How To Diss a Vegan

I had spent the entire day becoming more intimate with my two new vegan cookbooks and cooking up a storm.  It was a Sunday afternoon.  I had invited my brother over for some much needed sibling time.  My brother rode his bike all the way to Pilsen from parent’s house in Schiller Park.   That’s at least 20 miles!  Luckily, I was prepared for such an occasion with a fully stocked fridge.

My brother tends to always be hungry and yet he is skinny.  I hate him.  Furthermore, I wanted to feed him considering I had spent all this time cooking a variety of different meals.

I had made lentil soup in the slow cooker, roasted eggplant with quinoa, “chicken” fajitas with black beans all of which were fresh, warm and delicious.  I guess you go kind of crazy when you can’t cook for 40 days, plus I was being squirrel-like and preparing for the week ahead.

My brother walks in and immediately I’m badgering him about what I could feed him (also, I think this is a Mexican female thing where you want to feed men…it’s weird but I digress).  We go back and forth for a while until he looks at me all serious-like and says: Jen, I respect your decision to become a vegan, but I will not allow you to subject me to this type of “food.”

Me: wha?  I mean it’s good, it’s just vegetables.

Him: Exactly.  That’s precisely what I mean.

Me: but everyone eats vegetables!

Him: You know what I ate today, Jen?  I ate like four different animals.  In fact, I don’t even know what types of animals I ate.  Could have been tilapia, could have been salmon, who cares?  Then I’m pretty sure I had some cow, chicken and pork.

Me: Wow, good for you! Murderer! (under my breath)

Him:  It’s just the way the world works, Jen.

Me: You should at least try something, I’ve been cooking all day and I know you’re hungry.

Him: I’m fine. 

He probably ate one of these too.

Twenty minutes later, I heard this popping noise coming out of the kitchen.  I walk out to see what it is and he had the nerve to make popcorn!  I made all of this delicious, hearty, fresh and healthy food and the $#*&@! makes popcorn!!!

Then he looks at me and smiles and says: this popcorn is vegan, right?

"Love is Cursed by Monogamy"*

You broke the rules

I only bent them temporarily

putting too much trust

in a shiny gold band

rendered meaningless

in one night.

No promises; no regrets.

This city isn’t big enough

for the both of us.

I don’t want to see your face,

but the clowns in this town

just parade it around;

whispering your pretty name.

And I met your lovely little wife

for some straight faced charades

disguised as small talk conversation.

Then proceeded to lock myself

in the bathroom to cry

They used to tell me that

good people just don’t cheat

and grown-ups always do the right thing.

I would have crossed myself and prayed

an entire rosary twice, kneeling

if I thought it’d make me feel better.

But what’s the use when

we are none other than renegade rebels

protesting monogamy

At least I still winced at my naked body.

Hearts pounding; hands racing up my thigh;

minds too busy justifying one more secret

or someone else’s wife and a good man

waiting to hold my hand at home.

Trust was an absolute.

Me: older wiser now

Trust: absolutely ridiculous

to imbed into people like us.

I made a huge bet.

Then proceeded again

to forfeit my hand when I was all in.

Alone in bathroom stalls

hotel rooms and bars.

While you smiled pretty for cameras

pretending there never was a game

never a hand to play.

Dropping your picket sign

crossing over to the other side.

You never broke the rules.

I never bent them.

I walk past your posters

without even a hint of recognition.

And your name is foreign on my tongue.

*I "borrowed" the title from Kanye West and Jay Z since it's a line in their song "No Church in the Wild."

The Fast: 40 Days - Retrospective Reflection

I know, I know, I’ve been way to busy eating to blog.  Just kidding!

I successfully completed 40 days of the fast.  Breaking the fast was quite uneventful to be honest.  It was almost like food was the one thing I had longed for, built up in my head, desired, craved, wanted and became obsessed with for 40 days and at first bite I couldn’t help but think: this is it? 

Don’t get me wrong, I love eating, but I guess it’s like anything else you build up in your head after abstaining from it.  The reality of it is usually much less than the expectations you had built in your head.

As you may know from my last blog post, I have become a vegan.  I bought all of these vegan recipe books and I have to say that after fasting for 40 days, it’s not that hard.  It’s pretty easy to convince yourself of things like: cheese?  Oh I don’t eat that.  Does that have cream?  I don’t eat that. Etc.  I’m thankful for being able to easily transition to a vegan lifestyle (except for my Camel hair coat and variety of leather boots which I have no desire to be rid of).  The best thing about going vegan has been that I have been able to sustain my weight loss from the fast quite easily.

In 40 days I lost about 25 pounds.  Since completing the fast I’ve gained back about 3 pounds and maintained a 22 pound loss.  If you remember, prior to fasting I had lost 20 pounds by exercising and eating better.   This means that since April of 2011 I am down a substantial 42 pounds.  Not bad, still some to go. 

Here are the less tangible benefits of the fast that I would like to share:

Cleansing = forgiveness: it seems that I was carrying more than a few extra pounds including some pretty heavy baggage that didn’t really belong to me from some ex-lovers.  Around the fourth day of the fast I did some intense meditation, wrote some compassionate letters to myself of understanding and forgave me, him and them for some hard-earned scars on my heart.  Three days later I met someone pretty amazing (who I’m hoping won’t read this blog).

I can have a great time (shocked face) WITHOUT booze:  I know, I know, it’s crazy.  I actually like hanging out with friends without drinking.  Most of you who know me in person know I love a great Malbec or Pinot Noir and of course some whiskey or scotch on the rocks but guess what?  I don’t need to drink to have a good time (it helps tho) but not necessary.  I find myself meeting up with friends for tea or doing other things that don’t include drinking.  It’s pretty awesome.  Also, I save money.

I feel better about myself: physically, mentally and emotionally.  I feel…dare I say, happy.  I’m proud of my accomplishment and it was hard and I’m happy that I stuck through it.  I proved something to myself and let go of the need to prove things to others.  Of course, my body feels a lot better after dropping significant weight and consuming healthy foods.  I also feel more secure, like I don’t need so much validation from the outside world in my endeavors because I know what I’m doing.  There’s a quiet confidence in knowing you can do whatever you want to do.  Also, I have less patience for those individuals that have nothing but excuses, particularly because that used to be me.  I guess it’s like Herman Hesse once wrote in Demian: “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.” 

That being said, I'm looking for my next challenge.  I kind of feel like: Okay, I fasted 40 days, now what? 

Any suggestions?

The Fast: Day 38 Food for Thought

With two more days to go on this fast and with 40 days to contemplate food (sometimes way too much) I’ve had some time to become very informed and make a very deliberate decision regarding my diet.

I’m going vegan!  Vegans do not eat any animal products which include: eggs, dairy (cow’s milk, goat’s milk, butter etc.).  Strict vegans don’t consume anything that might have been processed with anything from an animal – I’m likely not going to be that hardcore, at least initially anyway.

I’m doing it for the health benefits.  I’ve been watching a lot of food related documentaries lately (because that’s what you do when you fast, you watch documentaries about food while your friends are out to dinner).  Two of them really impacted me greatly: Forks over Knives and Food Inc.  Forks over Knives focuses on cancer research and diet while Food Inc. focuses on the way food is manufactured and processed including our grains, fruits and vegetables.  It also shows some pretty gruesome and cruel practices towards animals and how far we have come from those days on the farm.

Without getting too preachy I’ll explain why I’m going vegan:

• Hello Fall!  Where did my allergies go?  My sinus allergies have been so much better.  Generally, when the seasons change I’ve been known to sneeze 13 times in succession and just be a mucus-y mess with plenty of sinus headaches and breathing problems but guess what?  My sinuses feel great and NO mucus build-up since starting the fast.  I think it’s safe to say that diet affects my allergies.  Upon doing my own research on how I realized that eliminating dairy has been shown to reduce allergy symptoms so there goes the dairy.
• Weight loss: A vegan diet is generally low fat since you’re not using any animal products.  Of course, you can definitely eat badly as a vegan, as you could with any other diet, but in general it’s more difficult to make those impulsive cupcake or candy bar buys when everything contains milk or eggs.
• “The anticancer” diet?  I could go into this but just save me the trouble and watch Forks over Knives – streams free on Netflix.
• Bye bye hormones: No more Bovine Growth hormone in my cheese!  No more other growth hormones in my chicken and no more mercury in my fish (Dear Scallops and Oysters:  I’ll miss you...but it’s not forever, we can rendezvous one night, just you and me, and I will be seduced in blissful seafood heaven.  A little mercury never hurt anyone, right?  P.S. don’t tell the other vegans.)

If I can fast for 40 days, I’m fairly certain I can eliminate most processed foods from my diet like refined sugars, flours etc.  My plan is to try and eat as whole as possible when possible.  This will ensure many good grains/carbohydrates and lots of fruits and vegetables.  I also may maintain my juicing of fresh fruits and veggies daily or every other day as I am enjoying it.

There is one thing I refuse to give up and that is coffee.   Countless times I’ve ALMOST broken the fast with a cup of hot, delicious coffee, but I persevered!  Sure, I almost brushed my lips against the forbidden cup but forbidden no longer.  Only two days separates us.  I can’t wait.  It will be heavenly.

The Fast: Day 35 - Pure Determination and Grit

I hate to say it, but I’m pretty cranky today.  We had a staff meeting today and it was someone’s birthday.  This means I had to sit in front of a chocolate cake from Portillo’s the WHOLE MEETING.  Then we had a staff lunch so I had to watch all of my coworkers chow down on some delicious looking sandwiches...and then the cake.

Today is my 35^th day and I know I only have 5 more days to go, but I’m getting really sick of fasting and I the only thing that is getting me through it at this point is pure grit and a commitment I made to myself to do 40 days.

I’m really hungry.  Furthermore, I’m so tired of carrying these water bottles of juice with me everywhere I go.  I miss glasses of wine and being able to taste new things (other than fruits and veggies). 

My body is ready to return to solid foods again, but I’m not prepared yet.  I have an idea of the lifestyle changes that will need to follow this fast, but I need to get my head in the right place.  I don’t want to gain back much weight or lose any of the health benefits of this fast.

I’d like to delve into those benefits now and uncover for you what gets me through fasting:

Clear Skin:  My face looks and feels amazing.  People have commented on a certain “glow” I have and I’m definitely attributing it to the fast.  You’d glow too if all you ever consumed was fresh fruit and vegetable juices.  Of course I did have to go through some bad skin days prior to this – as part of the detox.

More energy:  You’d think that on a 40 day fast I’d be starving and bedridden or tired but I generally feel great from the moment I wake up in the morning.  I have a consistent energy throughout the day and an alertness as though I’d consumed three espressos minus the jitters.  My mind is clear and my body feels great too. 

Weight loss: this is a given, right?  On my 35^th day of the fast I am down 22 pounds since starting, which means 42 pounds since April.  My old clothes from college fit again (even a little big).  Of course other things result when you feel better about how your exterior looks such as more confidence, better fashion decisions and some high credit card bills from the new clothes that look so cute on you now.

Zen: I feel really peaceful and have felt a lot more balanced than usual.  I sometimes can be slightly erratic in my energy levels but with this I feel a sense of calm always.  It’s quite nice actually.

“Can do” Mentality: I just fasted for 35 days!!  Yeah I can get into that yoga pose.  Sure I never have run in my life but yeah, I’mma run your 5k.  Why?  Because I can!

It’s not all peaches and cream.  There are moments, like now, where I have to remind myself of why I am doing this; where I have to make a mental list of the benefits.  I do get hungry.  I miss cooking, eating, drinking, etc.  I especially miss partaking in these activities with friends and family. There is a sense of isolation when you are fasting despite when you are with people.  It’s as though society is all doing one thing (eating regularly) and you’re not a part of it. 

It reminds me of how important cooking was to past societies.  We didn’t develop language until we had fire.**  Some anthropologists attribute this to sitting around fires to cook our food.  Food is such an integral part of being human.  No other species uses language like us and no other species cook their food.  Sharing it with others is even more so. 

Proponents of fasting say you stop getting hungry once you start fasting and it’s true to an extent, but you never really get over the hunger – it just passes in waves.  Also, juice is filling.  I never thought I would say that but I can drink fresh fruit or vegetable juice and feel very full.

There have been some moments where I almost ate.  I’m not perfect and this is difficult, but I didn’t because I realized that I would only be failing myself.  I told myself 40 days and I will complete 40 days and as hard as this is I am seeing the end of the tunnel clearer and clearer.  Five more days to go!  I’d like to say that I am grateful for anyone who has provided me support and encouragement during this time.  It really did/does help.

**I'm fact checking on the language emergence coinciding with the fire/cooking bit.  I remember it from an anthropology class but don't quote me.  Feel free to comment/correct me below.

The Fast: Day 30 and Writing Love Songs to Bread

I’m F*%$*n’ HUNGRY!!

Seriously, I’m starving.  I know people say this all the time but they don’t mean it.  What?  They haven’t eaten “all day” or “since breakfast?”  Try 30 days, bitches! 

I want some hummus with olive oil drizzled on top paired with black olives and vegetables and oh my God, I miss bread.  I came home last night and was messing around with my guitar and somehow started singing a love song to bread.  It went something like this:

You’re the only white thing I like

It’s love at the first bite

I love to pick around your shell

At the soft insides

And the way you cradle

So perfectly the tomatoes

Cucumbers and lettuce too

I’ve had the French one

Italian, Panini, rye

I’ve had the Cuban

Baguette, whole grain

pumpernicccckkkkllllllleee

With olive oil, with cheese

Tomatoes and greens

Hummus oh please…

It just got worse after that so I won’t go on but seriously…Who does that?!?! 

I <3 you...

Yeah, so this fast: I’m glad I’m doing it.  It’s life changing and blahblahblah but I love autumn foods and I want a pumpkin spiced latte with soy milk and no whipped cream and I want to be able to eat butternut squash with cinnamon on top.  I want to eat the caramel apple dammit!  I miss cashews so much.  Oddly enough, the act of chewing is something you can actually miss.  Sometimes when I’m drinking my juice or water or tea I start to get really sick of the act of drinking.  The swallowing becomes forced and sounds like this violent gulping. 

I miss hanging out and grabbing a drink with friends.  The guy(s) I’m dating can’t figure out where to take me that don’t include consumption of some liquid or food item that I simply cannot have.   I’m getting slightly restless and if I could find a way to deliver pinot noir intravenously while simultaneously enjoying the flavor without breaking the fast I’d have done so already.

Yeah, so what if my body feels amazing and I have so much energy and I feel peaceful and clear-minded and accomplished?  So what if I’ve unpacked a lot of emotional baggage I’d been carrying around with me and put it in its proper place?  So what if I’ve proved a lot to myself regarding the amount of discipline, will power and grit I have?  I’m starving!  

The Fast: Day 27; Here it comes: a better version of me

“So why are you doing this?”

I hear this question constantly.  I have so many answers I struggle with what to say first.  My usual quip that I’m sure people are tiring of is because I want to be like Jesus (Jesus fasted 40 days; Jen fasts 40 days), but jokes aside, Jesus has nothing to do with it.

I guess to explain fully I’ll have to go back to California in early April.  There, I experienced an “aha” moment.  I was travelling solo for a few days in Los Angeles and then later met up with my extended family and finally my parents.  I hadn’t seen my aunts in a year and a half and you couldn’t mask their reaction to me when they saw me. 

I didn’t feel well.  I was coming out of somewhat of a depression that I didn’t even know I was in from the year before.  No one said coming of age was going to be easy and I experienced some challenges that year.  My body reflected all of this.  How had it been in one year’s time I managed to gain a whopping 40 pounds?

As soon as I got back to Chicago, I started watching what I ate more closely and exercising regularly and by July I was down 20 pounds.  It was subtle and not dramatic but I felt better.  

Then in August, my coworker popped into my office to ask if I had heard of the Master Cleanse before because she was on her seventh day.  I couldn’t believe it – I had not even noticed (and we have a tiny office).  I had just watched this documentary about juice fasting and considered it a sign that it was time to get back into it.

So why fast?  Most people who know me (and those of you who have followed this blog religiously) know that I’m a very adventurous young woman; from backpacking solo adventures to living with wolves.  The same thing that draws me to do these things is what draws me to unconventional paths to self discovery.

I absolutely loathe stagnation.  I need to constantly challenge myself and put myself in uncomfortable situations to learn and grow.  I’d say abstaining from food and alcohol for a 20-something social butterfly is pretty damn uncomfortable (thank God men are not on that list).

Yes, it’s hard.  Someone told me once that there’s no point in doing anything unless it’s hard because it’s the challenge that forces you to grow and furthermore no one ever achieved anything without sacrifice.

Mountains in Oaxaca, Mexico.  I miss you.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I couldn’t escape to the mountains of Mexico and meditate in a cave for three days so instead I’m fasting.  In the past 27 days the things I’ve learned from doing this are astounding.  I feel like a different person and I still have 13 magical more days to go.  I can say that sometimes I wake up (super energized and happy of course) and think that 40 days is too little – that I should go longer because I feel so good.  Maybe I will.

You’ll have to wait for the next blogs to learn about those discoveries and changes, but I can tell you that the Jen that was 27 days ago is no longer.  In the words of Fiona Apple: “Here comes a better version of me.”

xoxoxo