an interlude: bad days...

Today ends (I hope!) a week of bad days so it's only fitting that I cover this subject now. When it comes to making a lifestyle change, there are at least three different types of bad days that I have discovered:

1. Days when you want to throw in the towel and return to old ways out of exhaustion, bad moods, pms, temptation, cravings, etc...
2. Days when you choose to regress in order to not offend or not be that pain-in-the-ass vegan guest at a dinner party, and
3. Days when you accidentally cheat and end up paying for it with guilt, digestive problems or a combination of the two.

As though to make up for all of the great days I've been having, life threw me all three situations this past week. I woke up early last Monday night with intense nausea and didn't fully recover for two days. The culprit: accidentally consuming raw-ish ground beef as I was cooking dinner. One pot was my vegan creation. One pot was Matt's meaty creation. There were separate spoons which somehow got mixed up and in the process of tasting my vegan creation, I tasted Matt's not-yet ready meat. Eight hours later, I was painfully unhappy. An accidentally cheat.

Fast forward to Wednesday or Thursday. After suffering through a few days of digestive hell, I was ready to throw in the towel. I was angry at the fact that despite eating so well and feeling so great, I got so sick. It felt like a slap in the face after so much hard work - though I did remind myself that the work wasn't really hard at all and it wasn't the diet that made me sick. Raw meat would have made me sick even before my cleanse. Nevertheless, old ways were starting to seem like a lot less trouble and thus, far more appealing.

Finally, we come to Saturday night and my almost mother-in-law's 60th birthday feast. I had always planned on being very relaxed with my eating regimen on this day because I have not yet figured out the social etiquette of eating a healthy, primarily vegan diet. So we went out to a restaurant and I ordered the delicious veggie spankiopita with ricotta and feta (it was that or a mushroom pasta in a bechamel sauce). It went down just fine. Then it was back to the house for an absolutely delicious homemade dessert. It was, alas, cheesecake. Despite being asked and assured it was no big deal to turn it down, I partook in the cheesecake. 12 plus hours later, I am finally recovering (note to reader: I am also quite lactose intolerant).

So yes, it was a week of cheating and of days when my stomach didn't feel all too wonderful. BUT, that being said, yesterday's post was not one bit of a lie. I am still loving my diet and here's why: it was precisely the conscious return to more healthier ways that healed me this week. After the raw meat debacle, I stuck primarily to brown rice, steamed fruits (especially apples) and veggies, and a lot of ginger. I recovered quickly and without any drugs. When the mid-week attitude reared it's ugly head, I treated myself to a delicious vegan lunch at Urban Herbivore and a few scrumptious vegan desserts. 24 hours later, the attitude was gone. Finally, when I woke up today feeling less than stellar from last night's dairy and white sugar explosion, I went straight for the macrobiotic cure-all tea (see recipe below) and had a delicious roasted vegetable and hummus sandwich for breakfast. It's now 2:45pm and I am back to normal.

So what are the lessons here? Humbly, this is what I have learned:

• Everyone has bad days. Even when you're 100% committed and never choose to stumble, the accidental cheats are hard to avoid, especially when you eat out. It's hard to know what chefs use in all of their dishes, which brings me nicely to my second lesson...

• Ask! If you're not sure about something, simply ask. No one will get offended when you choose to take charge of your diet at a restaurant, and as I learned yesterday, even family won't be offended. True, I may turn something down but they understand and even if they don't, no one who loves me wants to see me suffer through my post-dairy agony like I did last night. In hindsight, it probably made my lovely sister-in-law feel much worse to see me take tums after her truly DELICIOUS cheesecake than it would have if I had just said no when she first asked!

• When you feel like throwing in the towel, indulge in something naughty, and use your judgment on this. It's much better to have one cheat than to throw in the towel all together. Lean into changes; don't force them cold turkey.

• If you feel awful after stumbling, drink the following tea. I won't lie, it's pretty weird tasting, but it honestly works wonders... even after hangovers!

Alicia's cure-all tea:

• One bag of kukicha tea. Prepare it as per the instructions on the package.
• Throw in 1/4 to 1/2 of a finely dished umeboshi plum (see note below).
• Add two or three drops of shoyu (a type of soy sauce).
• My addition to help with the taste: 1/2 tbsp of maple syrup.
• Steep the mixture for a few minutes and drink hot. You can also throw in the umeboshi plum pit and suck on that after.

What on earth are umeboshi plums? Umeboshi's are Japanese pickled ume fruits (like plums). You can get these salty little buggers in most health food stores. They are really expensive (almost $20 for a jar of about 20) BUT they keep for a very long time and you use them sparingly. I've had my jar for two months and I've used only two plums. They truly are magical little fruits that provide a nice salty taste in recipes and which re-mineralize you and make you feel good ag

ain!

I hope that this post provided some decent information on what to do when reality bites... or at the very least, established that I am absolutely human and despite my love for the last six weeks of my life, I too stumble backwards. If you stumble, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to it!

Have a lovely week everyone... I hear we will have a few gorgeous sunny days!

mxo