Purging - in a good way...

Today I purged my kitchen of everything non-vegan and non-gluten free.

I spent the morning shopping for vegan and gluten free food to stock my pantry and frig - so best to get all the "bad" food temptation out of the house.

This wasn't really a planned activity - there was no diet "start date" as I have done in the past. It kind of just happened as a natural step in the direction my life is taking.


Allow me to explain...

I went to a new doctor last week and he gave me the "you HAVE to lose weight" speech they all give me.

Duh... thanks for your input, Captain Obvious... 

But at 5'8, 350 lbs, complaining of severe foot pain - it's hard to argue with him, right? As much as I wanted to punch him in the face, he's right.

The fact still remains that the troubles with my back, feet and virtually every other part of my body are getting to the unbearable stage. My new job keeps me on my feet walking around a hospital for 8 hours a day. My little size 7 1/2 feet can't handle carrying all this extra weight around for that amount of time.

My right hip is violently protesting it too. I come home literally aching EVERYWHERE - courtesy of the excess weight and arthritis. I'm 32 years old and I shouldn't come home from work and dive directly into bed because I am in so much pain I can't stand to do anything else. Something's gotta give... It's not going to be the job - I like it and I'm so happy to be out of the horrible work situation I was in before that the pain is almost worth it. I can handle physical pain, the mental abuse was too much. But I don't have to be in pain all the time...

So back to the doctor - he handed me a meal plan "tested at Harvard" and sent me on my way.

Really? REALLY?!?!

If it were that easy this blog wouldn't exist - neither would the diet pill industry - and probably doctors like him wouldn't be quite so well off either. So I came home, looked over his little meal plan and got even more pissed when I realized he'd completely disregarded the fact that I'd told him I was vegan and had handed me a meal plan chock full of meat, eggs and dairy. Jerk...

So I went to the Happy Herbivore website and downloaded one of her meal plans, 5 dollars well spent. I gave it to the Senior Citizen and announced to him that his job for the next two weeks was to cook vegan meals and make sure I stuck to this diet plan. Two weeks. Baby steps. I can commit to two weeks.

He's the one bringing crap food into the house, now he has to stop it. So yes, that means Pops is going veg too. At least while he's at home. So far he's eaten two vegan meals and was surprised how delicious they were. He's also retired and worked with food virtually his entire life. He's bored and needs something to keep him busy all day.

The celebrities all stick to their diets because it's easy to do when you have a personal chef. I figure, hell maybe it will work for me! He's not a celebrity chef but he could be. I've gotta work with the tools I've got. So I dug out all my vegan cookbooks and gave him his assignments: plan and prepare meals, and read the book Main Street Vegan: Everything You Need to Know to Eat Healthfully and Live Compassionately in the Real World which I recently finished reading and was unable to put down. It's a great, all encompassing book about veganism. It will help him understand why I want to do this. Right now he just simply doesn't understand it.

So for now I am focusing on work, diet, sleep, and school. Probably in that order, sleeping may be first. I got a pedometer app on my iPhone to count the number of steps I walk at work each night. I'm averaging between 3-4 miles per night (I work the overnight shift) so getting in any additional exercise beyond that isn't going to be a priority right now. I went from walking to my car and back to walking 3-4 miles a day. I think that counts as exercise right now. As my body begins to tolerate it better I'll work more in. I'm going to try working in at least 2 days of water aerobics in my pool on my days off for now.