New Year, New Life, New Me

So far, 2011 has been great! I'm exhausted from working 60+ hours each week, I'm hungry because I don't have the time to go home to get food or the money to buy it, and I'm breaking out.


All of this awesomeness ended yesterday (I hope). I was going to meet up with a friend Whitney on Main Street for a beer after I got off of work at 10pm, but when I got to work at 5:30, someone was already there and offered to take my shift. Whitney hadn't planned on going to Main until 8, so I decided that since I was there, I'd help out with a few things (because it's been really busy) and also go ahead and have a free 30 min. massage because a therapist's appointment was just cancelled.



I lay on the table and the therapist comes in. She says, "I'm going to do an hour on you instead, if that's ok." Umm, yeah! This was my first massage in months (again, I don't have the time) and it felt amazing. I get done around 7:30, just in time to pull myself together and meet up with Whitney.


I head up to Main St. and she's just walking in the door of the bar with a friend of hers from Boston, Chris. Now, usually I'm really shy with new people, but I was killing it! LOL here, LOL there. A few beers later, I head home when I normally would have been leaving the massage studio.


Today, things got even better. I read my friend and high school teammate Kali's blog that she just started. She decided to start in a journey towards the vegan lifestyle. In the past, I have had mixed opinions on veganism, but after I read her post, I decided to really consider it. The health benefits alone are reason to make the change. The only issue is that I have this belief that God put animals (farm kind) on this planet so humans could eat them.




So, this morning, I decided to return back to that post and look a bit more into it. She mentions that she read Alicia Silverston's book, The Kind Diet, and that she plans on following her blog, The Kind Life. I head over the http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ to see what I can find on this book and, sure enough, with my B&N membership (no big deal) I can view all the way to chapter 5. I start reading.


WOW! Not only am I impressed with Alicia's writing, but all of the facts and figures are just heartbreaking. I found myself crying at different parts of the 2nd chapter (Nasty Food #1: Meat) because of all of this information being crammed into 19 pages. And not just information, but details on videos that were released of cows and pigs in slaughterhouses that are so brutally tortured that I had a to take a minute, cry my tears, and take a sip of water to collect myself. Mind you, I was reading all of this at my desk at work.

I left to go home for lunch and to let the doggies out right in the middle of chapter 2, and I had a turkey and swiss sandwich to eat (and by sandwich, I mean turkey and swiss and that's all. No bread, veggies, or condiments). I definitely thought twice about eating it, but I was starving and we don't have much else in the house with the remodel still going on.

Here's my concensus: Starting Sunday, Jan. 9, I will start a vegetarian diet by first cutting out red meat. Each month I will cut something else out, chicken, and finally fish at the end. By year's end, I plan on eating completely vegan foods. Depending on how this goes, I may consider going vegan all the way (you know, with the beauty products and the clothing, etc), but for now, I will only plan on the diet.

I know some people go cold turkey (no pun intended), but I'm such a big meat eater that I don't think I could realistically pull that off. One thing at a time!

As aweful as this may be, I might hit up Burger King on my way to work and grab a burger. I only have 3 more days of red meat eating left! If I throw it up or I can't stand eating after two bites, I know the stories are setting in.

I'll make monthly posts with my progress (along with all my usual posts).

Wish me luck!