Reflections on the Week

The experiment ended on Tuesday earlier this week. I have taken the last few days to reflect on what happened. Overall it was a fairly good week; Without random internet surfing I was able to get a mountain load of work finished, relax with meditation and come away feeling proud that I did not consume meat for an entire week. I did have my setbacks like the day I came back from my walk and decided it would be ok to surf the internet for two hours and the paper trash that I did produce from the soft pretzel purchase. But overall I would consider this week a success. It was also eye opening as well. The amount of things we purchase that have disposable plastic wrapping is shameful. Another thing that I noticed through my vegetarianism is how many meat options we have compared to vegetarian ones.

There was a request that I delve further into the training routine that I made for my friend and what kinds of foods that I decided to eat as a vegetarian. So here it goes: My friend wants to join the Marines. She has a year in order to get into shape to pass the fitness test to get in. Part of the test includes a three mile run and a pull up/bar hang test. She had started running the tree miles a day before I came along to help. Right now it is more of a general fitness plan to get her into shape: Sets of pushups, crunches and leg lifts are the majority of the workout apart from running. According to plan you would start with 10 pushups, do 30 crunches and then 15 leg lifts. Add five more to each after every week. That way you gradually build up strength. After she gets to 25 pushups it will be time to start pull ups for which I will come up with a base number when it gets closer to that transition. I also suggested that instead of a three mile run everyday, she do that every other day and run intervals on off days with at least one day completely off from running and working out for recovery. For those of you not familiar with intervals, what you do is get on a treadmill, and you set it to manual for 30 minutes in duration and then you start out at a walking pace. You walk for two minutes. At the end of the two minutes you turn up the speed to a full out sprint (as fast as you can go) for one minute. At the end of that minute you go back to a walking pace. You have a chance to work on slowing your heart rate in between sprints. It is very good training. I am able to get my heart rate to come drop from 165 (beats per minute) to 130. You repeat this process until the 30 minutes are up.

Now on to my food choices. After coming off of a tournament I was able to eat more unhealthy foods than normal. For the first time in weeks I was able to eat dessert which I found very enjoyable. The TDR pie was actually edible. Fortunately, I didn't go overboard but the possibility of eating dessert may have eased my transition to vegetarianism. Overall I maintained a healthy diet, I allowed myself to eat pizza twice during the experiment, and I also ate macaroni and cheese on Wednesday. For all my other meals, I relied heavily on the stir-fry station in TDR. A typical breakfast would consist of an omelette made with spinach and tomatoes and either a banana or an apple or some cantaloupe. Lunch and dinner would normally be stir-fried broccoli, with lettuce, carrots, corn and occasionally mushrooms (which are good sources of protein) in addition to some fruit. At night, I would also make a protein shake to compensate for any protein that I did not eat during the day (because, after all, I can only eat so many mushrooms without being sick of them).

My last day was not without temptation. My family came down to visit me on Monday, the last day of the experiment. They decided to take me out to eat after I showed them around the neighborhood. I took my little sister to Tempo Books. It's a bookstore that specializes in foreign language learning materials and foreign languages books. There, she discovered a Dr. Seuss book in French: Green Eggs and Ham or Oeufs verts au Jambon. And despite the fact she is in her early teens she insisted that I read it to her not once, but two times. Apparently she temporarily morphed into a three year old when she saw the book. After that we walked to the restaurant. They decided that it would be a good idea to go to Chef Geoff's for dinner. Why? Why a burger place on the last day of the experiment which does not allow me to eat meat. Why? Would I fall to temptation? Would watching my family eat meat and burgers in front of me be too much? I decided that I would stick with being a vegetarian. I looked at the menu and once again at least 90% of the meals contained some form of meat. I ended up eating a... (drum roll please) personal pan, mushroom pizza! It was really good. But that wasn't the only thing that was good. Looking around the table, I was happy to be there with my family and the fact that they had burgers on their plates didn't bother me. I looked at one of the burgers. It was a bistro burger, the kind that has bacon over top of the beef and melted cheese. But somehow it didn't appeal to me. I saw what many, including me, said was a delicious burger but I didn't feel tempted by it at all. This experiment was eye opening and it helped me examine my day to day life more than I had before. (And this is coming from a guy who takes long walks and ponders about things like the meaning of life while stroking his beard).

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this and I hope you've enjoyed following my journey. Have a wonderful day!

Halfway there

So I’ve had successes and setbacks. One of my major successes was that I have been able to avoid eating meat. It actually doesn’t bother me that much and I will risk making the claim that I can easily finish off the week without it. The one thing that I am noticing however is the ridiculous amount of food and dishes that contain meat. I happened to be down at the Smithsonian today and I decided to get a snack from the refreshment stand. (I’ll get to the museum trip soon). Almost all of the snacks had meat in them. There were only three things on the menu that I can remember (other than candy) that did not contain meat. I ended up getting a soft-pretzel.

The Smithsonian trip:

At the beginning of the experiment I decided that I would walk or ride a bike and only use the metro to commute to work and Judo practice. I got out of class early today and since it is Good Friday I had off work and Judo. Since I had so much free time on my hands I decided to make a museum trip. So I walked. Conservatively I would say that I walked at least 12 miles today. It was exhausting, but I’m happy that I didn’t break down and call a cab, catch a bus, or take the metro. The walk provided time to reflect and relax. After arriving at my destination, (The Museum of African Art) I looked at numerous exhibits and even scoped out the museum store. I finished seeing all the exhibits that I could right when it was time for the museum to close. It was time for me to head back.

However, Walking another 5 or 6 miles is something that shouldn’t be done while hungry so I broke down and bought a soft pretzel which of course was wrapped in disposable paper. Thus one of the setbacks I mentioned earlier. This experiment has helped to make me aware of the massive volume of disposable containers and bags our food comes in. It’s mind-bottling to think that we can’t find a better or alternative way to prepare and sell food. On top of the annoyance about the paper that the pretzel came with something else happened. While I was standing there, something fell and hit me squarely in the nose. At first I thought it was something that had fallen from a tree. But was I wrong. Whatever it was, it was still on my nose. I pulled out the handkerchief that I have been carrying with me to reduce my paper waste and wiped my nose with it.

I looked down at the handkerchief and to my horror it was bird poop. Bird Poop! Of all the things that could have happened, I had a bird use my nose for target practice! Fortunately the handkerchief got it all and there was disinfectant at the refreshment stand, which I used on both my nose and hands. I sat on a park bench to eat my soft-pretzel and meditate. After that I began the long trek home. It was on the way back that I came across a used bookstore and found a book on Pascal published in 1931 in French. Not only was it a great find but it cost $2. And with the book and a copy of Street Sense tucked under my arm I finished my walk home. After everything that happened today, I went on Facebook to catch up with some friends who I hadn’t been able to communicate with because of my restriction of internet activity to research purposes only. So I may have let the ball drop on two of the categories but I was able to continue the others and reduce my carbon footprint and burn a massive amount of calories from my walk.

The First Day

Yesterday marked the first day of the experiment. I started the first day by eating a bowl of cereal. Immediately afterward I turned on my computer to check the weather so I would know how to dress. After that I found my self out of reflex go to log on to Facebook. I stopped just before hitting the enter key. I scolded myself: “Remember the experiment!” It was only the first day, first thing in the morning and I almost blew it. The going without meat part was easy but surfing the web was going to be difficult for me.

That day I had two classes and was done by noon. I ate another meatless meal. Personally, I actually think that the last two weeks of not eating bread or any bread products were more difficult than this meatless week will be. We’ll see what happens. After lunch, I returned to my room. Knowing I couldn’t surf the web, I decided to be productive. By 1 o’clock I had already finished the work that I had for tomorrow. I was able to then work on stuff that was not due until later in the week. It is amazing how productive I can be when I am not spending time on Facebook or aimlessly surfing the web. Sadly, if I wasn’t doing this experiment I would have wasted the time I was doing homework or just looking at Facebook and watching youtube.

Transportation was not an issue since I stayed on campus and took an enjoyable walk through the neighborhood. When I got back to campus I stopped at the Eagle’s Nest to see if I could get a snack. Everything was packaged in a wrapper. So I walked away without having bought anything. That moment was an eye opening experience. Before I didn’t think about throwing packaging away but now through this experiment I noticed that disposable packaging is everywhere.

After that I checked on my friend and made sure they were doing their workout for the day. And since I had extra time because I finished my homework early I was able to be a part of our floor community by hanging out and interacting with everyone.

As the day drew towards a close I went through the mental list of things that I had to do with the experiment. One more thing remained to check off the list: meditation. So I found a quiet place and sat down to meditate. I worked towards clearing my mind off all the thoughts swirling around in my head. I’ve discovered that it is much easier said than done. I was having difficulty so I decided to try and focus on my breathing. And then, for a brief moment, my mind was clear. Immediately afterward thought returned and I was back to square one. I tried again and repeated the process for the rest of the half hour. It was an incredibly relaxing experience. After that I brushed my teeth and went to bed. I slept surprisingly better than I had in a long time. After last night I’ve decided to include meditation as part of my regular routine.