The truth hurts

The last two weeks have been interesting, to say the least. Though difficult to cut meat from my diet, it wasn’t as traumatizing as I anticipated. Aside from some hurdles – people offering me free lamb and filet mignon and tri-tip (so hard to say no!) it was fine and I survived without them. A large part of what kept me motivated to stick to this challenge was my pride and stubbornness, but reading Skinny Bitch also happened to scare the bejesus out of me and made it easier to just say no to eating animals. Have you read this book!? It is heavy.

Without giving much away, because you should check it out yourself, there was one particular chapter that I imagine will haunt me ‘til the grave. In extreme graphic detail, the authors explain the process of how a cow or a chicken or pig is transformed into the slab of meat on your dinner table. Brutal accounts of mistreated animals at slaughterhouses made my eyes want to bleed. Without strict government regulation or oversight of anyone who cares about animal treatment more than increasing profits, abuse is actually quite common.

Here’s some enlightening snippits to make your stomach queasy: factory workers slice off pigs’ noses and let them bleed out, chicken’s beaks are sliced off so they don’t peck each other to death in their jam-packed coops and they’re (sometimes) rendered unconscious for the rest of the slaughter process. Perhaps most disturbing is how animals are treated if the initial means of “stunning” doesn’t work: cows and hogs get metal bolts shot into their skulls to knock them out, but sometimes shooters miss their mark or the bolts are too low to be effective and the animals are awake and aware for the rest of the process. This includes being strung from the ceiling by chains to their legs to have their throats slashed open and trucked along a bleed rail where many bleed to death. But for those who are still alive and squealing, they feel the agony of having their skin sliced from their heads before having their limbs cut off and their bodies dipped in 140 degree scalding hot water to remove hair from their bodies. Gross, huh? Doesn’t exactly make you crave a cheeseburger.

Sorry, I had to scar someone else with this information because it’s too much to bear on my own. While I won’t elaborate here, the book also has some other less-intense and more positive chapters about eating a “natural” diet devoid of meat and the benefits of doing so (think: less sluggish, clear skin, decreased likelihood of obesity and cancer etc). Several people approached me after hearing of my meatless endeavor, saying either they or their friends changed their lives because of this book. So, clearly the women behind Skinny Bitch are onto something. But their suggested lifestyle changes are not easy. It’s hard to accept an ugly truth in something you love, making it much easier to turn a blind eye to this kind of information. And I have never been, nor will I ever be a preacher or someone who pushes my beliefs onto others, but I will always be an informer and will do my best research and make educated decisions in my life.

Yes, I am deeply disturbed by these accounts of animal cruelty and I am terrified of the countless pesticides and toxins these animals are fed and then passed unto us when we eat them. I may not be an Insta-Vegan, but I’ve committed myself to making more thoughtful decisions when buying food and I hope to learn more about ways to live a healthier life so I can someday raise a healthy family and live to be 120 years old. I like to make realistic goals.

Thank you to everyone who passed along advice and references to living vegetarian or vegan lifestyles. And I continue to welcome any others as well!

Hold the meat

I love meat. So very much. Mostly chicken, actually, which I suppose is technically poultry, but Wikipedia calls it meat and Wikipedia knows all. Working at a BBQ joint, I’m continually taunted by racks of juicy, fall-off-the bone, Guy Fieri-endorsed ribs, killer pulled pork and, again, chicken. But in the coming weeks, I’ve decided to take on the same “look but don’t touch” policy married guys (insert raised eyebrow) employ at the strip clubs, except in this case I’m referring to animal meat, not the flesh of young females with student loans and daddy issues. So no meat for me. For two weeks. Maybe. We’ll see how this goes. My thinking here is that if I publicize it, it makes me more committed and therefore less likely to give in to temptations.

No more succulent slabs of meat for me

 

My motivation? I’m not sure, really. I read an article in some fitness magazine about the health benefits of scaling back on meat so maybe that did it. I also thought I could give up chocolate for Lent and that lasted a whole day. Honestly, I was being overzealous with that goal. Especially when there are Reese’s Easter eggs on the shelves at CVS. What a joke.

But really, I just like a good challenge and it’s been a while since I’ve taken on one, so here I am with this whole meat-free-me thing. In the beginning, I may lash out at people for no reason due to meat withdrawals, so try to be patient with me. And while I’m on the subject of advice, it wouldn’t hurt to buy me something shiny to ease my fits of rage.

Down to the details: Before embarking on any challenge, it would behoove me to research what I’m getting myself into. My starting point: Skinny Bitch, the hoity-toity New York Times Bestseller that makes girls cry and wish they’d never been born. I can’t wait to dive in. Especially into these chapters: “Don’t be a Pussy” and “The Dead, Rotting Decomposing Flesh Diet.” While the diet book is said to take on a very strong pro-vegan tone, I’ll likely be skimming through those parts because I simply enjoy eating animals way too much to stop completely.

If you have any motivational/informational pieces along the lines of living The Vegetarian Life that you’d recommend I check out, send them along! And as mentioned before, if you feel bad for me and want to send a present to make me feel better, I’d welcome that too. In the meantime, I’ll blog about my progress, or lack thereof, along with some health tips and tidbits I learn in my research.

If I hit the two-week mark successfully, I just may take on a third week and so on and so on, to see how far I can push it. Wait, what? I’m sorry, I just blacked out. Disregard whatever I just said. Did I mention I work at a BBQ joint? This is going to be very hard.

Fitness Gone Green

Interested in working out and limiting your carbon footprint simultaneously? Check out this recent article I wrote for LuxEco Living Magazine to see what options you have.

The start of a new year brings motivation to do bigger and better things than the previous year. If improving fitness is one of your resolutions, why not hit a gym that not only helps you shed pounds but also helps the environment? Green gyms and fitness centers are proliferating as we become more conscious of how the health of the planet relates to their own health. Home to endless rows of machinery plugged into walls, buzzing TVs and overworked fans, gyms are an energy-saver’s nightmare. But some businesses are starting to use energy in a more productive way, making their members’ experience a greener one.

Read More…

Breathe, Stretch, Shake…Hit the Gym

Want to increase your productivity at work and improve and stabilize your mood throughout the day? Better yet, want to skyrocket yourself to a promotion? OK, well I can’t promise that will happen to you, But! I can promise some other things if you heed my oh-so-wise advice.

All you have to do is step away from your computer, throw on your favorite pair of kicks, and head out the door to get those limbs moving.  Your phone calls, emails and cube visitors can wait an hour while you use your lunch break to squeeze in a workout.

Research shows that employees who exercise during the work day show increased productivity and a more positive outlook. A study by Jim McKenna from the University of Bristol showed that after exercising, participants returned to their offices more tolerant of themselves and more understanding towards their coworkers. Maybe it’s a good thing you made them wait while you went to work out!

While it’s easy to make up excuses not to hit the gym (I am working on deadline, I have a meeting, I’m tired…), it’s worth it to investigate the positive aspects of taking a T.O. from your work load.  When you work out your body releases endorphins – that “feel good” chemical for the brain that us women often find in chocolate. So why not get those feel good chemicals in a form that won’t go straight to your thighs?

Exercise increases employee happiness. When people are happy about their jobs they want to come to work and give 100%.

This afternoon I made a lunch time appointment on my Outlook calendar for a group exercise class that said: “Kettlebell. You Better Go!!” At 11:45 am I got a calendar reminder to pack my gym bag and huff it to the gym. I had a zillion things to do at my desk, but I knew I needed a mental break and physical challenge. Thirty some odd minutes later I was drenched in sweat swinging around weighted balls thinking, why?! why?! why?! why?! But the feeling was also exhilarating. My adrenaline was pulsing and for a moment I had that feeling I used to have when I played college soccer when I felt invincible. At 12:45 pm I felt like a completely different person. I wasn’t tired any more. I felt energized and ready to conquer the rest of my day. Ok, and maybe I was sore.

As an added bonus, we as employees aren’t the only ones who benefit from this (caffeine free) mid-day pick-me-up. Companies that employ healthy workers actually save money. Health insurance premiums are lower and healthy employees typically don’t use health insurance as often as unhealthy people, offsetting health care costs. Perhaps the biggest incentive for employers to encourage their workers to exercise and be healthy is their increased happiness. A happy worker equals a hard worker, which equals increased productivity, which equals more revenue for the company. It’s all about the Benjamins. And perhaps for you, this means an upcoming raise! But don’t hold your breath; we’re still in a recession.

disclaimer: So far, exercising has not gotten me promoted. I’m working on it.

Added Bonus: Here’s a fun 15 minute YouTube ab workout video you can do when you get home from work if you can’t work out at lunch.

Photo (cc) by adria.richards and republished under creative commons license. Some rights reserved.

Sleepless and Stressed

I work 10 hour days in a big corporate office during the day, take classes at night towards my Master’s degree, am constantly searching for freelance writing opportunities, spending lots of time with friends and family, and occasionally squeezing in trips to the gym. Sleep barely fits in there somewhere and caffeine is my life support.

Is this a healthy lifestyle? Probably not. For those of us who try to cram as much as possible into every waking minute of the day, often the end result is not pleasant: sleep-deprived and stressed out.

When we’re not catching enough zzz’s, our bodies and brains aren’t as sharp as they would be on a restful night’s sleep. Functioning on six hours of sleep or less a night for only two weeks can have the same effect on you as if you were awake for 48 hours straight. It would significantly impair your memory, reaction time and general cognition. A recent Self Magazine poll found that 60% of people get fewer than seven to eight hours of sleep, while 15% get less than six hours.

Getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night can improve your memory and weight maitnenance, while helping you avoid stress and potential risk for diabetes

While our minds may be foggy and our eyelids may need props to keep them open all day, the effects of poor sleep habits are even more severe. A recent sleep study CNN conducted found stunning results.

After depriving college undergraduates for about 35 hours straight and placing them in a MRI scanner, the study found that, “The subjects’ emotional responses were not being kept in check by the more logical seat of reasoning. It’s a problem also found in people with psychiatric disorders.” Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, said the brain scan of a subject with a mental disorder will be similar to that of a sleep deprived subject without a disorder.

What’s more, sleep deprivation is even tied to potential risk of heart disease, weight gain, and diabetes. “We did a study where we restricted sleep to four hours per night for six nights,” Eve Van Cauter, an endocrinologist at the University of Chicago School of Medicine explains. “And we noticed that they were already in a pre-diabetic state. And so, that was a big finding.”

To make things worse, often with sleep deprivation comes stress.

An article on WebMd highlights some of the negative effects stress can have on our bodies over time:

-          Our immune system weakens, making us more likely to get sick

-          We’re at risk for high blood pressure

-          Suffer from tense muscles

-          Stomach pains (gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, IBS, or ulcerative colitis)

-          Skin issues, such as acne, become worse

-          Our reproductive organs are even affected – stress is linked to low fertility!

Though easier said than done, it is worth it to take a step back from our buzzing lives and evaluate the changes we can make to take better care of ourselves. Perhaps that comes from better prioritizing or asking a friend for help with things on your “To-Do” list – whatever it takes to slow down and make time for more (restful) sleep. We each only have one body, so we might as well take care of it; no one else will.

Photo (cc) by procsilas and republished under Creative Common license. Some rights reserved.