Loaner Vegetarians
This is a really late post, but it still has some relevant points about eating habits and how a change can work for one and not the other. People should treat their health like everything else and do what works for them on an individual basis. There might even be different approaches for different members of the same family. Anyhow, continue reading about my experience as a vegetarian earlier this year.
Clearly, one cannot be loaned to another, but this year my family and I decided to join in the season of fasting known as Lent. We did not follow the rules exactly, meaning we did not end at Easter, instead we did 40 days and nights straight. We are not catholic or any other denomination which observes Lent, we participated this year because we did not participate in the month of fasting with our home church which usually happens in January. The goal of the fast was to go without and during those times of weakness, to build our individual relationships with God by relying on him in those times, and to build character by denying our flesh of this specific desire. I have never given up eating meat for an extended period of time as an adult, so I thought this would be an effective challenge so in joined my husband(our son was excluded as he's just a toddler). While enduring this fast, there were definitely things I started to think about, including how would we do spiritually and physically, would we lose weight as a result of this, how much stronger would each of us be in our faith, and a litany of other things. As a mother of a toddler, I did want to watch my weight during the time to judge the overall impact of the decision to become loaner-vegetarians. I'm sure everyone can remember the vegan- craze right after everyone watched the Netflix documentary What the Health. Well needless to say we avoided joining the fad but if we were feeling better and there were obvious benefits to our physical health then we would consider if the lifestyle change was necessary and viable for our family. Overall, from a fasting perspective, the time period was a success. There was more consistency added to our family group prayer occurrences, such as saying grace and nighttime prayers with the little one with his"A-man" added at the end. Individually I know I definitely increased the frequency and specificity of my prayers. This also was also impacted by my father's health condition(he has since succumbed to cancer and passed). As for the Mister, his individual fast was considered to be a success because he did pray more. He also spent a bit more time being present and reaching out to his other family members. On the basic premise the fast was a success because we did not consume any meat, fish, or other seafood as we set out to accomplish. Now upon initial reflection the success of the fast in those senses was only balanced by the negative physical outcome of being loaner vegetarians. From my personal experience I gained about 15 pounds over this 40 day time frame! I wanted to scream, shout, and stop the fast but I figured the reason for the fast was more important than my undesired weight-gain. The weight was becoming a big deal because it took me a while to get down to the weight I held at the start of the fast. I was working slowly an consistently to try to get down to my goal weight but this here fast blew up all of that progress. It took months to get down to a lower and stable weight, but only 40 days to get rid of all of that hard work. The culprits to which these pounds belong are the increased carbs I consumed which was not apart of my diet before the fast. Before the fast my eating habits were centered on trying to mimic the"Whole 30" eating habits. I like to keep my meals and snacks to fruits, vegetables, and meats. My body was able to process those foods more easily, I was not prone to bloating and sluggish feelings before the fast. Changing to eating more grains, starches, and other complex carbs greatly contributed to the weight gain. Being a vegetarian is not hard to do nowadays if the goal is to only avoid meat. There were/are ample meat substitutes which can allow a family to maintain the same meals/recipes they may be used to. Now if the goal is to eat more wholly with mostly fruits and vegetables that can take more time, effort, planning, and not too much more money. If this was to become a lifestyle change I would prefer to eat more wholly and have a variety of foods to help in the change. This would be the most beneficial for my metabolism, activity-level, and overall goals. What did make the change easier to consider was the ease of preparing dinner, especially with the help of the meal kits we used during the time. Before, during, and after Lent we were using the Hello Fresh service and it is still a favorite of ours. It works for our family and the flexibility works with my budget.
Now in hindsight, I would still have participated in Lent and given of meat. I would just have planned to do so sooner to allow time for proper meal prep and snack purchases. This could help us avoid the carbs and extra pounds. So now that I have tried being a vegetarian I still hold true to my preference of eating whole and with a variety. My body seems to react to this more positively than when I tried being a vegetarian.
Have you tried any diet fads or lifestyle changes which were a total bust? Are you a vegetarian/vegan, and how does it work for you? What works best with your lifestyle? What is hardest in your lifestyle?
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