About Me - The Long Version

Once upon a time, I would have told you that I could never in my life give up meat. I just loved steak too much. Chicken Marsala! Shepard's Pie! Cheese steaks! Buffalo wings! The food available to me was just too delicious to live without. But in May of 2013, I had started to buckle down on eating better and being fit. I was in a long distance relationship at the time and I decided to distract myself from being apart from my SO by focusing on my fitness. I counted calories like a crazy person: weighing my food by the gram and depriving myself at every turn. I maintained walking five miles daily after work, and I had some success. I started around 138 lbs and after a 2 months of intense monitoring of my food intake and exercise, I lost about 5 lbs. But no matter how strict I was, I couldn't break under 132-133 lbs. 

Fast forward to the end of June, my long distance SO and I had split, breaking my heart and making me feel even more like it was time to make a few changes. First I got a new haircut and went blonde. That was fun. Then, one of my roommates, (aka my mom, Deb) had stumbled upon Dr. Joel Fuhrman on television late at night, and she was inspired to buy book, Eat to Live. His book gives guidelines to try a 6-week strict program to rapidly shed weight by eating a plant-based whole foods diet. It banned meat, cheese, and all other dairy products. In a nutshell, it focused on eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes, and strongly advised against any added oils or fats along with the ban on meat and dairy. I thought, what the heck. I love meat, but I could live without it. Cheese would be the bigger challenge, but for 6 weeks? I could give it a shot. 

It seemed effortless. The weight just fell off. Deb and I continued our daily walks. I made a fruit and spinach smoothie for breakfast, and sometimes lunch, and rounded it out with a HUGE salad for dinner with some nuts on top, and fruit for dinner. When we went on vacation this past year, I weighed in at 122 lbs. My mom lost about 25 lbs total, and currently looks amazing. 

Now, however, with a new man in my life, the holidays, and having poor self-control around cheese, I had a difficult time sticking to the lifestyle. After six weeks of Dr. Fuhrman's plan you may add more starchy veggies into the mix, but I also added pizza (I'm from NEPA and we have the BEST pizza in the world. Seriously, Google Old Forge Pizza). Some people are all like "moderation is key, I can just have a bite!" Unfortunately, I am not one of those people. Ice cream, cookies, candy, wine, fancy beer; these are a few of my favorite things and they were ALL UP in my grill at every turn! I am not the type who can be satisfied with just a bite either. There was also a lot of meeting my new boyfriend's huge family and group of friends and trying not to be a snot when it came to the food...I ate what I was given. I DID however, remain meatless. 

So here I am, ringing in the New Year, and ready to get back on track with the Nutritarian lifestyle. This is my accountability, my inspiration to be my best self, to stop making excuses. I'll post some of my favorite food creations and what I’m doing for exercise to document the full picture. I hope to inspire others to consider eating for health, and to glean new information and stories and camaraderie with any readers I might obtain! 

(Update) 

Well kiddos, as I'm sure most of us know, when we fall off the wagon, bad things can happen. I fell off and gave into temptation and put on ALL the weight that I lost with this thing the first time around! So join me on my journey back to nutritarianism and let's see if I can't get back in a bikini by the end of summer!