Thoughts on nudity...

This is a bit of an odd-ball entry for me because it really has nothing to do with veganism or the environment at all. However, this is a self-discovery related post which has been a theme for me since the beginning. This is a much more serious post than what usually can be found on my blog but I'm putting my thoughts out there regardless.

I just today finished watching a very... well look, I'm at a loss to describe it... fascinating, eye-opening, thought-provoking, spiritually-conflicting documentary called "The Workshop". It's on Canadian netflix, if you're interested in watching it after reading about my two-bits here, fyi. In a nutshell, the workshop takes place in california on a spirituality retreat that brings people in greater connection to their inner self and their relationships through nudity. The workshop starts out with a look at various people who have come to the workshop and what they're hoping to get out of it. Most people are in greatly conflicted places in their lives where they feel unconnected and lost, and the workshop kicks right off with everyone stripping of their clothes and going around the room meeting each other. The rest of the documentary depicts the journey's of a few individuals, including the documentarian himself.

The story had many levels to it that brought out a number of reactions in me that I'm still thinking about and trying to understand. The removal of clothing signifies the removal of something that defines you. How easy is it to define yourself on what you wear or what job you have or what car you drive? I can understand completely how letting go of those boundaries forces you to connect to the person you are behind the image you put out for the world. It not only causes you to explore yourself, but to allow yourself to be seen just as you are by others. Boundaries for the individuals in the documentary continue to be pushed through sexual encounters. These people start to challenge their own views about relationships and what it means to be honest with others about your thoughts and your feelings. The sexuality of the film becomes a feature discussed quite often, though the documentarian Jamie does say that he feels "sexual" component of the healing is just superficial layer of the changes that take place at the individual level.

 NOTE: This is not for the faint of heart. There were scenes that were nearly pornographic... but then I feel bad saying that because I feel the term "pornographic" implies a deviant or "naughtiness" which was so far from the open and vulnerable experiences which were explored. What I found thought-provoking is that I didn't even need to be participating in the experience to start questioning my own beliefs. Watching two people touch each other made me feel uncomfortable. Why? I have no difficulty acknowledging that a sexual connection between two people can be a beautiful, even spiritual, thing so why would I feel discomfort? Is it because I have been brought up in a society where such a thing is frowned upon? At one point, the nature of monogamy is discussed. Is monogamy the natural way or is it something that we have inflicted upon ourselves that opposes our nature and will forever be a source of suffering for us? I've discovered about myself that I have a strong attachment to the idea of monogamy. I can't claim whether it is the the natural way or the right way, but I didn't realise how strong my feelings about it were until being presented with the alternative. Where do our feelings of jealousy and guilt stem from? What can be learned about ourselves through those feelings?

Despite the distractions (sexual encounters, humour around the idea of it being an "alien sex cult", etc.) what ultimately happened for the people who took part in the experience was a great deal of self-discovery and self-acceptance. The leader of the workshop said at one point to Jamie that what he had discovered was what it felt like to be loved by others just as he is, with no judgement, and that the next step was to feel that of himself. I found myself getting quite emotionally involved in the stories of these individuals, which naturally makes me wonder about my own self-acceptance. Do I feel loved, without judgement, for exactly who I am? Am I completely open and honest with myself and those around me? Do I love myself, without judgement, exactly as I am? Do I feel connected to myself? The answer to all of these questions is, unsurprisingly, no.

While I'm not sure running off to california, stripping off my clothes, and participating is orgies is a solution to my problems and my lack of self-awareness and acceptance, I found watching "The Workshop" to be eye-opening and touching (emotionally, you pervs). I feel a heightened need to reconnect with myself and love whoever I find myself to be. On a funny note, I will not be joining the workshop, but I may start participating in some naked yoga in my basement ;)

Anyone else watch a documentary that made them question the nature of life?

Confession

Some days, you're a champ. You workout like a boss and eat like a clean, green machine (yay!). And then there are days, quite like today, where the little PMS monster in your brain makes you eat all the vegan chocolate cake with your bare hands...  It happens.

On a positive note, I've moved up the start date of my Brazil Butt Lift program to February 25th. I'm a bit superstitious and feel that it's good luck to coordinate the start of a new weight-loss/fitness program with a full moon. Sometimes, I'm just a little weird like that.

That is all.

I should wear a lab coat...

THE VEGAN CHEESE EXPERIMENTS CONTINUE!

It's all very exciting and you know it... so today's cheese of choice is "Daiya Shredded Mozza"

Dun duh NA NA!!!! (Oh hey... that picture says "cold pack item!" teehee oops!)

So I have been craving pizza pretty hard core the last couple days and needed a good cheese for it. This chick I met (who was working at Indigo at the time) and I got talking about being vegan and she told me that her fav vegan cheese, hands down, is daiya. She also said that she wouldn't eat it cold and it must be melted but that it's darn tasty. So after forgetting to grab it every time I was in the grocery store for about a month, I finally grabbed it and tonight was the pizza experiment.

I'm actually eating it right now! And you know what? It's pretty tasty... The truth of the matter is, it's not dairy cheese. I've got to wrap my brain around the fact that it's never going to be quite as good to me as real cheese is, but this makes it much easier to cope without!

So I made a whole grain pizza crust (which would have been better if I didn't overcook it... oopsie!) topped with marinara sauce (who needs separate sauce for pasta and pizza? Not me obviously...) and then topped with baby spinach and kale mix, chickpeas, and daiya shredded cheese! As far as the cheese in concerned, it's texture is quite like regular cheese with a slight stringiness though it did take a bit of time for it to melt. Flavour wise, it was mild and cheesy but with a slight Alfredo-y-ness (oh yeah I did...) I didn't mind that garlicky undertone but it is different. Another point I feel I should mention is that I did a fairly light sprinkle of cheese vs. back in the dairy-days when I like my pizza with a solid inch layer of cheese. I'm not sure how I'd like it with a whole gob-load of this cheese on there, but who really needs the extra calories anyways?

All in all, I rate this experiment a success and look forward to eating the rest of the bag on pasta, a beanball sub, and other tasty cheese-requiring things :) OOh ooh! And I also can't wait to try the cheddar style shreds.

Until next time,
Get your nom on!

Um... plateau? Busted!

So true story, I had plateaued on my weight loss for about two months solid. Nothing I was doing seemed to be working and I got to the point where working out hard 7 days a week still wasn't breaking through. So I sat back and thought about where I might be going wrong in my diet and realised I was doing a lot of snacking. You know, what difference is a few chips while I'm eating dinner going to make? Or hey, I've been really good today, how about some homemade strawberry jam on some rice dream? Yum! So I figured that maybe I should start tracking my calories for a bit to see where I'm going wrong and just get some awareness really.

Now I had been tracking calories online a long while ago through www.prevention.com and their fitness trackers, but I found there to be a lot of problems with it. First of all, it was ridiculously slow! Secondly, it was hard to find things. A lot of the time I'd search for something that just wouldn't be there... so it made keeping track pretty tedious. So I hitched up with my 'ol friend google to find another online calorie and exercise tracker and was SOOO lucky because I found www.myfitnesspal.com. HOLY CRAP! Fast, easy to use, efficient, and the forums are amazing for meeting people on similar weight loss journeys and the support you get from people is phenomenal! I can track a whole days worth of food in exercise in minutes and it calculates my calories for me based on my weight loss goals and how much exercise I've done that day. Talk about a no brainer! After one week of using it, I not only broke through my two month plateau, but I took my goal of losing a pound per week, and lost 2.2 pounds in the first week! Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty freaking awesome!

Not to mention that the 7 days/week of working out that I do now is making my bod look pretty swell... Not to brag or anything, but my belly is looking leaner, my legs are looking leaner, my butt is looking perkier... not too shabby at all! Speaking of my perky posterior, I've decided to give the Brazil Butt Lift (BBL) program by Beach Body a try. I am actually going to pick it up tonight and then I'm setting a start date of March 1st. I don't know how it's going to go, and I haven't tried any programs by the same company before, but I figure it really can't hurt. For you readers, I'll post before (ew) and after pics as well as give a brutally honest review so you can decide if you want to try it for yourselves!

That's about all for now. Will hopefully be posting yet another vegan cheese experiment in the very near future!

Take care!

Chewy Vegan Chocolate Cookies!

I mentioned in my last post that I love vegan biscotti and cookies that I bake. This is the absolute truth. I have become a vegan baking fanatic! There's just something special about throwing these ingredients together and having them come out tasting freaking amazing and knowing they're completely free of animal products. I feel a bit like a magician who has just pulled off a brilliant trick. It's quite good for my ego really. I feel even better when my omni family devours them and I get to feel good about sneaking a fairly healthy treat into their days.

As promised, I said I would post recipes and pictures which is exactly what I am doing today! This recipe I stole from this link: http://www.food.com/recipe/chewy-vegan-chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies-99094 (give credit where credit is due!) but I adjusted it slightly and this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup canola oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp ground flax seed
- 1 cup white all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole grain all purpose-flour (sifted to remove large pieces, you could use whole-grain pastry flour here)
- 1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used soy)
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup chopped raw pecans

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 C
2. Add non-dairy milk and flax seed together in a small bowl, mix for thirty seconds and set aside.
3. Cream the oil and sugar in a large bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.
5. Add the flax mixture to the oil mixture, combine. Add the vanilla.
6. Add the dry mixture to the wet and combine.
7. Gently mix in your pecans (you could substitute pretty much anything here like the original recipe says)
8. Roll the dough into balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. You could flatten them out on the cookie sheet into disks, again like the original recipe, but I like 'em fat
9. Bake for 10 minutes. They will probably done after this time, be careful not to over bake!
10. Let rest for 5 minutes for cooling and then get your nom on.

P.S. Because there's no raw egg in the batter, you don't have to feel guilty about your little ones licking the spoons... as they do.

Let's just say, my altered recipe increased the fibre content and cut the sugar content by half! This recipe made for about three dozen nicely sized cookies and my family (with my help of course) gobbled them up within three days.

Get your nom on!

Update

So truth... I'm actually far from being the best blogger in the world.

My problem stems primarily from being busy (and a bit lazy) so I go a little while without posting an entry. Then once I go a while without posting, I feel this dread about posting again because I feel like I'm going to have to catch up on all the stuff I should have been posting all along... but didn't... and that would require thinking .... ? You follow?

A quick update then, so I am a better blogger in future. In theory. I have officially been fully-vegan for 37 days. I'm almost surprised it's been that long because I really thought it was going to be more difficult. The only craving I have had really is for cheese (which I am working on what with the vegan cheese experiments and all) and I think my body is mostly over the "new diet" shock. Oh what is this new diet shock you might ask? It's basically that awkward moment where your body basically forgets how to digest anything you eat and freaks out, you have horrid gas, your skin breaks out, and you detox. Part of that was transitioning into my protein powder, but my body seems to have mostly sorted itself out. I imagine it will take about three months to be completely settled in my diet, but the worst part is over.

I was going to post a shwack load of recipes with photos and such, but quite frankly I'm really much too lazy at the moment. I hope to slowly add them on, one at a time, over the next little while but I'm not going to stress about it.

Things I love:

• Nutritional yeast sauce (NOOCH!)
• Vega One protein powder
• Wraps with blackbeans, cabbage slaw, and hummus
• Vegan biscotti and cookies (that I bake... because I'm a balla like that)
• Ginger fried tofu on brown rice
• Lemon blueberry cornmeal pancakes (eating about fifty of these is my new sunday morning tradition.)
• Sherlock Holmes... Totally unrelated to being vegan but it's the truth...

Things I do not love even a smidgen:

• Tofu in my curry (OOOH sure it takes good when you eat it at a restaurant and then you make it at home and it's icky...)
• How vegan un-friendly my city is.
• Working (umm hellloooooo I'm going back to school so I can get NEW job..)
• The fact that there's whey in basically every prepackaged food out there.
• When I've scheduled myself in for a form of exercise other than zumba. Sadness :(

I feel that basically describes most of what I had to say. OOH except that I finally got my mum to read the book "Sleeping Naked is Green" by Vanessa Farquarson (you should read it too) and it's got her thinking about easy little things she can change in order to be more eco-friendly! This makes me so happy!!! OOh yes, and if I don't get into my environmental sciences program I'm applying to (they only take in 40 students each year, I must accept this unfortunate possibility), then archaeology will probably be my kind of random but totally awesome fall-back. Don't ask me how these things are connected and/or make any sense. They don't.

Eat your vegetables!