Posts Tagged ‘Meatless February’

I thought about a long drawn-out post about ending my pescetarian way of eating, but there really isn’t much to say. After hitting and exceeding my goal of eating no meat except fish in February, I broke down and had steak on Sunday. While it was good, I didn’t miss it. Then today I had lunch with my wife and son at Chick-fil-A. While tasty — who doesn’t LOVE Chick-fil-A? — it hasn’t settled well with me this afternoon.

So with the start of Lent tomorrow, I thought it would be good to recommit myself to a diet that was working just fine and opening the doors to trying out a lot of new things. I can easily do this again for 40 days. While I’ve never really given up anything for Lent, there’s no time like now to start.

No matter what your religion, 40 days is an excellent chance for you to give up something and make a difference in your life. Give up that daily soft drink or weekly ice cream or Facebook or complaining. While giving up something, start something new — walk an extra 5 minutes or do push-ups twice a week or say something nice once a day to someone else.

I didn’t write about last week’s weigh-in because getting sick made me not want to think about much of anything. For the record, it was pretty much the same — 189. The thing is, getting sick has totally messed things up, or has it helped put me on track?

On Saturday morning I weighed nearly 3 pounds less than the day before — 186.6. OK, fluid loss was certainly the reason for that. I was drained. I was on empty.

This week’s weigh-in is even less — 185.8. There are a number of things this could be.

• I’ve actually lost weight. Living this month as a pescetarian has opened my eyes to so much. I have been eating better and eating less. Perhaps it’s taken my body three weeks to understand what’s going on.
• My body is still empty. Without going into details, getting sick cleaned me out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
• I haven’t gotten rehydrated still. I’ve been trying to drink more water to replenish what was lost a week ago.
• A combination of all the above.

The real answer will come a week from now in my final weigh-in of February. I’m hoping that I can get out of this month with some kind of loss and then keep that going into March. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll continue my mostly meatless eating or not. I don’t miss it. I haven’t had any cravings for a burger or chicken or steak. I may find myself limiting those things to once a month or certain occasions. Otherwise, my life seems fine without it.

As a (somewhat) former journalist, I’ve learned over the years how important it is to ask the simple question of “Why?” It’s an open-ended question that people can’t answer a simple “yes” or “no” to. To get a good answer, though, you have to ask it in an appropriate tone of voice that wouldn’t allow for an answer of “Why not?”

In day 3 of living as a pescetarian, several people have asked me why am I doing this, but it has come across in such a negative way. You know that tone of voice I’m talking about. It’s like I’m being talked down to. It’s a lifestyle choice, whether it’s temporary or permanent. I’m not wearing a T-shirt broadcasting my change, but if I’m going to eat with co-workers there’s no doubt the topic comes up.

In a way, I think it shows the unhealthy state of our society. You never hear anyone in an office setting get questioned for bringing in doughnuts. If you do, it’s usually a high-pitched, excited, thankful tone of “Why did you do that?” “Ah, because I thought we deserved it after a stressful week!!”

Nobody ever questions why someone supersizes their meals or why there’s a candy dish or why they’re drinking a Coke instead of water.

I don’t want to be taken the wrong way here — I know that it’s my choice and I’m going to continue with it no matter what. Why am I doing it? Because I can. Because I want to do something different. Because I want to eat healthier. Because I need to eat different stuff. Because … well, you get my point.

I think that sometimes no matter what our food choices are, we should all take a step back and question it ourselves. At your next meal ask yourself “Why?” in a calm non-condescending voice and you may find that you’ll want to change, too.

This is sort of a continuation from yesterday’s “Time to move on” post. In the past few days I’ve been doing much more thinking than I usually do. January has no doubt been a good month with getting my running back on track, but I’ve realized that not having clear-cut goals have left me feeling a bit lost.

These past couple of months have been a much needed break from having goals, but that being said, I have felt like I don’t have a sense of direction not having some sort of monthly goal set up.

With one month of 2011 down, it’s time for me to get focused again on a lot of things. When it comes to running, I’m not going to set any big-time goals for February. I’m still in recovery mode, so I want to keep things going one run at a time. I also plan to keep doing more core work and cross training a couple of times a week. It’s something I’ve slowly started, but want to get more consistency.

It may seem like I forgot about it, but February’s goal is related to eating: going meatless. I first want to thank my Twitter followers for introducing me to the correct term for the month since I will still be eating fish: I will live February as a pescetarian. Like any big-time race, I wonder if I’ve prepared enough. Fortunately my wife is planning on doing this with me, so this shouldn’t be a problem. It should be … interesting. I’ll certainly blog more about it as the month moves along.

As for other goals this year, I have some things in mind that I’m not going to put out there yet. I have some ideas for “comeback” races; I have PRs I’d like to set; I really want to do another month-long streak; and I want to have a defining “big” race this fall. At this point in time though, I just want to get through the next four weeks remaining pain-free before I get too far along. No guarantees that I won’t make any announcements though.

Note: After my first “Commitment” post I have since decided to drop the Roman numeral title idea and will now go with titles similar to above.

Just like last year, I have started the year off with no clear cut goals, mainly due to injury concerns. Having dealt with injuries in previous years, I wanted to set the 1,000-mile goal early last year, but I waited a while before going public with it. I had to get through the Shamrock Half injury free before committing to running 1,000 miles. It had been a while before I really thought long-term with setting my goals.

If you have followed me long enough you can probably see my pattern: while shooting from the hip (“31 in 31,” getting to the 170s in December, making lists of foods to not eat right away) I don’t do very well, but when I set a long-term goal or a goal a few months out (April streak, 1,000 miles, Richmond Marathon) I do fairly well. Last year I set my goal of the April streak in February. I needed to prepare myself for it mentally, as well as physically, to continue running after Shamrock. And of course the marathon goal was a year in the making — perhaps too long term. (Sometimes I wonder if I would have gone for the Baltimore Marathon or the Marine Corps Marathon if I would have been OK.)

This brings me to thinking a lot about 2011′s goals. I have to do what works for me — setting goals well ahead of time, but also ones that make sense. In another words, SMART goals — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, Timely. I have them in my head, but I don’t like lists. Every time I’ve made a list of goals, something happens. For the first time in forever, I made a race schedule last year only to have things fall apart when I got sick and had a DNF.

My recent ITB injury has me fearing injuries again. Setting a goal for a PR in a half marathon is just crazy talk right now. It’s not even a realistic goal not knowing how long I’ll be away from distance running, not that I’m giving up hope for doing Shamrock yet. For now, though, I have to put running goals to the side and do some other things. That’s why the #2011commitments tag will last throughout the year and is about more than just running.

So for the second “Making the Commitment” post, I’ve decided that February 2011 will be a “meatless” month. That’s right, no meat.

I’m not going to go vegan on you — I still will have fish and eggs. Just no steaks or burgers or pork or chicken. Why? I want to do something different with my eating. I feel stuck in a rut. No burgers. No beef burritos. No New York Strip (not that I actually eat steak very often).

Why February? Well, it is the shortest month of the year. If I stick with it afterward, then fine. If I don’t, then so be it. What happens after isn’t as important as getting through those four weeks of change and committing to it.

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net