Wow.....I can't believe I actually talked Karla into it. Then again, maybe it wasn't me but her recent allergic reactions to processed food that compelled her to take me seriously.
Next Monday will start week two of a three week vegetarian journey that Karla and I are taking together. Well, I say together but I am safely keeping my distance for fear that I may have poked the sleeping bear. This could possibly go down as one of the dumbest ideas that I have ever had. It may even be worthy of a Darwin Award.
Having done the whole vegetarian thing before and gone through the withdrawals, it won't be that big of a deal for me but I'm curious to see how Karla, a woman with a long history of crappy eating habits, is going to handle it -- or if she'll even make it. (or, more importantly, if I will make it)
As of Tuesday she was already getting tired of it....Oh boy, the growling has begun. Maybe I should go ahead and take my pillow to the couch.
This whole thing is starting to remind me of childbirth. Karla didn't blame me for her condition, but that certainly didn't stop her urge to kill me. I spent part of the labor process standing in the corner of the delivery room ----- far, far away from her. Only after the epidural kicked in did I feel it was safe enough to crawl out from behind the TV.
Anyway, as I stated, I have done this before.....sort of. Being in the midwest where a sprig of parsley on a steak is considered a salad, I had made concessions and ate meat during the occasional family cookout; I just wasn't ready to tell all friends and family that I was content with eating a salad. Tell a beefy midwesterner that you are making an attempt at going vegetarian and you will most likely receive a fair amount of good natured ribbing and hear references to tree hugging and hippies. (It's all good.....live and let live.)
Plus, I only get to eat my brother-in-laws barbecue once in a great while.....I should probably take advantage of that when I can. Man....Can....Cook....
There was no deeply meaningful reason for giving up meat the first time I did it; no political agenda or search for a Nirvana/Zen/Utopia type thing. I'm not what one would consider a deep thinker. And let's face it, if it's prepared right, there is nothing better than a thick juicy steak.
As my daughter so astutely put it, "I don't like killing animals --- but they taste really good when their cooked."
Yes, pumpkin, yes they do.
No, the real reason I went vegetarian was just to satisfy a curiosity; I just wondered if I could actually do it without going crazy.
I'll be honest, initially it was rough.....very rough.
The hardest part, for me, to get used to when going meatless is that, with very few exceptions, everything I ate was so light that I never really got any satisfaction from eating. Initially, all eating was a severe letdown; damn near depressing.
I ate a lot of salads, drank smoothies and nearly wore out my juicer. I also ate tons of yogurt, nuts, bananas, oranges, apples, and hard boiled eggs; and none of it sits in the pit of your stomach quite like a greasy cheeseburger and fries. After week one I had serious doubts that I was going to make the six week goal I had set for myself.
Eating is such a large part of (at least American) society. WE WON!!!! Hooray, let's eat!!!! We lost.....dammit let's go get something to eat. We eat when we are happy......we eat even more when we are sad.....We eat when we are bored. And what do we eat? Heavy, heavy, HEAVY, and greasy, greasy, GREASY food. Man, we can put away a lot of junk. It's no wonder we are one of the most obese countries in the world......(Surprisingly, in the latest article I read, Mexico is first....Er, I'm sorry...Numero UNO)
So imagine being accustomed to that lifestyle and then being told if it's meat, or if it's processed or fried you can't have it.......The world will seem like it's coming to a cruel and abrupt end......Trust me, I know.
But I pushed on, week after week, and almost had an aneurysm in the process....I really started to wonder why in the hell I was doing this. Why not just give up and call it a loss?
Because I hated admitting that I couldn't do it.......
Every time Karla made spaghetti, every time she brought home pizza, every time we drove by a McDonalds, the smell was so intense it nearly drove me crazy. Before every meaty meal at home I secretly began to wonder if perhaps I needed a straight jacket to help me resist the wonderfully greasy temptation sitting upon the kitchen counter that everyone else was going to enjoy while I drank my spinach smoothie. (Which, by the way, tastes a lot better than it looks.)
I began to compare myself to Odysseus, the greek character in Homer's odyssey who had himself tied to the mast of his ship so that he could hear the beautiful voices of the sirens without falling prey to their alluring call. I would rock back and forth in the car as Karla drove by McDonalds, ninety percent of my brain thinking I could survive the jump out of the moving vehicle and into oncoming traffic, where I would then stealthily dodge, bob and weave my way to the sacred golden arches. The other ten percent of my brain begged Karla to drive faster, speeding ticket be damned.
Yes, I was truly going off the deep end.
However, after a while, the signals of massive dissatisfaction I was receiving from my stomach was beginning to subside and then became offset by the progress being made by other parts of my body -- specifically my brain. I'm no scientist and I can't really explain why but the switch to fruits and vegetables had an extremely positive affect on me mentally, epic greasy food battle notwithstanding. I didn't struggle to get out of bed in the morning, I felt mentally sharper and my outlook on life was a little more positive.
But, maybe that's just me....For every article on the internet stating that a vegetarian diet has positive affects on the brain there is another article claiming that a lack of meat in the diet can lead to psychological disorders. So, who knows what the truth is....I'm just telling you how it worked out for me.
And, of course, I lost weight.....About fifteen pounds (not in six weeks. I think that would be dangerous -- I actually kept going beyond the goal I set for myself) before I went on vacation with my family and fell (ok, joyously jumped) off the wagon in an ultra mega huge way........But hey, when is the next time I'm going to get to go to an all you can eat German Biergarten? I was miserable (and slightly inebriated) afterwards, but it made for some great memories.
Still, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that I just went nuts like that. Especially considering how hard I had to work to get through my bout with vegetarian torture.
Looking back, I remember how great I felt after it was all said and done. Along with the radical change in diet and exercise four days a week I felt nearly invincible. Why I didn't get back on the horse after falling (enthusiastically diving) off the wagon is a bit of a mystery to me.
But, thanks to the fish fry I recently attended, (burp) I'm back on. For ten bucks I got a plate over flowing with fried catfish, baked cod, fried shrimp, mashed potatoes and gravy with apple pie for dessert.
Left overs? What's that? Om nom nom......
I finished my plate, waddled to the car and could barely keep my eyes open all the way back home. It was damn good eating, but I felt horrible......And Karla felt equally bad. I felt the lead weight in my stomach and thought back to my vegetarian experiment......it was time to try it again.
This time, however, it will be done with a purpose more meaningful than merely satisfying a curiosity. I badger Karla constantly about her unhealthy eating habits so, perhaps in a warped way, I thought that going vegetarian for three weeks would be a great way to help her (and me) to get back on track.
Now I have no plans of making vegetarianism a permanent lifestyle change. I love hamburgers and steak way too much. To try and do without those things is setting Karla and myself up for one failure after another. This has to be a lifestyle choice that we can maintain.
No, after three weeks we will start to slowly bring meat back into our diet. Perhaps once a week at first and then go from there. I'm hoping that in time meat will again be a regular part of our diet; just not the dominant part. I'm hoping that, when all is said and done, meat will take up only one fourth of our dinner plate instead of half or, admittedly, all of it.
I'm hoping that Karla acquires a taste for a healthier diet and that she gets the kind of satisfying results, both mentally and physically, that I did. Despite the difficulties, I feel it was a worthwhile endeavor and a great learning experience.
In the immediate future, however, we both need to get through the next two weeks without one of us becoming a casualty. Karla has been a trooper up to this point, but I fear this may get a lot worse before it gets better.
I think I will tell the kids to lock their bedroom doors at night.
I wonder how comfortable the back seat of the car is? It's bear proof, isn't it?
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