Today I saw my mom for the first time since Christmas break. She asked me whether I was pregnant; after I denied it, she asked if I had gotten an abortion and hid it from her. Then she said, girls your age aren’t supposed to gain weight that quickly. FML

So after three months of being vegetarian, I actually gained weight. When I started the school year, everyone was worried about me because I looked so skinny. Now, everyone is commenting on how much fatter I got (they do that in China; it’s supposed to be a compliment).Today I went shopping and couldn’t even fit into the largest size pants in all the stores. A week before I came to China, I started eating meat again, justifying it on the fact that: I knew I was going to eat meat in China anyway, so why not start a week early?

I know why I failed at being a good vegetarian: 1) I never stopped eating lots and lots of sugary snacks (my achilles heel), 2) I didn’t exercise as much as I used to before I became vegetarian, and 3) I was hungry a lot and so went out for fast food late at night.

Despite my weight gain and my inability to continue, I still don’t consider my vegetarianism a failure. Since I’ve come to China, I have indeed been eating meat, but much less than I had eaten in my previous diet; I mostly eat some rice and lots and lots of vegetables. This isn’t because I’m trying to follow some strict regimen, but because I actually like the taste of vegetables and prefer to not eat much meat. In the end, that’s all that I wanted to get out of my vegetarianism: a healthier eating habit.

So, I’ve decided to scrap vegetarianism and continue on this new diet:

• continue eating lots of vegetables and little meat
• do not eat cookies or any other dry snacks (so hard! especially in China with so much good stuff to eat!)
• when I do want to eat a snack, have fresh fruit, or at the worst, allow myself to eat dried fruit. (very easy in China, have basket-fulls of fresh cherries, pears, apples, strawberries, and all sorts of fruits I’ve never seen)
• drink more water (I constantly have headaches from dehydration but never remember to drink)
• eat lots and lots of Indian food when in England (yay! looking forward to that)

I will continue updating about how this diet goes. And yes, it’s a good thing you didn’t make a bet on how long I would stay vegetarian.

Screw Veg – A New Diet is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal

1) I’m going to China soon anyway, and when I go to China I am not going to keep this diet up because meat in China is sooo good and not as unhealthily cooked as in the states

2) Shabuway hot pot is just meat + boiled water, no oil or any of that yucky stuff

3) Just vegetables won’t fill me up

However, not only did the beef fall below par of my expectations, the vegetables tasted much better and I would have preferred to just get two plates of veggie instead of one beef one veggie. Also, now I have a huge blister on my lip, I’m not sure if its a result of the meat. [Sigh] Karmic Retribution.

Alright, so I slipped up. I’m not going to give myself crap over it, I’ll just continue even harder on my vegetarianism. I went to the grocery store afterwards and bought entirely vegetarian meals for the week. The one thing that I can’t decide on is whether I should still be vegetarian when I’m in China. I would really love to get your feedback on this one. It would only be a 10 day hiatus from the diet, which I will resume when I go to England. What do you all think?

4/4/3 blister + lonely because everyone has left for break and I’m still here; at least I have my roommate’s fish for company

Veggie Slip-up is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal

Recently as some of you may know, Crystal began a vegetarian diet. You can read about her reasons for trying out the diet in that post so I won’t reiterate them here. Now I’ve always had a hard-line stance on vegetarianism and what I’ll take as an excuse for staying on such a diet.

There are those people who are vegetarians due to their religious beliefs. Since I’m no bigot, I’m not going to tell people that this is a stupid reason to be a vegetarian, so these people get a free pass. Although to be honest, cow is delicious and you’re missing out big time. I’m glad my religion doesn’t stop me from eating foods that taste good.

There are those like Crystal who do it for the potential benefits of being a vegetarian. This includes losing weight, staying healthy, improving skin tone, etc. I see nothing wrong with this either. If not eating fatty meats helps you reach your health goals, why not? It takes quite a bit of discipline to stay vegetarian especially if you’ve just converted. Because let’s face it, bacon is fantastic.

Then there’s the animal rights people. I hate this bogus excuse, a lot. Is it animal cruelty? Not always. A lot of the animals die painlessly, or they are supposed to anyway. In any case the proper way to handle animal cruelty is not to avoid the topic by simply not eating animals, the proper way is to punish those who don’t uphold certain moral guidelines. Man has eaten animals since the beginning of their time. I don’t think its inhumane to eat lesser organisms to survive. But couldn’t we just eat plants you say? What’s the difference between killing one life form versus another if both feel no pain when dying? Besides, I love animals. That’s why I eat them.

If you’re a vegetarian, why do you choose to eat that way? If you’re not, have you ever considered trying?

The Ethics Of Vegetarianism is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal

My Happy Breakfast

Two maxims you’re probably tired of hearing:

Days are just so much better when you start them with breakfast.

Days are also so much better when you start them with a smile.

Well then, days are better squared when you start them with both! Introducing Happy Breakfast, the most pleasant way to get those facial muscles working. One of my goals for this quarter has been to eat more breakfast, particularly before my morning classes from 9 to 11. I was pretty good about it for the first few weeks, I would drink a hot cup of high caffeine tea (sometimes when the juice machine wasn’t gross and completely watered down, I would have OJ), and make myself a toasted sesame bagel with scrambled eggs and tomato. Our dining hall provides free New York Times, so if I was feeling anti-social I would grab a copy and let myself feel educated. Sometimes if I was bad, I would be doing my reading for Chinese lit class. No matter what, eating breakfast nice and slowly instantly increased my alertness and mood, which transferred the smile from those disgusting red dining hall plates and onto my face for the rest of the day.

However, for the past few weeks my sleep deprivation has usually resulted in me skipping my 9 am class and then falling asleep in my 10am class. Either that, or my growling stomach keeps my eyes fixated on the clock and completely prevents me from learning anything. At this rate, I might as well not have gone to class at all.

Although it is 3am right now, I promise myself that I will wake up in time to eat breakfast and make it to my 9 am class. And if I don’t keep my promise, then I promise an embarassing story to share next time.

Mood: 3 have been in a very bad mood recently, easily incited and quick to snap at others. I advise to stay out of my path,

Physical tiredness: 3 even though slept 11 hours last night and took a short nap today, oversleeping makes me feel groggy

Spiritual tiredness: 3 again, PT overspilling into ST so much so that I can’t distinguish the two

My Happy Breakfast is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal

You’ll notice that for the past week I have been a little negligent about writing. That’s because I have completely and utterly failed  every single goal I had set. Let me just list them in order:

Academics: I had said that I would be more diligent about learning over memorizing, yet due to my procrastination, cramming is all I can ever manage in order to get by. Friday morning I had a midterm for human physiology, which I chose to not start studying for until 2 days before. The result: spending every spare moment, and including some not spare ones (try biking while looking at notes), forcing tidbits of information into short term memory, and counting on a system restart once the test was over. I am interested in medicine; human physiology should be the most interesting and relevant subject to me. If I can’t even motivate myself to learn this, how can I ever learn anything? This week, I have to do the same for a physics midterm. Which brings me to my next goal…

Sleep: This week I have been running on consecutive days of minimal sleep. I’m one of those above average people who need more than 8 hours of sleep a night, yet I’ve only averaged 5 this week. Now, my sleep is so messed up that I am sitting in my bathrobe in the dorm lounge at 4:27 AM writing this blog, because despite my extreme tiredness, I still can’t fall asleep. Looks like my insomnia is kicking back in, most likely stress-related…

Exercise: Last weekend I pulled a leg muscle while playing squash, and for two days it hurt to walk. I used that as an excuse at first to doge my exercise routine, promising myself that as soon as I felt better I would work out again. Later, when I had too much work to do, I skipped again. The sleep deprivation gave me more excuses. However, I can already feel the consequences: my mood is worse than usual, I feel more tired, and am less productive and unable to focus. This weekend I should make up for it by re-starting my routine.

Vegetarianism: No, I have not broken it. I have friends placing bets on how long I will last (shoutouts to those who placed 100$ on me staying this way forever!). I must say, some friends have already lost. However, I don’t feel like I am getting what I am supposed to from this diet. As mentioned earlier, I feel extra-hungry, and rely on unhealthy, albeit meat-less, meals. I keep meaning to visit the nutritionist but never find the time.

From now on in my posts, I will keep a tracker of three things: Overall Mood, physical tiredness (short-term fluctuations), and spiritual tiredness (more long-term). For sake of clarity, I will spend a moment to detail what each reading means. 10 means best (better mood, less tired, etc.), 0 means worst.

Mood:

0 – suicidal

1 – severely depressed

2 – slightly depressed

5 – neither happy nor sad

7 – quite happy

10 – best day of my life

Physical tiredness:

0 – I’m going to collapse

3- lethargic

5 – not too tired, but not too energetic

7 – quite bubbly

10 – I just overdosed on caffeine

Spiritual Tiredness:

0 -I want to shut myself up in a Buddhist temple and take a break from life

3 – I need a vacation

5 – no feelings

7 – I have energy to move forward with life

10 – I have no idea what this state would look like, must be heaven.

I am so tired of being tired.

Mood: 6 These few weeks are the weeks from hell: exams or large papers due every week, and they just keep on coming. The only reason this score is positive right now is because I just came back from Viennese Ball and got to wear my new 300$ dress. Also, I’m going ice skating tomorrow!

Physical Tiredness: 1 Too little sleep + 5 hours of waltzing + insomnia

Spiritual Tiredness: 3 School + Med School apps + being unsure about life

Epic Fail: Goal Report Card is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal

• lots of fruit (oranges, apples, cantaloupe, grapefruit, pineapple – I avoid bananas because I heard those can aggravate acne)
• lots of salad, especially spinach
• cooked vegetables
• soup
• eggs
• bagels for breakfast
• pasta
• tofu
• rice
• soymilk

I originally started a vegetarian diet to see if it would improve my skin. The first few days I noticed significant improvement. However, I think the diet is starting to backfire; I don’t eat enough during actual meals, which means that I have to eat another meal late at night. However, the only dining options available at that time are fries and other fast food. I guess I should start trying to eat more tofu and carbs.

Vegetarian Update is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal

I realized that what I lacked before was motivation. Previous attempts were merely out of curiosity – to see if I could do it. This time, I found a diet avoiding meats as a way to improve acne. Since my acne has been a constant source of shame since my tween years, and after years of various products, doctors, and regimens – I decided, “why not?”.

I intend to gradually wean myself off of my normal diet. I will publicly make a promise right here that I will continue to be vegetarian unless I see no improvement in my acne for 2 weeks. After one day of not eating meat, I already noticed a huge improvement in my skin tone! Encouraged so, I have already been meatless for a week! Next, I plan to cut eggs out of my diet. I’ll let you all know how well the vegetarian plan is going.

Going Veg! is a post from: The Trouble With Crystal