Disaster!

I have proven in one day that it is possible to be completely self-loathing in your menu choices without actually straying outside the confines of veganism. I'll elaborate:

8:00 a.m.: strawberries and orange juice. Not so bad, right?

1:00 p.m.: almonds. Still healthy and legal. Moving on.

2:00 p.m.: Worked out. Never should have done it. Here's where it all fell apart. How? Well...when I decided to be a healthy vegan, I also decided to start working out regularly. It's normally great! Except there are a couple of times a month when my hormone levels are elevated (hm, wonder why.....) and exercise seems to induce extreme mood swings for me. I don't know if it releases more of a certain hormone or if it just causes the current hormones in my body to flow more swiftly, but whatever it is, during these times of the month, when I'm done exercising (or sometimes in the middle of exercising) I just want to cry.

I've read in several articles that many people experience this, not because of hormones necessarily, but because of low blood sugar. Also, because so many of us carry our stress in our muscles, often when we move those muscles and loosen up, the emotions that we keep tied up in those muscles comes pouring out. But I haven't seen anything yet on the relationship of PMS to exercise. If anyone finds something, let me know.

Anywho, as I said, from there it went down hill.

2:25 p.m.: Had to stop exercising. My old football injury flared up (I played the drums in my high school marching band and now have what I believe to be tendonitis of the knees from basically crab-walking with a 20 lb. snare strapped to my shoulders). This aggravated me. Wanted to cry.

2:35 p.m.: Went to Publix looking for a quick, healthy lunch like salad or something.

2:50 p.m.: Went through the check-out with 3 items - Sweet potato chips, pint of Purely Decadent Non-Dairy Cookies and Cream Soy Ice Cream, plastic spoons.

2:55-3:10: Ate half the pint of soy cream before arriving at church for my directory picture.

4:00 - 4:15: Ate half the bag of sweet potato chips on the way home from church.

4:15: Decided "to hell with it" and ate dinner - 3 pieces of pizza (whole wheat crust, no cheese, w/ mushroom & onion) and the rest of the pint of soy cream.

Why do I admit to all of this? Because I am finding that changing your diet is one thing, but changing your habits is completely another. I know we all need our cruddy food days, and, thankfully, as a vegan my cruddy food days aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. But the whole point of being a vegan (for me) is not just finding loopholes to the rules. It's about actually getting to a point where I'd rather follow the rules than just squeeze by. I won't beat myself up for today. Cruddy food days happen. But now that I've had a little over a month to warm up to the change in diet, I think I'll focus now on incorporating some habit changes. I may only get to them one at a time, but every little one changed will be a step toward being THAT much healthier. (At least, that's the plan...)