I’m going to be honest with you, internetland: This has been a hard month for me. This particular challenge wasn’t hard (as you’ll read below) but I struggled with a lot of feelings of failure this month. That coupled with the shootings in my old town of Dayton, Ohio and it just felt so dumb to put out a personal blog about how I’m not eating meat now. Everything I did felt really small and trite and insignificant. I’ve really put off publishing this because I’m still trying to sort out a lot of things in my life and I really don’t want anyone to read this and think that I have my sh!t together. Cuz I don’t. But a deal’s a deal and I promised myself I’d put a blog out each month. Let’s talk about what I did in July:
Challenge: No Meat!
Rules: Let me be clear: This challenge wasn’t “be a vegetarian for a month”. I just didn’t eat meat. No chicken, no red or white meat. No bacon. That’s pretty much it. All other animal byproducts were fair game. GET IT!
Why I Cut it Out: I feel like a social media influencer when I say this but, a lot of you guys have been asking me if I planned out what I was giving up ahead of time and the answer is Yes. I knew that food was something that I wanted to focus on but didn’t want to make it the sole focus of this year. The point was to cut out the things that were bad for me (like Sugar or Grains) and also create some challenges that just forced me to be more mindful. It also had to be challenging because, well, that’s sort of the whole point of depriving yourself of something. Since July is synonymous with BBQ’s, I felt that cutting meat out was fitting.
I’ve never gone full blown vegetarian before but I have cut back drastically on meat before. At my first recruiting job, we were expected to take candidates out to lunch every day. This will turn you off to restaurant food real quick. It sounds great at first, when you’re poor and working off commission and you get reimbursed for lunch, but the sheen wears off pretty quickly. Before you know it, you’re 11 pounds heavier and the hostess at Chewy’s greets you by name. I started to get grossed out by food really quickly, particularly meat. Didn’t trust it. Chickens really grossed me out. When people go nuts over Chic-fil-A, I don’t understand it. “They have THE best Buffalo chicken sandwich.” “OMG I can’t get enough of their chicken minis”. False. Anything soaked in a deep fryer and then drenched with Franks Hot Sauce is going to taste good. Have you ever had just a plain chicken sandwich at Chic-fil-A? Even more so, have you ever just eaten the plain chicken there, unseasoned? I haven’t but I probably wouldn’t and it’s probably not that good. Have you ever pictured the farm in which that chicken came from, overweight to the point where it can barely walk and acting like the 3rd replica of Michael Keaton in Multiplicity? Still want those chicken mini’s?
Let me be so clear about a few things. 1: I actually have no idea what the farm where the chickens from Chic-fil-A come from looks like, but I’m guessing any fast food company that pumps out millions of chicken sandwiches a day isn’t getting them from the free range farm down the road. 2: This disdain over chicken and meat in general has nothing to do with animal rights. I don’t give a shit about animal rights. I know that sounds cold, but other animals kill and eat each other. My cat tortures rodents. My friends dog brings in dead possums as trophies (#ziggymurder). Where’s PETA when that happens? I care about the treatments of HUMANS, and when random hormones that I don’t need get into my bloodstream because someone thinks that chicken breasts should look more plump, I take issue with that. 3: Please do not send me your PETA videos in reference to point #2.
Having said all of that, I have found myself eating a lot of meat over the past year. Most of my eating habits post babies have been some variation of the Paleo diet. When you’re not eating grains or processed food, meat becomes a cornerstone of your daily intake. It just became really easy to prepare chicken for the week or put some beef in a crock pot and go about my day.
So how would cutting it out make me happier or less anxious? I mean, isn’t that the point of this whole thing? It is. And no, I don’t think eating meat is contributing to my anxiety and depression, but I can’t say that there isn’t a relationship with the hormone-rich food that I’m eating and my increased levels of anxiety. Maybe it’s just the Instagram delusion but I just feel like vegetarians and vegans seem more at peace with themselves, right? Finally, at this point, I’m willing to try anything to get back to the relatively adjusted individual I was before my PPA kicked in and my life turned upside down.
The Results: In my head, my meals were going to look like a farm-to-table cookbook, lush with shades of green you can only find deep in the jungle and seasoned with the freshest herbs. I thought I would be exploring new recipes that included beets, bok choy, heirloom tomatoes, and jack fruit. My bowels were going to be as regular as any scheduled program. I was going to be the epitome of health and wellness.
The reality is that it’s much easier to eat bagels and pasta.
Breakfast was easy enough since I still ate eggs (Don’t @ me, vegans!) but lunch and dinner were challenging if I didn’t prepare ahead of time. I really have a love/hate relationship with empty carbs but I’m also training for an Olympic distance triathlon and a side salad for dinner was just not cutting it! So, many nights I just ate pasta or sandwiches or processed fake meat. (Side note, BIG BIG fan of the Impossible Burger. Veggies burgers are all I want now).
The point of these challenges are to clear the things that are potentially impacting my mental health and start to accept and love myself a little more. My failure to live up to this Veggie goddess standard was making me feel the opposite. I was eating like crap, overindulging in things like French fries and dinner rolls, and gaining back weight. My schedule is crazy and training became harder to squeeze in. I joked that the only part of my training that I was fulfilling was the Carbo-load. I actually felt more down about myself than I had all year.
Is this whole idea of #onelessthing actually making things worse?
So, what did you learn?
Right as I was about to throw in the towel for any future challenges, the month came to an end and I realized something: it’s OK to try something new and not learn anything. I’m not any worse off for eating pasta more than I usually do. It’s OK if I gain 5 pounds. If I limp across the finish line of the triathlon instead of beating my personal record, IT’S FINE! I’m not a professional athlete! I just need to let myself off the hook every once in a while.
At the beginning of every month, I keep getting this notion that I’ll stumble upon the remedy for my life. That I’m just one change away from happiness. At the end of this month, I was reminded of a quote from my favorite book, “Life After God” by Douglas Coupland:
“…in spite of everything that has happened in my life, I have never lost the sensation of always being on the brink of some magic revelation–that if only I would look closely enough at the world, then that magic revelation would be mine–if only I could wake up just that little bit more…”
He never does wake up a little bit more. None of us will. Even if my life is feels out of focus, it doesn’t mean that I can just clear up my vision with one small fix. I need to live at peace with the blurred lines and with all the ways that I disappoint myself. I need to forgive myself for not living up to some stupid expectation of perfection. If the point of working on myself one abstinence challenge at a time is becoming perfect, then this is not worth it. I’m flawed. The point is to accept the flaws and put into focus what matters.
I’m 2 weeks post-meat challenge and I realize how hard I was on myself. I actually only gained 3 pounds, and let’s face it, that can all go away with one quick stomach bug. (Update: stomach bug acquired. Weight lost. Don’t ask for details if you don’t want to know). I’m still training for the race in October and even when I need to stop mid run, I take the break that I need to keep going. If I can’t run straight through, so what? I’m still doing a freakin’ Olympic triathlon! That’s enough. I’m enough.
I actually don’t even really want meat anymore. I’ll eat it as necessary but it’s not a must-have on the grocery list. Plus, Burger King just started having the Impossible Burger so I’m all set. I just need to go easy on the fries.
Next Up: MAKE-UP!
DailyDebs 