November is Here

Hello! Hope you all had a fantastic Halloween. Mine was okay - my husband is out of town so I hung with some friends and handed out candy, but it just didn't feel the same without him around.

I didn't go to WW this week, but I may try to scoot over there tomorrow during work. I'm sure it will be a maintain/gain, but I am just doing the best I can right now so I'm okay with that.

This week I've been listening to the book Skinny Bitch on CD during my commute (which is a horrid 45 minutes each way on a good day) and I thought I'd give you all a little review here.

I didn't realize it when I bought it, but this book is predominately about becoming vegetarian/vegan. According to the sassy narrator, the only way to become a so-called "Skinny Bitch" is to completely abolish all animal meat and products from your diet.

It's interesting really, and for a couple of days I was seriously considering going vegan for a little while to see what happened. I know this subject could potentially be very controversial, and I don't want to get into all of that here, but I do like the idea of removing animal products from my diet.

I was vegetarian in high-school and college for a number of years, but added meat back into my diet because I wasn't getting enough protein. To be honest, I was what they call a "7-11 vegetarian." That means I wasn't good about substituting plant foods for animal foods. Instead, I just substituted crap foods for animal foods, and of course I gained weight during that time and I felt like crap too.

I haven't reintroduced red meat at all since that time and I have no plans to. In fact, I'd say I have at least 3-4 vegetarian days per week, as I just don't like eating meat all that much. That's what they call a "flexetarian."

But removing meat from my diet occasionally isn't going to prevent factory farming, and it isn't going to really help cleanse my body of all of the crap antibiotics and other shit that goes into meat and animal products these days.

Becoming a vegan is a huge commitment though. I mean huge. And frankly, selfishly, I just don't know if I can handle that commitment right now. Or ever. I wish I could, but I can readily admit that I can't.

The book did get through to me on a number of levels though, and I have been thinking about cleaning up my diet in terms of reducing animal products, sugar and sugar substitutes. Specifically, I've decided to cut out all sugar substitutes, at least for a little while.

This means no more aspartame. No more Splenda. No more diet soda, no more sugar free energy drinks, no more fake desserts. It's going to be hard because I rely on these things a lot on WW, but I know this will be good for my body. I know I do not need to be putting all that chemical crap in me.

I started on Tuesday, and so far, it hasn't been that bad. I've ordered iced tea at restaurants, no soda, and I haven't really missed it. I may miss it moving forward, but at this point, I feel truly good about my decision to eliminate this shit from my diet.

A couple of days is one thing, but forever is another, so I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I'm enjoying a nice glass of red wine tonight. No aspartame in that right? :)

Anyway, the book was interesting and informative and I may well adopt some of the practices it suggests, but not all of them. It did open my eyes to all of the processed crap and other shit I've been putting into my body, so all in all, I think it was a great thing to be exposed to.

Now I'm off to watch my recorded Biggest Loser and hit the sack early. Bye!