Week 1 [14 August 2007]: Start to quit smoking. The first week is supposed to be the hardest. My Quit Day is “8/14/2007 3:00:00 PM” and I am logging my progress on QuitNet.com because I like logging things, obviously. Drink 64oz of water a day.

19 August 2007: I have not been dilligent about my water, thus far. I feel as though I have been doing fairly well, but I have not been making a conscious effort. Smoking, however, I have been doing quite well on. Temptation struck multiple times, but I have remained strong! My solution has been eating clementines (yum!) and chewing on ice (my mother reminds me that chewing ice means you’re sexually frustrated. Um, YES). My biggest fear was to gain a bunch of weight when I quit smoking, but as long as I avoid snacking, I think I’ll come through okay! I know that clementines count as snacking (duh), but they fulfill all the requirements smoking did for me: something tactile (peeling) and something oral (eating, duh!). So, it’s okay.

Today is good for another reason: my best friend has signed on to try doing a 20 (well, 19, now!) week challenge with me! We are going to be goddesses of sex. C’est vrai!

If I work my tushy off, by my birthday (6 February), I could have an entirely different body. And, with all the money I’ll have saved by not smoking (currently $18), I could have a fabulous new wardrobe! So, hooray!

20 August 2007: Last night was the biggest overcoming of smokey temptation ever. I was back in an environment where I used to smoke all the time, but I didn’t! I did, however, have a third of a milkshake. My body, keeper of dairy-justice, retaliated by making me feel like trash ALL NIGHT. Okay, okay. Lesson learned!

In happier news, 174.2. Oh thank goodness. That monthly spike (and gain) scared the buhjeezus outta me! I’m back down and I feel like I have an entirely different body! There is a difference in 7-8lbs. There really, really, really is.

21 August 2007 (Wee Hours!): Today is supposedly when I start eating well. Can we talk about how unprepared I am? I have practically no food in the house and nothing cooked up. What ever will I eat? It’s really a good question. I think tomorrow may be Tofu Scramble’s maiden voyage. And God only knows what else. I have to get on making food. Eugh. Life is just so nuts right now with school and renovating the apartment. Jeez.

I found a thread on SparkPeople.com today about it being just 20 weeks until New Year’s! The whole idea was to have a whole new body and lease on life by the start of the New Year. I think it’s a lovely idea, really. The week’s challenge was to eat three servings of vegetables a day. While I’ll probably follow that challenge, too, I decided coming up with some new goals would be apt. I tend to work the best when I have some sort of plan. So, here it is! It mainly focuses on fitness because that’s my real problem–I hate exercise. But, I want to be a bicyclist and I would like to be a runner, so, here we go!

Week 1: Start to quit smoking. The first week is supposed to be the hardest. My Quit Day is “8/14/2007 3:00:00 PM” and I am logging my progress on QuitNet.com because I like logging things, obviously. Drink 64oz of water a day.
Week 2: Really crack down on eating veganism. I’ve been so lax lately and it needs to stop.
Week 3: Fitness Starts Here Week! Bike five times a week, 30-45 minutes a day. Drink 72oz of water a day.
Week 4: Couch to 5k: Week One! Drink 80oz of water a day. I’ve stepped up my water with each exercise surge.
Week 5: Couch to 5k: Week Two!
Week 6: Couch to 5k: Week Three! Start doing yoga at home: 4 days a week/30 minutes a day.
Week 7: Couch to 5k: Week Four! Continue yoga at home: 4 days a week/45 minutes a day.
Week 8: Couch to 5k: Week Five! Start strength training. Alternate yoga and strength training.
Week 9: Couch to 5k: Week Six!
Week 10: Couch to 5k: Week Seven! Start physical therapy for left foot–daily 20 minutes.
Week 11: Couch to 5k: Week Eight!
Week 12: Couch to 5k: Week Nine! Congratulations 5k Runner!
Week 13: Start running four days a week instead of three. Drink 88oz of water a day.
Week 14: Start Bikram! Drink 96oz of water a day.
Week 15: Bikram Week 2!
Week 16: Bikram Week 3! Pick up running another quarter mile a day.
Week 17: Bikram Week 4! Pick up running another quarter mile a day.
Week 18: Start running five days a week instead of four.
Week 19: Pick up running another half mile a day.
Week 20: Pick up running another half mile a day.

And, P.S. Here are my quitting stats!

1 day, 5 hours, 28 minutes and 22 seconds smoke free.

15 cigarettes not smoked.
$3.60 and 2 hours of your life saved.

Your quit date: 8/14/2007 3:00:00 PM

Those of you who are following this (…anybody…*taptaptap* Is this thing on?), will have noticed that I haven’t posted in a very, very long time. I’ve been without Internet, though I have it once more. I have also fallen entirely off the diet bandwagon. Big time.

I’m back above 180lbs. I hoped I’d never see these numbers again, aside from when with child. But, here I am again. I’m hoping a good deal of it can be attributed to my monthlies, but certainly all of it can’t be!

It’s about a month of work, completely erased. When you think of it that way, it’s pretty sad. Three weeks of eating horribly undoes a month of working my butt off. But, I guess stepping on the scale today was a wake up call.

So now I’m back and armed with a plan! I’ve got well over two weeks of exceptionally healthy and vegan meal plans worked on my nutrition tracker on SparkPeople.com. The calorie range is a bit higher than the 1,300 I was getting earlier. With these plans, I’m hitting between 1,400 and 1,500. But, they’re world healthier. I’m getting more than enough of ALL then nutrients I need (including protein and the dreaded vegan triumvirate of Vitamin B-12, iron and calcium, as well as plenty of fiber, omega-3s, Vitamins A & C and folic acid! Hooray!). Where early attempts at Veganism Meets SparkPeople were TITANIC failures in the nutrition department, I think I’ve figured out the puzzle to getting the nutrients I need, the cost being 1-200 more calories a day. That, I think, I can live with.

What else? Being far, far, far more active. I’m going to do Cool Running’s Couch-to-5K Program or hit the ellipticals three times a week to burn around 400 calories each of those days. I’m also going to bicycle about 45 minutes a day. New means of transportation, and all. It builds character. That will set me to around a whomping 4,000 calories burned a week, which certainly allows me to eat around 1,400-1,550 and not be too worried.

I’m going to have to see how my body responds to such vigorous exercise–starvation? I’ll boost my calorie count a hundred calories on days I bike and hit the gym.

That’s the revised plan. I’m planning on starting up quite soon. I’ve got a grocery list (alarmingly little money!) all worked out and am shooting to begin this nonsense Sunday.

Here we go again!

In my absense from this blog, I have been doing a great deal of happy vegan research and recipe pondering, so hopefully some very tasty things will be coming up in the future!

A bientot, mes amis!

A teeny to-do list: make a decent work out playlist, update the tags page of this blog, make up a few lists of recipes I want to try out.

I think you’re supposed to do these sorts of posts at the beginning of the calendar year, however I obviously didn’t start this blog at the beginning of a calendar year, therefore, I’m posting it now.

That said, welcome, oh Internet friends, to my very humble foodblog. In the past, I have been the worst blogger on the surface of the planet. I have a LiveJournal in which I ramble on about my very woeful life (boys and complaining about school, mainly) and an abandoned knitting blog (abandoned only because I am a compulsive starter and a rare finisher!). Neither of these blogs showed any exemplary writing or are terribly worth reading if you’re not intimately familiar with my life (and even then!). I would like this blog to be a bit more worthwhile and it is my hope that I can connect with a few more diet bloggers in the process as well as some sassy vegan cooks!

Here are my personal goals:

+ Transition into a vegan way of life. For those unaware of what veganism constitutes, it means not consuming any animal products (meat, dairy, eggs, other byproducts including whey and certain vitamins). My primary concern is personal health (high cholesterol and diabetes run in my family), however, as of late, the animal rights and environmental arguments have meant a great deal more to me.

+ Lose anywhere from forty to fifty-five pounds. My current weight is 173.0 lbs. My highest was 212 and I started a conscious attempt at losing weight in January. I weighed 204 then. I don’t necessarily have an ideal goal weight in mind. A healthy weight for my age and height (20, 5’4”) is 108-145 pounds, based on BMI. I am taking this one day at a time, though. I’m already much happier with my body and healthier, and plan on listening to my body when it gets down to those thirty-seven pounds I could lose or keep. With such a range considered “healthy” I hope to let my body settle into a happy weight within that range.

+ Bike more! I’d like to rely more on my own body (and bicycle) for transportation versus using public transit (busses and elevated trains) when possible. I have this listed as a goal because, while I enjoy biking, I’m not terribly competent at biking great distances yet, I’m deathly afraid of biking around traffic and my excursions, thus far, have been largely recreational. My goal is to bike to school, work and all sorts of other places.

+ Leave a smaller footprint. I’d like to waste a whole lot less. Canvas shopping bags, biking, buying locally grown produce (it’s so easy to do! And fresh, locally grown, in season produce? That is a very delicious no-brainer!).

+ Last but certainly not least: eat delicious food! I’m of the belief that healthy and vegan do not have to equal bland and unfulfilling! I’ve really enjoyed the vegan food I’ve cooked in the past (I love legumes, which is convenient, ne pas?) and have found myself drooling at vegan foodblogs in the past. I’m very excited to cook all sorts of fabulous new dishes and experiment with different exotic foods!

And of course, here are my goals for this blog:

+ Pictures, pictures, pictures! I would love for this blog to be colorful and full of lovely images of vegan creations, of pretty places I visit on my bike, of all that gorgeous local produce and, of course, a handful of “progress” pictures.

+ Recipe and book reviews! I am a compulsive recipe and cookbook collector and am always trying new recipes. I’d like to post some links and pictures here ranting and raving about various recipes! Most, I bet, will be raves. I will also provide nutritional info for the recipes I am trying. I use the calculator at SparkRecipes.com to figure out the nutritional information for most of the things I make! I spend a great deal of time plucking recipes off of VegWeb.com and The PPK, as well as various blogs, so you will probably see me try my hand at some of those here. i’ve put a few links in my sidebar of my favorite recipe haunts, and more are certainly to come!

+ Some recipes of my own, once I get a bit more adventurous.

+ A record of my weight loss progress, as well as a discussion of some of the difficulties I face along the way. I will likely post two to three times a week, and will post a “Dietary Digest” at the end of each week, breaking down calories, weight, etc, for the sake of accountability. I find I do much better when I write things down and share them!

I do not wish for this blog to become very political. Granted, there is a very liberal stigma associated with the vegan/green lifestyle, but this blog is not about politics (at this point); it is about health and wellbeing and a sustainable lifestyle. I may post the occasional link to related articles online; at this time, however, I will be avoiding deeply political issues. This blog is about food and fun!

I think that just about wraps up this State of the Blog (you write one a year, right? ). If you’d like a bit more information about me or my quest, please check out my About section!

Thank you very kindly for reading,
Sara
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