I'm Hungry

So one of the things that happens when you run a race is that they have professional photographers all over the course taking your photo.

They have nice cameras which really show a lot of details. 

Too much details. 

We got an email from the race photographer on Monday evening with all the photos that we were in. There were a few dozen and we each went to our separate computer and looked at our individual photos.

Our photos were bad. Real bad. Mine were really really bad. So bad that I cried. 

We both came to the hard conclusion that we could stand to lose a few pounds. It really took the wind out of my sails. I mean 36 hours prior I had finished a marathon, but after seeing those photos, I got really bummed out. 

It also just so happened that Monday night when we received the race photos, we were in the middle of watching the documentary 'Forks Over Knives' on Netflix. 

In case you don't know, this movie highlights the importance of having a plant based diet (veganism) using scientific arguments on the health benefits that occur once you remove dairy and meat from your diet. I won't get into the details at all because I am not an expert but I definitely recommend that you watch the movie to learn more about it. 

It is powerful but not 'in your face.'

When I was in fourth grade I became a vegetarian and did so for about five years (minus the occasional bacon indulgence here and there. I had a weakness!). In tenth grade I started eating meat again. Once I hit college, I went vegetarian for about a year and then turned to veganism. I was a vegan for about a year, ate meat for a year, became vegan again for about two years, went vegetarian for two years, then ate meat for the last 1.5 years. 

To say that my relationship with animal products is off/on again is an understatement. 

After watching the movie 'Forks over Knives' with my husband though on Monday, we both came to the conclusion together that we needed to adopt more of a plant based diet. We need to get healthy, lose weight and get control of our future.

We are doing it together and I am excited about that.

We are slowly easing into this. We have some dairy in the house we need to eat still and some meat in the freezer we need to cook. We are planning on doing one meal a week with the meat until we use it all up and basically limit our dairy intake by a lot as we slowly get rid of our cheese/eggs/butter. I am most likely going to go full-on vegan once we use up all the dairy and meat, while my husband will be fairly plant based, but still enjoy the occasional burger :)

We will see how this goes and we are really excited about doing this together (probably me more than him though. He just got a new grill for his birthday two weeks ago and grilling vegetables on it isn't quite the same as grilling meat).

So expect some vegan recipes to come your way during the next few months. I actually did a guest post on Kate's blog last week, Scathingly Brillant, about one of my favorite vegan dishes to make (total coinecende). 

Check out Scathingly Brillant (here) to see how I make a yummy Pakistani Dahl.

All in all, I definitely want to eat some bacon right now.