Monday, February 11, 2013

Confessions of a recovered vegetarian

Since giving up my 16 year streak of vegetarian ways (full disclosure - I've been eating fish since a few years after I moved to Maryland, so I was only full veg for like 11 of those years), I've had a lot of people express curiosity. Most of those people are real life friends who probably won't ever read this. Still, since I don't really have much to share running-wise other than an easy 6 after work tonight I'm devoting this post to a little Q&A. 

This is probably going to come off a bit anti-veggie, but I'm just calling it how I see it. 


1. Do you have more energy since beginning to eat meat again? Yes!

I didn't know how to answer this one at first. I didn't truly dive in to meat eating until Christmas break, and that week I had tons of energy. But it was also a week filled with sleeping a minimum of ten hours each night and having my parents take care of me (aka I had the responsibilities of a four year old). Now that I've returned to normal adult life, I can safely say thanks for donating your life to make me a delicious dinner, animals, because hearing the alarm in the morning only makes me curse two or three times instead of making me feel like I just got punched with a dump truck.

2. Is your husband thrilled? Yes!

Not only is my husband thrilled, it turns out everyone's husband is thrilled. Since the big burger announcement, all my male friends (aka the guys my girlfriends married and now we're all couple friends because that's what happens when you get old) have shown a surprising amount of excitement. I've gotten all sorts of congratulations through texts, twitter, Facebook, etc. If there's one thing I love, it's doing something that takes absolutely no effort, is enjoyable to me, and that millions of Americans do on a daily basis without giving it a second though and then being applauded as though I've actually achieved some sort of significant accomplishment. Keep it coming, guys.

3. Do you feel fuller after meals? Yes!

I'll openly admit I'm a big eater, but that's where that ends.. If anyone else draws attention to my voracious appetite, I'll immediately make some sort of angry comment poorly disguised as a joke which will result in one of those extremely tense, awkward silences while I mentally declare that person dead to me. Trust me, I have witnesses from the time it happened when an instructor called me out in class. 

So once again, I'll thank the animal kingdom for helping me fill up on less food and thus helping me attempt to blend into normal society just a tiny bit more.

Exhibit A: My dinner from Saturday night (after a 20 mile run).

Beef soft taco, enchilada, and tamale. 
Just based on pure volume, I normally would have easily devoured three quarters of that, if not more. Now, this meal was dinner Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday. I'm not saying that while at the restaurant I didn't also eat a gigantic amount of chips and a watermelon margarita the size of my head, but that's a constant, not a variable.

However, I ordered turkey on my sub on the drive down to North Carolina Friday night, and discovered that the addition of meat didn't change my sub mantra: "Six inches is not worth my time". 

Footlong is the only way to go
For what it's worth, I was satisfied with only my footlong sub, iced latte, and Cadbury cream egg (no chips).

So there you have it. Meat is the way to go, at least if you want to feel alert, have a happy marriage and enjoy life. No, seriously, being a vegetarian is fine, obviously I survived and managed to live a normal life for 16 years. But if I ever once again pledge myself to a life without bacon, I'm giving full permission to the entire internet to come slap me. 

Would you rather live without meat or without dessert? A forced choice like that would be the only way I'd ever go back!

14 comments:

  1. "Six inches is not worth my time"

    I love it when you plant obvious TWSS quotes in your posts.

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  2. I was vegan for a year or so awhile back. I'm definitely happy to have meat in my life again, though I did pick up an appetite for tofu during veganism that still makes a meal once a week. Dessert, however, rules all. Chocolate chip cookies could rule the world.

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  3. i'm not a huge meat eater - i still can't do steak - but i love myself a hamburger and chicken.

    so if forced to choose b/t meat and dessert? i could live w/o meat. i CANNOT live without my DQ blizzards though. especially during marathon training!

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  4. I would MUCH rather give up meat than dessert! Dessert is seriously my kryptonite. We went to a Valentine's dinner on Saturday night that included some gelato, some chocolate, and some other cream thing for dessert...and then I ate some Ben and Jerry's ice cream after I got home. Don't take that away from me :)

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  5. I think if I actually liked the taste of meat, I'd be ok with ending my vegetarianism. It was never for any moral reasons anyway. I just can't stand the taste of it. I'll continue to wear suede and leather, don't worry.

    Your 6 miler in shorts makes me so jealous. I'm about to go run circles through my neighborhood because I can't go on main roads with all of the snow.

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  6. Meat vs Dessert is a very hard choice, but I do think I would give up meat in favor of dessert. I did last like 6 months in my life without meat once, but I've never lasted more than a day without dessert.

    You really need a steak.

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  7. I could never go without dessert so I'd definitely give up meat. I'm still not one to chow down on a huge steak or anything but adding some meat back into my diet definitely helped me with the never feeling full concept!

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  8. New to your blog. I began experimenting with omnivore-dom about a year and a half ago because of some energy issues with training and racing, after 20 years as a vegetarian. I was sort of disappointed to find that it actually made a difference - but it did!

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  9. I've only been reading your blog for a week or so. I'm the same way when it comes to eating, so that picture just looks like a normal amount of food to me.

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  10. I quit being a vegetarian because my hair was falling out. There are definitely ways to do it right, but I never could make it work.

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  11. I'm pretty sure being a vegetarian is the last thing Allan or I would do and while I completely respect people's decision to do that I can't understand it for the life of me. My favorite foods are hamburgers, steak, deviled eggs, and desserts of various kinds. Now I would give up in the meat in a heartbeat if you threaten to take my desserts away!

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.