Day 28... Just a quick note.

I had a whole loaf of this bread -- fifteen hundred calories worth! I had the first half for dinner with Vegan bologna.

I had the second half at 2 am in a fit of insomnia, sweat and thirst. I was a little groggy and I didn't know what I was doing except that I wanted to have that sandwich again... With Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard. Earlier n the evening I made chick peas with Garlic, diced tomato, curly parsley (stem and leaves), crushed red pepper and a shot of olive oil. But I didn't eat it though. Perhaps this evening. The bowl that's pictured has about four cans of chick peas and a can of diced tomato, quarter cup chopped garlic, a handful of parsley and olive oil. Looks good! Smells great! I may sample some with a drop of lemon juice, Lime juice and a sample with white vinegar.

Day 27... Almost Giving Up.

Yesterday was an emotional bomb for me. I had my lunch of cabbage, corn and peppers. I had my vitamins. I finished work. I went to the gym with my 2.3 liter jug of water. I left. Almost in tears. I was obsessing about getting to the gym a bit earlier than planned and needing to spend the extra time on some machine with a twenty minute warm up, only to have to endure the hour of kickboxing aerobics that I face with intense foreboding. Actually, the hardest part of my kickboxing class is the twenty minutes or so before the class. Once we get started I tend to forget how difficult it is, and I do get a rush from the exertion. Once I start working out I tend to push the limits of my capacity either out of habit, or out of an urge to induce the release of endorphins.

I didn't want to go to the gym yesterday, but half way home I turned my truck around and went back. I made back a few minutes early before the class began and I had one of the best workouts of my life. I felt so good afterwards, I wondered why I didn't want to go in the first place. What demon possessed me to think that I should give up something that is both so beneficial while giving me so much satisfaction? I was just so overcome by all the work that I had done, and overcome with all the work that was ahead of me. I also felt overwhelmed that my life would not improve much, even though I was resigned to the idea that I would rather be thin and miserable rather than fat and miserable. My resolve was weakened by the anxiety of having lost so much of my life, coupled by the fact that I wasn't feeling well. I had vegan bologna and a loaf of bread for lunch the day before, followed by corn and cabbage for dinner. Yesterday I had leftover corn and cabbage for lunch (and dinner) and of course I have my vitamins. I have 2000 mg of Niacin, one Kroger brand dieter's support formula multiple vitamin, three 1200 mg softgells of Flaxseed Oil, one 81 mg Aspirin and a few tabs of Ginko Biloba. I have the Niacin first, followed by one to two cups of coffee without cream or sugar. Then I take the other tabs. Perhaps this regimen is provoking an agitated state of mind for me? I think it's because I'm taking too much Ginko Biloba. Wikipedia states as follows, "Ginkgo side effects and cautions include: possible increased risk of bleeding, gastrointestinal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, and restlessness. If any side effects are experienced, consumption should be stopped immediately."

I think I do feel a great deal of irritability from the Ginko I am taking. I think I'll try not taking it just for today. We'll see what happens.

Day 26... The Art of Cooking Vegan .

Last night I ate cabbage mixed with corn, tomatoes and peppers. I added the corn, seeing that corn is probably the highest calorie veggie in my ice box, and I wanted to get rid of it. Since I'm getting rid of this cabbage as well, I thought about mixing the two together. Not that I have anything against cabbage, but next time I will purchase it as I use it, and not buy all of it when it's on sale only to let it go bad in the fridge. Corn however, is another matter. I figure the ratio of nutritional value per calorie is a bit more rich than I would like it to be, so I'm finishing off the last of my corn today & tomorrow, and that if corn comes mixed with other vegetables in a variety pack then it is okay for me to have some. Just eating corn alone or as a main ingredient is off limits for me. Speaking of which, here is a pic of last nights dinner.

I am having leftovers for lunch. Oh yes, by the way, I am eating lunch again. And I did not weigh myself this morning either, which I think is a big improvement in my attitude towards my perception of health. I can't 'suck weight' anymore like a high school wrestler or pro boxer. And I'm tired of not taking a water break during my cardio class. Either veganism is a new way of life with added benefits, or it's just another weight loss gimmick.

Day 25... I'm full of Balogna!!!

I just had the most amazing lunch I've had in a long time. I had vegan bologna sandwiches! I bought a loaf of whole wheat italian bread.

And then I bought this awseome artificial vegetarian bologna. I thought I'd never eat bologna again, and I ate the whole 2.5 serving package. I always had a weakness for balogna.



Last night I chopped and cooked four heads of green cabbage, which were going bad. They sat there in the fridge since some time before the fourth of July and I broke down and cooked them. I poured a layer of extra virgin olive oil on the bottom of a large pot and fried a half cup of chopped garlic, then hand ful by hand ful, I stirred in the cabbage. I added almost two cups of the vegatble base I've been adding to my meals since I've started this blog. I know it will be good. I just hope the bread I ate isn't going to throw off my gains by much. I ate the whole ten inch loaf.

Day 24... The weekend at a glance.

Well, it's finally here my friends. A Sunday afternoon rush to catch up with the weekends gastronomical survey. Last Friday I went to the Sahara restaurant for Middle Eastern cuisine, a great alternative to the Indian restaurant I have attended to. There is a lunch buffet and menu items as well. Mainly, I eat a healthy portion of falafel and a salad of fava beans with tomato and spices. There are stuffed grape leaves, hummus, babaganush, tahini, eggplant, rice and pita bread. There is also fresh salad with lettuce, tomato's, cucumbers and onions. There is tabouli as well, so I really feel satisfied when I have lunch there.

But then there was an awful bit of business I had to tend to at my mom's home. She wanted me to remove a couple of credenzas I own, to make way for a bed in her Florida room, and also she complained about the two cats one of my brothers brought home to her. I guess people just assume moms are the ultimate caregivers, but that doesn't necessarily apply to the caring of cats. Another note is that my family is not aware of the fact that a litter box must be cleaned every day, and also the idea of cleaning a litter box seemed too much for them to handle (and that made me upset). I raced home that evening and stopped for gas, grabbed a couple of small bags of kettle cooked chips and a soda and got to my moms house where she had made a dinner of whole wheat pasta and Rapini (otherwise known as Broccoli Rabe). I had a salad with that and a couple slices of 'roman meal' bread (exactly how roman it is I am not sure, but it seemed like a hearty wheat bread anyhow). I had two Boca burgers with tomatoes, lettuce and onions. I had a quarter cup of almonds and a banana and went to bed. The next morning I had some toast with olive oil spread. Had a cup of coffee and drove off to reclaim my credenzas with my brothers help. When we got to the city I treated my brother to a Venti Starbucks frappachino and I had a double shot of espresso -- black with sugar.

We came home with news I hoped to hear. My mom and my sister were able to bring the two kittens to the local SPCA. and all was well. I had a second bowl of Rapini and whole wheat pasta, much to my moms disappointment (that portion was meant for her). Then my bro and I went to the beach for a swim. I did a variety of water type exercises, like walking in the water and swimming laps. I felt like rubber coming out of the water, but I pulled myself together and walked along the beach for what seemed like about 45 minutes. I had so much to think about on that walk. Mainly I thought about the blog I've been writing and how incremental the process of losing weight has been. I had a dinner of two Boca burgers on toast with sauteed squash flowers, tomatoes, onions and lettuce. Then I came home to the city. Saturday had come and gone.

Today after church I went to a favorite Mongolian barbecue place and I did my best to eat fourteen dollars worth of veggies, tofu, fruit and rice. I wish I took pics of my dinner. It was quite a meal I can assure you. A family from church had showed up. I thought, what would they think If they saw me here. They might say that my eating vegan is a bunch of nonsense, that everyone here comes for the crab legs and shrimp. Well, I've shared about eating there once before, and I've eaten vegan there again so I don't see the problem there. There may be a reason for me 'not' to go to that restaurant since they do serve so much meat, and I may exclude that from my list of eateries in the future. As I make progress I may come to the conclusion of my experiment, becoming wholly vegan may be a choice for me. I still regard meats and eggs with some fondness, but far less so today than I used to in the past. For dairy and cheese, my feelings have not entirely diminished. I still feel that animals can have jobs and should be fairly employed to provide us with milk and cheese. But I'm not eating it right now. I am sure that even if I have failed veganism to some degree, I have practiced a form of strict vegetarianism that comes close to it, therefore I'm quite sure of the results, and eating vegan is is showing some signs of real progress as a way of life for me. We'll see. I may have to celebrate my forty second birthday with ice cream made with tofu.

Day 22... Dinner has been served.

Please click on the title to view the cooking slideshow for tonights dinner.

I have a desk job. On most days the only thing that moves are my fingers and right handed wrist (thanks to the mouse or 'digital pointing device' if you will). I have no way of knowing how many calories I burn. But I can tell you this much -- I burn as few calories as humanly possible. If I burn any less I would be legally dead. That's why I go to the gym almost every day, and as painful as it sounds, I try to make two classes each day to keep my heart rate up and bring my health back into shape. If I had it my way though I would get a job in a nursery and work in a greenhouse. It's hard work. Your outside all day. You 're surrounded by plants and you help living things to grow which is always a positive influence. But finally, and most importantly, you are physically active and working hard. I think gardening is the best vocation anyone can ever have. Landscaping may be another vocation that is physically liberating. I'd like to get back into it these days, and I think about traveling just an hour or so from work and buying a home with acreage, because I have this dream of growing my own organic produce and canning food for the winter.

As a child I worked on a Connecticut farm that was famous for corn. The Larsen's farm had a roadside stand and also sold corn and other produce to local markets as well. We harvested mainly corn, string beans, green peas, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, gourdes, pumpkins. We had dairy cows, some pigs and we also bailed hay as well. It was good, hard and healthy work. I remember loading up in the back of Al Larsen's blue Chevy truck bed with me and my brothers, and going out to the field early in the morning. The dew was ice cold and the briar's and sharp corn stalk leaves would leave my skin raw with what seemed like a million paper cuts and stings. We would pick corn as soon as the sun came up, fill the back of his truck by ten or so, and maybe fill that truck three or four times in a day. Eventually the dew would evaporate, and we would be soaked with sweat, and when that evaporated, then we were just dirty. Some of our rich friends from high school would drive by as they went off to have their summer fun and they would blow their horn and shout obscenities or laugh as their cars screamed north on route seven -- probably on their way to Kent Falls or the lake.

I was about eleven years old when I started working on the farm, and I worked every summer practically all of my life. This was supposed to build up character in me, and instill me with values that prized hard work. Why do I suffer from morbid obesity then? Why am I so physically inactive? I'm sorting it all out for now. But I did have corn for dinner last night. I actually photographed all my cooking but forgot to bring my camera to the office today. Last night I pressed and cut Tofu into thumb sized chunks and then I used an olive oil spray on my George Forman grill I found at a thrift store. I wanted to experiment with cooking Tofu on a Forman grill, so I started out by getting something used. It worked great. You have to use the no-stick olive oil spray though, to help the bean curd get that toasted brown exterior that actually makes it taste good. I grilled it by adding some of my special sauce and a few garlic cloves towards the end of the fifteen minutes it took to cook Tofu. Then I ate that good stuff with more of my sauce (which tastes better cooked by the way), a concoction I dreamed up with crushed red pepper, orange marmalade, soy sauce, lime juice and fresh minced ginger. I was still hungry so I broke out a bag of frozen cut corn and threw that in the skillet with my vegetable base I made just before the 4Th of July. That veggie base consisted of several varieties of diced peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro, mushrooms and minced ginger. After cooking that mix I took the corn off the skillet (four cups, or about five servings) and into a bowl and I added a can of diced tomatoes and a little extra virgin olive oil to taste. That was a surprisingly good dish and I went to bed that night feeling satisfied. I eat well, and I keep my calories low.

But today is Friday, and more than likely I will go out to the Indian buffet or Middle Eastern buffet. They have quite a selection of vegan friendly dishes available to me. And of course, there is no gym class on Friday night, and I am not going to go to the gym and jump on a human hamster wheel either. I'll probably just do something around the house instead. Everyone needs a break every now and then.

Day 21... The long road ahead.

I know this is all just a precursor to the book I intend to write about this whole experience. I mean, I don't intend to write about 'how to lose weight' like so many other self-help health guru's out there just trying to capitalize on there success. I intend to write a memoir of my life as an obese person, a man losing weight and the life hear after.

If I achieve my goals I can finally know what it's like to be 'normal', which is something I've never been. I've never been thin. I have been as much as overweight, but not normal. You see, not long ago I came to the conclusion that If I had it my way, I'd rather be thin and miserable, rather than fat and miserable -- the latter being the only reality I've known for most of my life. The phase of suffering that I have entered in my obesity is intolerable for me, and I have dieted in every manner I can think of, with the exception of the diet that most closely resembles a vegan.

So you see, the test is not whether or not I can eat vegan and lose weight -- I know I can eat vegan and gain weight for sure. Lots of whole wheat bread and olive oil will do that to me. But in using the principals of Veganism, I can narrow my choices of foods and make better decisions when it comes to replacing the calories in bread and cheese with more vegetables instead. So the book in my mind is not one of a quirky vegan diet with recipes in the appendix, but rather a first person account of a man desperate to shed the extra bag of Portland Cement he's been carrying for all these years. It's a memoir of the real experiences I am going through, like the fact that I don't talk about breakfast or lunch here in my blog. That's because I don't eat breakfast or lunch. I have coffee during the day, and occasionally I'll splurge and have sugar free Popsicles which I throw in the microwave for twenty seconds because they are always impossibly too hard to eat in there frozen state. I will only eat after a workout, and on many nights I just cook Tofu bricks -- two to be exact. The other night I cut them into triangles and deep fried them. they were not good. But last night I found in the answer. I took an old Forman grill, sprayed the cooking surface with olive oil in an areasol can and cut the Tofu into four steaks -- four perfect steaks. They cooked firm golden brown and they went okay with Dijon mustatrd. I will try them with curry sauce next time. The night before I cut some garlic and sauteed it in olive oil, and I had tofu with olive oil, which was pretty good. Tomorrow I shall have a dinner of fresh vegetables in marinara sauce. How's that?

I am a lazy cook. But as you can see, no vegan in there right mind would live the way I do. However, I am an office worker and so I use very little energy to begin with. I'm pretty much planted into one seat or another durring the course of the day, then I go to the gym and work out as if my life depended on it. Now there's another situation. I go to the gym almost every day after work. You would think I'd sleep well after a workout. However, the opposite is true. The excersize energizes me and I have a hard time falling asleep. I doze off at least once a day at work and on friday the gym takes a day off and I go home and colaps in my bed and sleep ten hours. But I say to myself, don't give up yet, dont give up. There's just over sixty days left for my great experiment. Don't give up.

Day 20... Weighing in on my options.

I've decided to convert to a weekly weight chart. The answer is simple. Each day I weigh myself at least four or five times - a few times in the morning, a few times just before I work out, at least once after I work out and a few times when I get home. Last night I tried to weigh myself on my new trustworthy digital scale and each time I stepped on the thing it gave me readings between 358 and 362 pounds. It drove me nuts. With the whirl of the air conditioner and the more consistent readings of 361.8 pounds this morning, I have come to the conclusion that the scale measures more consistently when the room temperature is not unbearably hot as it is during the day when I'm not there. Plus, daily weight fluctuations change drastically during the day, coupled with the fact that the prevailing wisdom in the fitness world today is that you should not weigh yourself more than once a week.

But I stipulate that I will record my weight once a week. How many times I weigh myself during the day is a private matter, because it has become a compulsion and it helps me stay on the front lines of my effort. I will record my weight on a seven day cycle, beginning with July 4th of 2008, and I will revise this blog accordingly to show what is now called a 'weekly weight chart'.

Day 19... Leftovers, again.

Well, that's the last of my cabbage carrot concoction in a bag. I still have about three or four heads of cabbage in the fridge with the outer skin turning to parchment. I swear, green cabbage is like chemotherapy for fat. You can never eat too much of the stuff, and the more you eat, the more weight you lose. There is a catch though. You must eat it raw, or cooked to the edge of softness, otherwise it's useless. Tonight I will have my favorite -- deep fried tofu with mixed vegetables. Tofu, green cabbage and fresh vegetables are the real fat killers. They also make you feel good when eaten often.

The only thing I can say about fresh veggies is that you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight. I could never say that about the Atkins diet. I've actually lost a bit of weight on the Atkins diet, before I even knew it was the Atkins diet. Back in high school the accountant at the factory where my dad worked told my brother about a no-carbohydrate high-protein diet, and for years I was on the all protein yo yo -- eating tuna fish for days until I'd get to feeling sick, and then switching to cottage cheese, which in turn would give me diarrhea and headaches.

I associate the Atkins diet with diarrhea and headaches now. Then I discovered foods that were high in fiber but low in sugar, like whole wheat products, but that did not help matters much. If anything, I learned that too many so called 'good carbs' will help me maintain my weight, and even help me gain a little. But then, what are good carbs anyhow? I always thought they were whole wheat pasta, whole grain bread, pretzels, cereals and so forth. The fact is that once you take whole grains and pulverize them, boil them, bake them and add salt to them, they seem to be... well, how should I put it... a little less whole. Granted, if I must eat pasta, bread or snacks of one sort or another, it's gotta be the whole grain variety or nothing at all. But during my period of active weight loss I have to keep those 'bread' products to a minimum. Whole grains are something for me to gradually add as a basic staple after I achieve my goal of a normal weight. But if I want to stay fat, all I need to do is eat plenty of whole grain pasta, bead and whole wheat pretzel sticks.

Day 18... To weigh or not to weigh, that is the question.

Once again, on Sunday I had two bags of coleslaw/cabbage and carrot mix that was testing the limits of it's expiration date. As pictured above, I made a dish from the two bags of coleslaw cabbage (carrots with green and blue cabbage) a white onion (diced), a few cloves of garlic, some lite soy sauce, a spoon full of olive oil, ginger, crushed red pepper and a couple cans of diced no-salt added tomatoes. I sauteed everything (but the tomatoes) until the cabbage had a consistency of cooked noodles. I added a can of red kidney beans and a can of black beans -- strained and washed to get rid of any excess sodium. I added a bag of cut frozen corn. I added a cup of that pepper mushroom base that I made just before the fourth of July. When that was all cooked I had the idea of adding the tomatoes right out of the can thinking it would cool down my dish. It did. The food was great, but I don't think blue cabbage was meant to be cooked (as I have mentioned earlier -- almost the same identical recipe from last Friday). It may be hard to notice, but that is a large bowl with a huge spoon. Look closely and you can see the size of the corn and beans and know what I am talking about. It was a lot of food, and it was reasonably good. Just before cooking I had an odd experience that triggered a craving for hot dogs. I had to fight myself to turn around just as I entered the supermarket parking lot. No big deal, now that I look back. I was just going to get a pack of Morning Star Veggie Dogs but then I realized there are egg whites in this veggie variety. Mostly vegan, kind of like being mostly not pregnant. Anyhow, I made it home and ate the dish that you have up above. It was a bowl as big as my head, and I could barely finish it. My hot dog craving went away. The food above is only half of what I cooked. I'm having the other half tonight. I'll eat just after I weigh in on my new scale. I bought a new scale yesterday. It's amazing. Just an ordinary digital scale with one minor exception -- it can weigh up to 400 pounds. I weighed myself yesterday in the privacy of my own home -- and not having to wear sweaty gym attire. The reason why I mention this is because at my local gym the scale is out in the weight lifting area. I weigh myself right after my workout then go home. The scale at the other gym across town is located inside the dressing room. If I am working out in one gym, and then I decide to take a class or use the sauna at the other, I get two different readings from two scales.

Oddly enough, the scale at the other gym indicates that I actually gain weight after coming out of the sauna. Is it possible for me to gain weight after spending a mere five minutes in the sauna? I don't think so. So for now on I will weigh myself at home, measuring my true weight on a scale placed on a level hardwood floor. I have found that my gym clothes, when soaked with sweat, weigh a whopping 3.8 pounds! Now I will monitor my physical body weight without any sweaty gym attire or weird mechanical fluctuations. The question now is, how often should I weigh myself? I weigh myself every day. it's an obsessive habit, and I may want to change that habit. It is recommended by a variety of resources that you should weigh yourself once a week. I weigh myself every day though. I think I do it because I was conditioned to do so as a member of the high school wrestling team. We weighed ourselves both before and after practice. It's not a good habit because as a result I am reluctant to eat breakfast or lunch, and I tend to eat only right after a workout. I get enough to eat though, and I don't even feel hungry. Why is that the case.

Before I turned vegan I was hungry-out-of-my-mind at around noon time at work. So why is it that now when I make these monster super veggie evening meals I feel so satisfied? Should I give up something if it works for me? I don't know. All I know is, judging by my girth, is that I look as though I can afford to miss a meal or two and that it doesn't matter if I don't feel hungry. I come from a long line of farmers and fishermen, and now the family line is into office work -- a desk job. If my vocation is drastically modified, why shouldn't my eating habits also be modified to adjust to these changes? I speculate that my eating habits can and should change to reflect the lifestyle of an office worker. People like myself need to eat less, and to eat mainly vegetables and foods that provide the best nutritional value per calorie. No worthless calories. Don't eat what you can't burn -- but burn, burn, burn baby burn.

Day 17... Just a quick note.

Friday I made a dish from a bag of coleslaw cabbage (carrots with green and blue cabbage) a white onion (diced), a few cloves of garlic, some lite soy, a spoon full of olive oil, ginger, crushed red pepper and a can of diced no-salt added tomatoes. I sauteed everything (but the tomatoes) until the cabbage had a consistency of cooked noodles. I added a can of great northern beans -- strained and washed to get rid of any excess sodium. When that was all cooked I had the idea of adding the tomatoes right out of the can thinking it would cool down my dish. It did.

The food was great, but I don't think blue cabbage was meant to be cooked. Yesterday I did a class called Body Combat (This fiercely energetic program is inspired by martial arts and draws from a wide array of disciplines such as Karate, boxing, Taekwondo, Tai Chi and Muay Thai. Participants strike, punch, and kick their way through calories to superior cardio fitness), and then I sat in the sauna.

I went shopping, bought a seedless watermelon, did laundry, ate half of that watermelon (I was so dehydrated), and then went to our local Mongolian barbecue buffet and attempted to eat ten dollars worth of tofu, fruits and vegetables. I had a little bit of rice and rice noodles, and the chef cooked me up a serious dish of veggies too. I had the variety of sushi rolls where the fish was substituted with avocado. I had all this awesome food. Last Friday I ate lunch at a middle eastern style buffet where we had a lot of rice, stuffed grape leaves, hummus, eggplant wraps, fallafel and a mixture of string beans and fava beans. I was hugely satisfied. I don't think finding something to eat is really a problem as a vegan. And eating where meat was available was not really a serious temptation. However, I am concerned that all this food is good if I want to maintain a healthy weight or, lose weight in the smallest of increments. I am not enrolled in a plan where I will target losing twenty pounds a year. It would take ten years for me to reach my goal and then I would be a lean 52 year old man, and that would ultimately be a disappointment for me. Those foods drenched in oils and sauces have to be a rare treat for me. White rice and even pita bread with white flour (or any bread or noodle product) must be kept at a minimum, because they are refined carbohydrates, and they will stunt my weight loss. By definition, the process of losing weight is not a healthy one, but it must be employed when the condition of obesity is also a concern. I pick weight loss over obesity any day. But the process of losing weight must be one that is done safely. If I replace the rice, bread and pasta with more vegetables I will maitain my earlier success. I must also look for the same nutrients in vegatbles as there are in fruits. Did you know that there's a lot of vitamin C in tomatoes and bell peppers?

Day 15... It's Friday, and finaly the weekend is here.

At 395 Pounds I looked like a cheerful fellow, enjoying a diet coke at a dairy queen with my kid brother and his girlfriend (not pictured). This was the weekend after memorial day weekend, not to sound confusing. Anyhow, I had already started to change my life a bit, and now I weigh 369.2 pounds. I lost 25 pounds, but surprisingly, I don't think that I look or feel that much different. I am, in fact, thinner in the face now. Also, in the picture I look as though I'm having a good time. The day to day reality is that I spend a lot of time alone, because of my titanic size (most people feel revulsion for my obesity, and some people show pity).

The weekend always welcomed a tense mixture of emotion for me. For one thing, my parents initially moved to the beach area for retirement, and I love the beach, but not just the beach. The coastal area has many natural parks and biking and walking trails. I used to love biking, and I enjoy walking, but I can only do a third of what I used to do when I weighed about 270 pounds. Even then I struggled with obesity. Hard to believe. Anyhow, I looked forward to the two hour drive to get away from the city. I couldn't stand the city. I hated my job at the time. I didn't know anyone and it was hard to get someone to give me a tour of this city. When I did, the tour was just completely disappointing. I've come to believe that people are so dull and disinterested. There are so many parks and opportunities to commune with nature here in this town, and there are so many things to do. Basically I had to figure all of this out for myself. So in the beginning I'd go to the beach for the weekends, but that had a huge drawback -- my family. My family commands a kind of loyalty on a level that is absurd.

So even if I go to the beach, I don't have the freedom to go where I want to go or do what I want to do. Somehow someone has to be involved in it. Also, my family has a way of inflating problems and creating conflict seemingly without provocation. It's difficult -- either someone is drunk, or someone is overeating or somebody didn't take their medication and so forth and so on. So often I would return to the city feeling unrested and not ready to face the work week. But occasionally, if not fifty percent of the time I would have a good visit where no one would be drunk or eating like it's the last hour on earth or taking medication as prescribed and all is well. Those are good weekends. Staying in the city for me is a challenge. My house is always too much for me to keep after, and I am in the process of painting the interior. I scraped most of the layers of paint down to the original wall paper from the 1930's and found the smooth plaster now. that work was so hard that if I had to do it over again, I would not have done that in the first place. I would have done what every owner has done in the past -- cover it up. Actually, looking back, I would have never bought this house in the first place. So you can see how my stress is increased by living in what appears to be a 'shooting gallery' or 'crack house' of sorts, yet I don't do drugs if you catch my drift. It's like living out a contradiction of terms. Inhabiting a contradiction if you will. That's where the anxiety begins. Saturday morning I wake to asses what needs to be done, and then I go out for a buffet style breakfast at Shoney's restaurant. I figure, if I get all of my eating before eleven in the morning then I can eat all I want and all the hard work I do will help burn the fat and calories consumed. So I go to Shoney's and I eat and eat and eat. I eat plate after plate of scrambled eggs, chicken and bacon. Then after bulking up on my animal proteins I sample everything else. Lots of tater tots. Biscuits and gravy. Some pancakes. I do get my moneys worth, but at a cost.

By then, all the free coffee in the world can't do the trick, so I head over to the local Starbucks and order a tall coffee with an extra shot of espresso, and I begin to call the few people I know. I drink my coffee and it's already noon by then. I call that kind of eating 'getting my courage up' so I could have the strength to do what a man's gotta do. The reality is that the strain to my digestive system was so great that I can feel my pulse throbbing on my internal organs (mainly my stomach). I would begin to work. I would have no excuse then. If I woke up a little late I would do the same thing, only I'd join the lunch crowd at the Mongolian barbecue. And then on Sunday I sang in the choir and usually I'd go out to lunch with members of my church afterwards. If I had a normal meal then, I would have a normal dinner. I define normal as a foot long sub at Subway. Never cooked at home. During the week I'd hit the drive thru for Taco Bell or Arbys. For lunch I would also go out. It was wasteful and unsatisfying existence. I haven't done any of these things since I started the vegan experiment. No more meals of courage' for me. No running home to the beach this weekend. I will stay in the city, work on my house and go to the gym. Finlay, the weekend is here.

Day 14... Calories, and what I have to know about them...

Wow! I just found out how many calories I need to maintain my current weight! I weighed just over 372 pounds yesterday after hip hop hustle class, but if I stopped going to the gym all together I would return to a lifestyle that can be best described as slightly more than sedentary. Basically, I get up in the morning, shower, put on my clothes, drive to work, sit in an office chair all day, drive off to some other sit down church or library oriented activity, stop at the grocery store and go home to eat then sleep. The next day I get up and do it all over again! I consider that an inactive lifestyle. Well, if I were proud to be fat and I wanted to maintain my glorious weight of 372 pounds while continuing to live the way I do at the tender age of 42, then all I need is a whopping 3000 calories a day! Why, a pound of body fat consists of 3,500 calories alone. If I starved I wouldn't even lose a pound of body fat in a day! If I were 'very active' which is the opposite end of the activity scale, then I would only need 4,200 calories per day to maintain a figure that can be best described as corpulent. Thank God I can go to the gym and work out! The range for me, once I do hit my target weight of 200 pounds, is about 2300 to 3250 calories, depending on my level of activity. Wow! That just blows apart the old food pyramid I grew up with. With this limitations on calories I don't even think you can use anything like a food pyramid. Like, my food pyramid would begin with fresh vegetables, salad greens, or a head of green cabbage sauteed with onions, and possibly beans. The next level you would have lesser amounts of whole grain rice, or shredded wheat and soy milk (both the unsweetened variety) and perhaps oatmeal as well. Then just above that (if I were to eat meat) there would be fish, Tofu, lean chicken and the like. Close to the top you would have fresh fruits, all natural fruit bars and dried fruits. At the very peak where you would have the absolute smallest quantities there are nuts and oils. There it is. The only reasonable food pyramid I could possibly tolerate now that I know how many calories I must consume to maintain my health. I wonder what today's food pyramid looks like, and how it compares to the one I just described (I'll give you a hint -- use your mouse to click on today's food pyramid to find out!). But I'm not trying to maintain my weight at an enormous scale. I'm trying to lose it. I hate being an infidel, but that's what I am deep down inside... I'm vegan by default, knowing that I do love to eat meat. But I don't eat it. If I don't eat meat, I don't eat cheese or drink milk. It's just that simple. I do it to lose weight, not because I love animals. I do love animals, but I enjoy eating meat, fish, poultry and dairy too. My body loves eating those things as well, because I've been eating them all my life, and my body has rewarded me by turning my 'rear end' into a portable Lazy-Boy recliner. Now I'm doing something different. Now I'm changing. Wish me luck.

Day 13... Don't get ahead of myself.

Last night I finished the vegan chili I made. Tonight I think it's bean curd and mixed vegetables. We will see. I cannot look that far into the future. I try not to anyway. But the reality is that at the current rate, if I were to meet my goals (which is to achieve a normal body mass index) it would take fourteen months. That's fourteen months of cardio kick boxing (TaeBox) and any other high impact-cardio-aerobic exercise I can do. That's fourteen months of eating vegan -- preparing all my meals as a strict vegetarian, but also cutting out most of the refined carbohydrates (breads, white rice and pastas) and keeping sodium and fat to a minimum. The reality is that I have to replace all refined flour products with a fresh vegetable in order for me to keep up with these results. Can I do it? I don't know. Emotionally I suffer the most about an hour before going into a gym class because of the anticipation of all the hard work. But there is no other way to do it. Scientific research proves that in order to exercise effectively one must achieve a target heart rate for the best results. You have to maintain a consistent and steady elevated target heart rate in order to get the exercise you need to lose weight, build strength and endurance. A brisk walk in the park is at the low end of that heart rate. I won't lose any weight even if I eat a strict vegetarian diet. The most I would do is maintain this enormity of a problem if I choose not to exercise. But being a vegetarian, for me, is essential in aiding me to achieve my goals. My goals are simple. I want to achieve a normal body mass index. Exercise, and eating a strict vegetarian diet are essential parts of this goal. I need to get the most nutritional value per calorie for my dietary needs. I personally feel that this can only be achieved by adopting a new way of life for me. The ongoing debate for me is becoming a vegan, and that's at the heart of this storm. In a little more than two months from now I will know where I stand. I just need to remind myself that -- as an initial experiment -- it's just temporary for now. I have to remember not to get ahead of myself.

Day 12... Chili night.

I love chili. Don't you? What's not to love about it. It's spicy, tasty and easy to make. My post workout meal was this. I pulled my chili base out of the freezer -- a concoction of different beans, corn, no-salt-added crushed tomatoes, chili powder mix and an additional scoop of spices left over from when I was trying to cook Indian food. There must have been cumin, and I know there was cinnamon, paprika, chili powder and crushed red pepper. Then of course you have cilantro. Well, I mixed that with my vegetable base of cooked onions, several varieties of pepper, lemon grass, ginger root, mushrooms and cilantro. That had also been frozen. What was described above had been cooked in bulk prior to the fourth of July, and is frozen in easy to thaw containers. Throw all that in the pot and add a bag of cut corn and a bag of Lima beans. Then I finely chop one onion and a head of green cabbage and throw that in a skillet with a few drops of blended vegetable oil. Cook for a while and stir often, but try not too overcook, and add a few cloves of garlic using the hand held garlic press. When that is all done I throw the cabbage in the pot with the chili, and add another can of salt-free diced or chopped tomatoes. Cook all that in a pot with a lid until the mixture starts to boil. Always remember to stir often. That is it! I did have some rice spring roll wrap (like a rice wafer) that requires water to soften them up. At first I made a couple of rolls and ate, but it was kind of a mess. Then I had at least three or four more wafers, but I used a scissor to cut them up into noodles and they readily absorbed the chili and were almost identical to chow fun noodles. You can make vegan lasagna with this stuff! Over the weekend I visited my sister and family again, and took my sister to the bus station last Saturday night. I walked for miles on the boardwalk, then rode my beach cruiser bike for miles. I spent two afternoons at the beach, doing a lot of swimming and exercises in the water. I rode my same bike again for ten miles along a wildlife trail and took pictures of some deer and a huge copperhead that I can't wait to show you. I ate a lot of Boca burgers, a pack of Morning Star veggie hot dogs, at least a cup full of almonds, lots of bread, lots of tofu that was both grilled and pan fried, some veggies and a lot of watermelon. I had a few of Edy's fruit bars and a few hand fulls of non-dairy vegan pistachio energy bars. I ate a lot of rye bread and some olive oil. Lots of diet soda -- a tradition for my family. I went out to eat at a chinese bistro with my sister and had veggie spring rolls, veggie dumplings and mixed vegatbles and tofu curry with brown rice. Basicly, I ate a lot, as much as I cared to eat. Couldn't possibly eat another bite more, if you catch my drift. Last night before I cooked dinner I did two hours of high impact aerobics -- both an ultimate intervals class and a step class. Tonight I will go to a TaeBox and an Ab-Blast class. The bottom line is that I lost weight. I lost a lot of weight and not once do I feel deprived. Did I mention I drink a lot of ice coffee too. Sweetened. No creamer.

Day 11... And still vegan -- sort of.

I received a bit of constructive criticism from someone across the Internet, insisting that unless I swear off all products that abuse or 'murder' animals, then I cannot be a vegan, nor should I call myself a vegan. I can't even use honey because it requires that bees are killed as part of the process of making honey in the first place. I can't wear my leather shoes, right? I cannot wear anything that has wool in it either. It is a tall order, but I have great respect and admiration for those who live the purist lifestyle of the vegan. I did stipulate in my header statement above that my experiment involves 'the heart of eating vegan' however, though in the process I may consider relinquishing my leather shoes.

I was told that at the very least I should call myself an extreme vegetarian, and refrain from calling my experiment 'vegan' in any way shape or form. This is all admirable, and I will examine it more closely as a possibility for me, but for now it is enough of a challenge for me to just follow the diet. Many cultures over many centuries have adopted the idea of having great reverence for animals which are used for food, medicine, tools and clothing, and some would argue that throwing away a perfectly good pair of leather shoes would dishonor the sacrifice that was made by killing that animal in the first place. I personally feel that I can continue to use the shoes or clothes that I have with the stipulation that in the future I purchase products that support the vegan philosophy. For example, this weekend I visited the beach and walked for miles on my bare feet. The soles of my feet were starting to get raw and I needed a pair of sandals. I entered a clothing store on the main drag and found the best pair of sandals I could find. All of it synthetic.

We may not ever be able to directly measure the harm these chemicals caused during the process of liberating them from the geological matrix, but I do know imitation leather when I see it! Just as long as there was no wool or animal skin used in the making of those sandals. And the first thought that came to mind when I bought sandals was getting a sweet pair of Birkenstock! That was a close call. Fortunately I remembered to buy slippers made without harming any animals in the process. What do new vegans do when they decide on veganism? Do they bury their clothes insisting that this is as close to a proper funeral as these creatures will ever get? Do they give those clothes away to the salvation army believing that their wool suits and leather shoes can still continue to serve a purpose. What about silk? Not vegan, I'm sure. I will make every effort to make my life more vegan though. Perhaps I will put aside my wool and leather clothes until after October. Perhaps I'll be sold on vegaism and never turn back,

Day 6... A Life Under Construction...

Yesterday at the gym we had quite a workout, and I weighed myself at a new low of 377.8 pounds. Actually, it's only recently a new low in that I can't remember the last time I weighed that much. And actually I do remember. It was when my dad died and I was in mourning for about three months or so. It was a difficult time for about a month before he died, and his health had been going downhill for about a year before that. he was young. 69 years old. He died of pulmonary fibrosis, even though his body was still strong, an episode of pneumonia killed him -- it took a whole month of suffocating and it was over. That was over three years ago. It was hard for all of us, and for these reasons I think my mourning was much more difficult. At the time I had the worst job in my life, working for the worst boss in my life. A man so deeply insincere that I should have quit my job long before my dad got sick. But I did not. I was told a bunch of lies about our company future, a company where I was the only one left before the reality sunk in. I had bought my first house and it was a burden I was just getting used to, so quiting a job was something I could not do freely. This man was antagonizing me about job performance not long after my dad passed away, and of course I would go for days without eating, and when I did eat I had to force myself. Every bite was a chore. I was mourning my dads death. But I had to snap out of it, is what the man in the office said. So I went to my doctor and explained my plight and I requested a trial run of zoloft to get me through that difficult time. Medication, I thought, could offset some of the features prominent during my period of grief. Well, it did help me snap out of it. It also reversed my appetite to where I was eating a lot, and eating primarily drive-thru food. I was eating and eating and eating. I was probably around 370 pounds at my lowest point, but when I started eating I went right back up to around 410 pounds. After a few months of that I got off the medication again, but the weight certainly did not fall off. I oscillated at around 400 pounds and I had a few years of false starts and fits of health kicks that I associate with as failed lifestyle experiments. One experiment I do not regret is getting another job. I don't ever work for minimum wage with the promise of 'DOT COM' millions waiting for me in the future anymore -- I don't care how new or innovative the business is. I don't work for salesmen anymore -- especially ones who lie to their customers and employees. And I don't take the first job simply because I need a job. Obesity breeds insecurities and feelings of insecurity in every dark corner of your life. Slowly I am rebuilding my life by tearing it down. From when I started, my doctor indicated that I had to lose 200 pounds to reach a goal of a normal healthy weight. It's like buying a house and remodeling it to suit my needs. The house is too big. I must cut it in half. In my mind I am tearing down half of my house. The former occupant was too needy and he took a perfectly good size home and added space over the years. Over the years he became more complacent -- more lazy -- with his craftsmanship. After a while the house no longer looked like a home, but was transformed into an assembly of poorly constructed plywood boxes painted over at times to hide the apparent ugliness. Getting good use out of the home was intolerable, because the nice rooms were deep inside and could not get any natural light. I am tearing as much as half of that house down to reveal a sweet and hunky little brick cape underneath. If I need more storage space, I can build a shed out back, or better yet I'll just give away what I don't use. My house is under construction.

Day 5... Exercise!

I've been going to the gym almost every day now -- remember, this is a lifestyle experiment with eating vegan at it's core. So we may never know the pure benefit of being a vegan eating couch potato (or couch carrot perhaps, even though the potato is a vegan food).

I have been going to the gym at least from Monday to Thursday, and this week my after work special is as follows:

An hour of Step Aerobics on Mondays.

One hour of Tae Bo style Kick Boxing Aerobics on Tuesdays & Thursdays.

An hour of Hip Hop style Dance Aerobics on Wednesday.

Friday is always hit and miss since the gym doesn't offer an after work class then. And I've been very busy on Saturdays & Sundays for a variety of reasons.

I've been on this exercise schedule for a few weeks now, but all that's going to change. I'm instigating rule number two -- an hour of rigorous exercise a day.

Yesterday I feasted on a dish of bean curd deep fried in blended oil. I mixed a sauce of orange marmalade, finely chopped ginger root, crushed red pepper and a dash of low sodium soy sauce. It was one of the best meals I have ever made or eaten, by far a replacement for the nachos I've enjoyed in the past. I deep fried the tofu cut in slabs and fried two pieces at a time in a Presto FryDaddy deep fryer. Today I've had two cups of black coffee, unsweetened, and one cup of sweetened ice coffee, which I made at work with what was left over in the coffee pot. I draw the line with cold coffee -- that must be sweetened.

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Day 4... And we begin to lay down the brickwork...

Last night I came home to my lonely dogs and started with a snack of what amounted to a handful of pretzels (compliments of my kid sister from her long bus ride here). Then, I had a big home made slaw of pre-shredded cabbage with chick peas (garbanzos to you mister) minced black olives, diced onions, minced fresh ginger and some of that spicy hot vegetable base I made earlier. Usually at the end of the evening when I am alone I tend to 'wolf down' my meals, but something about this combination of vegetables (which was surprisingly tasty) slowed me down a bit and I had to force the last half dozen bites. Somehow, the shift from an unrestricted eat-as-you-will diet to a lifestyle of carefully prepared meals has altered my approach to eating. I tent to chew my food more thoroughly now. I'm not as hungry during the day and I feel very satisfied when I eat my own meals, as opposed to scarfing down an accoutrement of items from the Taco Bell drive through. I wonder if food prepared and distributed by corporations is altered to trigger my food addictions within me. I'm not a chemist, so my speculation is just that -- speculation. And if you visit Taco Bell's web site you can see a great deal of nutritional information on the foods that they prepare along with some sound advice as well. I've always felt that Taco Bell had the best options for eating healthy in regards to all the drive-thru eateries out there. Unfortunately, fast food is off limits for me. Rule number one -- no drive thru's what-so-ever. Unfortunately I placed myself at risk today when I skipped breakfast and lunch. I must admit I was a little hungry this afternoon, but I skipped because I forgot to bring my lunch and I didn't have time to run to the grocery store. I was worried that I would cave in and break that first rule. But I did not. I'll eat well tonight though. I'm planning a new recipe from the Student's Go Vegan Cookbook with some bean curd. I hate using the word Tofu. It sounds more like the stuffing they put in mattress than the intense power-food that it really is. Anyhow, I'll eat well tonight. This lifestyle experiment is not about starving myself I can guarantee you that!

Day 3... Something to chew on.

Since my great Lifestyle Experiment began I've been cooking, eating, traveling, visiting with family and trying new foods all over the place. It's a holiday weekend well known for grilling meat and eating well, and I have to say I did prepare myself for battle. let me start with this. On the fourth of July I ate a lot of my own vegan chili -- having cooked two bags of dried beans (otherwise known as five bean soup) and throwing in the last bit of mystery spices that I mixed all together from when I thought I would cook curry, or chili-from-scratch. I made, ate & froze a lot of vegetarian chili. Also I had the last bit of corn tortilla chips to go with my food as well. That night my kid sister rolled into town on a ten hour trip on a grey hound bus. It was late and after I got her situated we called it a night. I had slept probably less than two hours due to the fact that I drank all but two of the last of my Diet Pepsi Max and a large ice coffee from Starbucks. The next day I felt awful but the idea of reaching for food as a comfort did not enter my mind. I took my sister to a Saturday morning farmers market and we ordered two ice coffees, then I took her to what I call a health food headquarters for our town -- a fashionable, sleek and trendy organic supermarket that shall be remain anonymous for now. She had a meatless roast-beef-imitation wrap that tastes just like roast beef. I had a spinach pocket, two big vegan cookies and an apple juice.

Now the fun begins.

We drive a whole two hours to our mothers house. I have a traditional dish of broccoli rabb and whole wheat pasta, and then I take my mom out for grocery shopping. I get a tube of that famous Gimme Lean sausage and a family size box of original Vegan Boca Burgers. When I get home I begin to cook a couple of those veggi Burgers when my other sister (who happens to live with my mom) comes home from her lunch break from the meat department at her job. She comes in with a huge package of cheddar cheese infused hamburgers, rolls and other stuff I wasn't even paying attention too. When you see the strands of cheddar blended in with the meat, everything else around it seems like a blur. One of my brothers who was visiting that day cut into her with a lot of teasing about being fat, and how bad a choice it was for her to buy the burgers. My mother chimed in as well. It was awful. She does have an eating disorder, but regardless, she has to eat so she breaks open the burgers just as I put the veggi Burgers in the Microwave. That same microwave also acts as an overhead lamp & fan for our cook top, where my sister proceeds to fry up what seemed like a whole no-stick pan of the stuff. My mom went crazy, first with the grief she had to go through by seeing her overweight adult daughter dealing with food the way an unrepentant alcoholic deals with booze. Then the smell of fried High fat content hamburgers & cheddar was smoking up the whole house.

At that moment I politely told my sister that I began a strict vegan diet, and I asked her if she was aware of that fact. Naturally she said no.

I spend the better part of that hour telling everyone to leave her alone. My mom and my siblings were trying to make her feel bad, and I had to fend them off. Unfortunately I understood what my sister was going through. She was at a terrible place where food was perhaps the only thing that gave her any real comfort. I sat down next to her and built up a mighty pair of veggie burgers with lots of onion, tomato, wheat bread, lettuce, pickles, mustard and ketchup and ate. Though the smell of pan fried cheese and meat was intoxicating I felt satisfied with my meal. I felt satisfied and I was never more determined than at that moment.

Later on that day the same brother that antagonized my sister took the same cheddar cheeseburgers and a whole assortment of meats and made a barbecue that would raise your cholesterol just looking at that scene. And they ate. I pulled out my trusty tube of Gimme Lean sausage and bragged about how it tastes just like sausage and yet has absolutely no fat. In response like a broken record everyone kept asking me to cook my imitation sausage on the grill outside. Of course, why not suggest wrapping the this Gimme Lean in bacon -- that should help!

I had to explain that I can't cook my food with meat. I explained that if I did so, I would essentially mix my food with the juices of meat and that would not be very vegan of me (as much as I love meat -- and I really do). I gave my mom a taste of the fake sausage and she did not like it at all! I was shocked and dismayed. I loved the huge serving of three giant fat free patties. Now I had to use the buns and bread that was there, but if it were my own house, I would just skip the bread and cook with a whole lot of mixed vegetables. I didn't see a whole lot of mixed vegetable this weekend. Go figure.

I was pretty full after that, but my real worry was waking up in that half hypnotic state where I am invariably drawn to the fridge late at night. Strangely enough I only really suffer this phenomenon at my parents house -- and for what reason I do not know. I was afraid to wake up and reach for the meat. Well I did wake up and the meat was there. But I reached for a couple of plum tomatoes and some rye bread instead. I ate and that was it. Day two had come and gone.

Now today was day three. No meat lovers hangover. No solid feeling, like a brick somehow inhabited my lower abdomen. No difficult bowel movements. I got up, had a cup of black coffee and eventually nagged my kid sister in going to the beach with me. First we went another local holistic type of health food store. I had vegan chicken fingers and a vegan cookie and it was really good. We bought some gogi berries and a hand full of pistachio honey nut bars and at the counter I grabbed a couple of other vegan friendly snacks. I ate very little of that, spent a couple hours at the beach with another sweetened large ice coffee by your one and only Starbucks. Then we went home and I had a couple more veggi Burgers in pretty much the same fashion. My sister likes the veggi burgers, but again my mother didn't. I also bragged to everyone about how low fat they were. But you know what, it didn't matter. I ate my veggie burgers and remained very satisfied.

Whoever said that getting enough to eat would be a problem as a vegan was out of their mind.

I left my kid sister at home and traveled two hours back to my own house so I could come out and get in this daily post for you to read. I'm dying for your comments here -- and I know some friends and family are reading this! Anyhow, it's getting late and I have to go. Happy reading and happy eating!

Day 2... Of the Great Experiment...

From the Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary:

ex·per·i·ment
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French esperiment, from Latin experimentum, from experiri
Date: 14th century
1 a: test, trial b: a tentative procedure or policy c: an operation or procedure carried out under controlled conditions in order to discover an unknown effect or law, to test or establish a hypothesis, or to illustrate a known law 2: obsolete : experience 3: the process of testing : experimentation

Hello again and welcome to The Vegan Experiment -- a personal lifestyle experiment into the heart of eating vegan.

This is day two. I visited my family today and was bombarded by a belated fourth of July celebration of massive amounts of barbecue! And I staved with my own ample supply of veggie burgers, salads and whole grain breads. All in all, the outcome was good. But however, I am stranded at a pay-as-you-go web station and I don't have the luxury of exploring this situation for the richness of it's stories and epiphanies. I must go. My sister is sitting besides me and she is waiting to go rent movies.

Gotta go!

Day 1... An Explosion of Flora

I leave you with one older image of me (taken a few years ago), in garb that can only be best described as the official summer uniform of someone who has given up on himself. Self... be prepared to change!

Hello,

This is the day we've been all waiting for. The actual send off date for my new 'lifestyle experiment' of eating vegan. I have been preparing for this three month long event now for the last few weeks, and though I did reserve the right to eat meat up to and including yesterday, I did behave well and refrained, only to allow myself a final meal of a brick of extra sharp cheddar cheese (8 servings, technically) melted over low fat tortilla chips. That was yesterday evening. I was at the grocery store late last night and I thought that I truly needed to celebrate my day to have the right to being a carnivore of sorts. I was actually shopping for fresh ginger, orange marmalade and lime juice for a dressing that I wanted to try, but the thought of celebrating my famous last meal did pop in and out of my head like a weird subconscious game of whac-a-mole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whack_a_mole) and I thought, well it's only the right thing to do to eat 'something' related to animals. I thought, I will not eat meat, but I can eat cheese, ice cream & eggs (or anything containing these products). Then I thought that eggs would be another form of eating flesh, and ice cream will give me diarrhea. Then, the thought of how much I love cheese entered my mind. If this was my last meal on earth, I would want it to be cheese -- and I made a bee line to the cooler that had the store brand variety of shredded & brick cheddar and I bought it. But I almost didn't make it out of there without buying something related to meat.

I almost bought a pack of low fat ball park franks -- I really struggled with the idea of getting hot hogs as my famous last meal on earth, and hot dogs are a big favorite of mine. There I was in the check out at the supermarket. It was late at night and the lines were now impossibly long due to all those college kids stocking up on beer for the fourth of July weekend. Suddenly when I began to load my orange marmalade, lime juice and ginger I saw a lone pack of franks oddly placed in the soda cooler by the checkout. I thought that since I already had mustard then this was a sign from God that I should have hot dogs for dinner tonight, and that since these were low fat ball park franks, then this is definitely a sign from God. But I was already in line and I didn't have a chance to go back and get hot dog buns. So I said, huh, some sign from God -- I don't even have any hot dog buns. And just as I said that I turned around and saw a pack of buns laying on the candy rack. Either this is a miraculous sign from God stating that it's okay for me to eat hot dogs tonight or some lunatic changed his mind about hot dogs and put their rejected groceries in the weirdest of possible places. There was a hint though. The buns were resting on a rack of candy -- this was not a sign from God but a trap set up by the Devil himself. Whew! I got out of that one alive. I imagined that it would take a while for me to recover from eating those hot dogs, buns and cheese, and that I wouldn't get my vegan experiment off to a good start. Darn that Devil! He'll have to secretly infuse my broccoli with an injection of bacon juice.

I purchased tortilla chips the other day, along with a whole assortment of other foods. I bought enough canned items to fill one 32 inch wall cabinet completely -- literally a months supply of food for about 25 dollars. I bought about eight cans each of red beans, kidney beans, white beans, chick peas, northern beans and cans and cans of diced no-salt-added tomatoes. I got cans of pitted black olives too. A bag of onions as well as two 16 ounce bags of corn tortilla chips -- 40 percent less fat Hanover brand chips. I also bought bags and bags of this carrot-cabbage slaw mix and several bags of Lima beans and corn. well, yesterday I took a bag of the slaw mix and added one can of chick peas, a can of olives (chopped fine), a few diced onions, a generous amount of grated ginger, bag frozen corn (thawed), a half cup of the peppers-onion-garlic-ginger-cilantro-mushroom-tomato-vegetable bullion base that I made (which occupies a good portion of my freezer). I have to say that this concoction was delicious, and I ate 2 out of 3 containers of that salad during the course of the day. I don't think I'll ever feel deprived by eating this way! Other than that I had a Venti Ice coffee at Starbucks. Black. Sweetened with an extra shot of espresso.

Last night was my last meal though. Nachos. The international food of the community of the self-loathing, self-deprecating and perpetually obese. Nachos. A food that inhabits a tense contradiction between both it's simplicity in contrast with it's intense flavor. Melted cheese over fried chips of ground corn. Goodbye nachos! I should have taken pictures of our send off, but I was too busy eating.

This morning I rushed to get another Ice coffee and I stumbled upon a a gourmet supermarket with a veggie bar the likes of which I can only struggle describe. Every kind of olive, cous cous and bean salad lay before me with almost no cheese in sight (let alone meat). So I went from tray to tray and spooned a bit of everything (but the olives & mozzarella) and sat down in the adjoining coffee shop and ate while I read the cover story of the New York Times release of the FARC hostages from Columbia. I was doing something I hadn't done in a long time. I was in a coffee shop, reading the news paper and enjoying a simple meal. I felt whole again. And I thought, what a great thing it is to celebrate the experience of seeing hostages being rescued just before the fourth of July, and how much more were the prospects of being set free from a life time of obesity and all the sickness and misery that the old lifestyle would incur.

I too am being set free.

Day -2 and counting... Meet The Real Me... At 385 Pounds

A first for me. My first ever 'Before' picture, for my 'before and after' experience. It's actually very sad for me to look at this image. If you were to see my face you would notice a surprisingly resilient smile and thinning hair. It's a face of a man who is unaware of the true dimension of his problem from below the chin. I believe I still have these shorts, and I will make an attempt to shoot these pics daily until my 42nd birthday. Only, now I live in a different house & I would have to find a new spot for shooting this image. I somehow imagine myself drawing a pair of feet in the corner of some room in my home (possibly drawn with black electric tape). I would carefully broom that spot free of dog hair and dust, which is a constant problem for me in my home & in my usual state of lethargy. I would set the timer and smile again -- like an idiot. Then I would observe the images with a heavy sense of grief and loss. It's a loss of being excluded from life, and having to observe the world from within the confines of a fat suit. It's a world where everyone else is moving faster and going places I'll never go. Inviting each other to places I'll never be invited too. The quality of my life is not that much better than someone sentenced to prison, or some who are confined to a wheel chair. Only I am imprisoned in fat, I am confined to an ugliness that allows people to believe that somehow I am not capable of a relationship, whether romantic or otherwise. I have suffered so much for so long I can hardly speculate as to how or why I became so large in the first place. And I can hardly understand how all of this weight will come off. What is it that makes me think that veganism is the answer to my health problem? Can I just consume fewer calories, allowing me to sample a little bit of everything? If I eat a very small hamburger, will I continue to think that I can get both more satisfaction and the same amount of protein from a can of chick peas? If I eat a boiled piece of chicken breast will I imagine how much more I can get if I trade it off for broccoli? It's really all about an economy of means -- eating foods that will offer me the most nutritional value for each bite. That's what I'm really out to get. Calories? Well, some research I've done in the past suggests that the average person consume anywhere from 1,700 to 2300 calories a day, depending on the size of that person & their activity level. I can verify that I live most of my life sitting in a chair. I work on the computer all day, and afterward I do something at church or some other function that requires me to sit down another hour or so, and then I eat, go home, go to bed. My activity level on a scale of one to ten is a whopping 'one' so I would fare better to limit my calories on the lower end of the scale. So now I'm trying to keep it between 1000 & 1500 calories a day. That could be two to three Big Mac's or I could trade in those Big Mac's for something more. Because the reality is that I can't have a Big Mac for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. I have a confession to make here, which is that as much as I love eating fast food, I feel physically ill about an hour after a drive thru meal.

It is popularly believed that an individual who consumes just under a thousand calories a day will burn fat at the rate of one pound for each 24 hour period. I don't know how true this is, but I believe those figures vary from individual to individual. The way I look at it, if I cook most of my meals I can manage to stay very satisfied hovering just above the one thousand calorie mark. This, combined with exercise will help me to burn off the fat consistently and safely, and I approximate that a weight loss of 5 pounds week would be the expected result if I follow through as I have suggested. At the end of my experiment I should have eliminated sixty pounds. There are varying opinions as to what the rate of weight loss should be for a healthy person. My body mass index (BMI) was 41 when I weighed 400 lbs for a man that is just under 6 ft tall. The doctor basically explained to me that I needed to lose 200 lbs, so at what rate should I lose weight 'safely' I do not know for sure. But if I manage to lose 5 lbs a week, I would lose it all in 40 weeks. That is an unrealistic goal for me. I anticipate that the first 50 lbs will come off very quickly. The last 50 lbs will be the hardest to lose. And believe me, being 50 lbs overweight is not that much better than being 150 lbs heavier, though logic would suggest otherwise. I imagine that at this same time next year I'll be hacking away at 30 to 50 pounds of fat in terms of ounces rather than pounds, and I will probably start taking extra classes at the gym and do things that the present weight & geometry will not allow me to do (like pilates, pro training and the like). I probably would have had a weightlifting routine for some time now, though I really don't care to add bulk. I see this thing well beyond my experimental phase, but we shall see. I shall soon come up with some form of punishment for times when I may (accidentally, intentionally or otherwise) consume some form of animal fat during this three month trial. I'll keep you posted! Please LEAVE COMMENTS where it says '0 comments' just below this message. This blog is for you as much as it is for me. I want your recipes, ideas and experiences too!

Day -3 and counting... I Hope I'm Wrong...

Today I ate a salad of shredded cabbage & carrots with extra firm bean curd (Tofu to you) seasoned with lemon, apple cider vinegar, spices. I had a daily multi vitamin, Ginko, a baby aspirin, a can of Diet Pepsi Max & two mugs of coffee (black with no sugar). If all goes well I will have some ice coffee with what's left over In the pot, and then after work I'll go to the gym for a crazy Tae Boe kick boxing work out. I'll weigh myself, then go home and cook something that would be a bouquet of Brocholi, several varieties of beans, carrots & more green cabbage. I may cook inthe style of southwestern chili or italian with a base of crushed tomatoes. I may have base of ginger-garlic-peppers-cilantro and mushrooms. I may just go out for chinese & get the bean curd sechzwan style with the sauce on the side.

Yesterday at the gym we did step aerobics class and I weighed myself at 384 pounds! I had a luch of mixed vegatables and salad of green cabage. I had Tofu for breakfast. But it was late when I finally made it home & instead of cooking I bought a bag of reduced fat potatoe chips and called it a night. It will be interesting to see what I weigh today. I just automatically think I'm going to weigh 390 pounds, because I weighed that much for so long I just think it's never going to change.

However, last Sunday I had the last of my shredded weat & soy milk, then later had luch with friends & had a veggie stromboli with a bit of mozzerella and a mozzerella & tomatoe & basil appetizer, and then I had sechzwan style bean curd & vegetables for dinner (sauce on the side) and that saturday I had shredded weat & soy milk, a whole bag of tostadas, soy based taco meat & vegetarian style cheese (with partial milk solids) and I still weighed 386 when I first weighed myself last Monday! So the weight loss is sticking. I still think I'll weigh 390 pounds, but I hope I'm wrong.