Veggie No More

Yes, I dare say, the time has come for me to make the switch (and accept the facts) after 3.5 happy years of being a vegetarian, I AM DONE! First off, I've actually been eating chicken a few times a week for the past few weeks anyway, and here's why...

You're probably thinking something along the lines of, "she misses meat, craves it, and wants to eat yummy meals again." I am actually, truly, saddened to say that this is most definitely not the truth. I wish that I was not as grossed out by most meat and fish as I am, if this was the case the switch would be much easier. On the contrary, however, I still find that I am more or less forcing myself to eat the chicken (unless, of course, it is Daniel's mom's shabbat chicken or the Morse's turkey meat balls, those I truly love!)

So why AM I making the switch then? There are infinite health benefits for me to switch back to eating poultry (and eventually, maybe) meat. Most importantly I need to note that I do not have complete control over my food options right now. At ulpan we are served lunch and dinner everyday, I only provide myself with breakfast and minimal snack/small meal options. It doesn't make sense to spend money buying all of my own groceries when I have already paid for the food here. Therefore, my substantial meal options as a vegetarian here are severely limited.

With the training I am doing on these hills for the half marathon it is really just stupid of me to try and source my energy and fuel for my muscles from a mostly carb, low protein diet. No matter how hard I tried to pick the best options this always seemed my ratio. I am really quite sold on the Paleo diet, and would love to eat like this (well not love, since I LOVE bread) but in oder to have a diet that remotely resembles Paleo I need to switch over to eating meat again. It might be a while before I can stomach the thought of eating red meat but who knows, maybe the day will come. Until then, bring it on chicken and turkey! One big problem...even the poultry and especially the fish at ulpan really gross me out. I'll report back about how I'm doing once I try to eat my first few meat meals here.

I am really excited to kick the carbo loaded cereal and bread and cut back to my goal of 50-70 grams of carbs a day. I researched this number but I'm not sure it's totally right for me, it's just something to aim for. Maybe this will help me to shed the last fussy 5-7 pounds that I've been trying to lose since I gained them freshman 15 style.

If you have any tips about paleo send them my way, until then I will be making a list of what I can and can't eat and trying desperately to figure out what has the least amount of carbs in this quite...interesting...ulpan dining hall style food. Also, if anyone wants to buy me this book I wouldn't be upset.