’s gross, but it’s totally true. Your intestines are clean and lubricated. I still eat meat every two or three days to keep my muscles happy and my mood relatively stable, but I love feeling clean. I have always loved clean (duh OCD), but I never really thought much about being clean from the inside because I took it for granted that my body can process whatever I put in it. It can of course, but at a cost. My skin is clearer, brighter and has better elasticity than it has had in the past several years. My training recovery time is rarely longer than one full night’s sleep, and my energy is consistent throughout the day and night. I’d be curious to find out if my vision and/or hearing have improved.

I researched the Raw diet and determined that I have no desire to go there. The body is initially shocked by the amount of work it has to do to extract nutrients from raw food. It’s supposed to depend on the individual, but you can spend up to three weeks feeling tired and weak. Certain foods are more easily digestible after being cooked. For example, root vegetables - they are so full of wonderful nutrients, but the body has to work really hard to access those nutrients when the root vegetables are raw. Were I to “go raw”, it would look more like a fruit and veggie cleanse than a raw diet. Since I am allergic to seafood… There’s no damn way that I am going to zombify myself for three weeks with the sole purpose of experimenting with a damn diet.


This morning’s commute was spent thinking more and more about Thailand and the things I learned there. I don’t meditate anymore. I also don’t do yoga every morning anymore. It’s time that I readopted those practices.