A Compendium of Thanks, part Deux.

I know, I know.  It's been a while.  I was chewed up and spat out by the gilla monster known as graduate school, first semester.  But it's almost over, and while I still need to do 2 20-page papers...and do some research on one of them...and also grade some papers....crap...I need to take time out and compile my thanks.

Last year, as some of you may recall, I did a few weeks of thanks leading up to Thanksgiving, and I ended up doing it again this year.  However, looking at my list this year, I can see I have so much more to be thankful for.

1.   I am thankful for the most amazing group of friends I've made up at UCONN in the Schools of Graduate English and Medieval Studies. It's amazing to see how many people out there think like me (and get my ridiculous references to Tolkien and GRRM). I'm so lucky I get to learn from you all every day. And to my fabulous fellow first-year TA's...has it only been 3 months since I first met you wonderful people?


2.  Today I am thankful for my incredible brother in law, Todd. It is very rare you can talk to someone about the Red Sox closers, Connecticut education standards, and The Goonies in the same conversation. For that, for making my sister so happy, and for being one kickass Dad to the most beautiful little boy ever, I am extremely thankful.  ((Note: This was for Todd's birthday.))


3.   I'm going to attempt to be thankful for my Research Methods class. It is helping me understand Literary Theory and to become more aware of where some of these huge ideas in our field come from. ((Note: This was when I was buried neck deep in a 20-article bibliography with 200-word annotations.  Oh, lord.))


4.  I am thankful for The Twilight Series, as it reminds me daily of the kind of writer I never want to be. I am also thankful for Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman, Bram Stoker, and Steve Niles for promoting true vampirism throughout the world. If I wanted sparkly vampires, I'd throw glitter on my crucifix. Thank you and goodnight.


5.  I am thankful for every single guy (and girl) who called me fat, four-eyes, nerd, loser, geek, stupid, crazy, or weird. I get paid to read books for a living and I could smoke your asses in a 10K race. Let's just say I win, bitches.  ((I'd like to extend this to thank every single acting teacher I had in college who told me to lose weight.  Who is laughing now?))


6.  I am thankful for my Dad.  That is all.  ((This came the day we learned of the terrible plane crash that claimed the lives of both the head and assistant coach of OSU's women's basketball team.  I think about that circumstance a lot.  More than I should.))


7.   I am thankful for a week off for Thanksgiving. A Saturday morning when I can sleep in and not feel pangs of guilt about missing studying time? WHAT?! ((...Clearly I was really excited.  I slept until 9 one day this week.  Who am I?))


8.   I am thankful for everyone I have ever performed/worked with at Cheney Hall as part of the Little Theater of Manchester. Who would have thought four years ago when I walked in to audition for Camelot I would make such an amazing community of new friends?


9.  I am thankful for my Nonna. If you weren't aware....Nonna is a BAMF. End of story.


10.  I am thankful for the amazing women I've gotten to know in my life through my Dad's (admittedly) kick-ass job, and I'm also thankful he never spoiled me or my siblings so I didn't turn into a Jersey Shore, Basketball Wife clone. I just turned into a raging nerd with a fascination with pagan mythology instead. Win? ((this was the night of the Stanford game.  I'm still kind of shocked we won.  I didn't get a chance to watch it on TV, but I did watch Twitter feeds...and wow, y'all are vicious.  That game was gritty, well-fought, and well-played all around.  How dare you complain.))


11.  I am thankful for my nephew. The craziest, weirdest, funniest, cutest boy in the whole wide world. 


12.   I am thankful for yoga for everything it has done for me, body and soul combined. In addition, I am thankful to the AMAZING community of friends I've made at Samadhi Yoga Studio. You all changed my life. JAI!!! ♥




And we come to today.  Today...on the day of thanks, I am thankful for the following.


I am thankful for a roof over my head
my amazing friends in both CT and elsewhere 
coffee
laughing until your stomach hurts
peanut butter in all of its glorious variations, and other forms of nut butter too.  Justin's Maple Nut Butter? COME ON.
hot chocolate in a mug shaped like a penguin (what, you don't own one?)
my FABULOUS C.A.S.T. kids
my students for working so hard....most of the reason why I haven't blogged a lot is because I wasn't sure what I could or could not disclose.  Will be posting QUITE a lot when the semester is over, have no fear.)
EVERYONE at Occupy Wall Street






and YOU!


Happy thanksgiving.


Gobble gobble.


ally

When Vegan is Unhealthy, and Snack Ideas for Graduate School.

I have deleted and rewritten this post dozens of times.  I don't want to piss off my vegan friends, and I don't want to give my omnivore friends reason to question my eating habits.  I also don't want to say veganism is 'bad' or 'unhealthy' for EVERYONE, because a lot of people I know thrive on a vegan diet.  

Just not me.

For several months during the past school year, I lived almost 95% vegan with occasional eggs and Greek yogurt.  I was convinced this type of eating was the right way to eat for me and for my stomach problems, but mostly I was getting a lot of advice from Healthy Living Blogs and thinking vegetarianism or veganism was the way to go in life.  I had a lot of time to cook big, vegan meals for myself, so it worked out just fine. I experimented with vegan cheeses (Daiya: GOOD.  Veggie Slices: WHAT?) and different variations of vegan desserts.  I now know every possible way to use a flax egg, and I have become a master at vegan overnight oats.  I also ate about a pound of kale every few days.  I was REGULAR, people.

Now I'm not going to lie, I felt a lot of energy when I first started eating this way.  I felt lighter when I ran, which to me was always good because if I eat the wrong things the night before a run...let's just say my splits are always negative because I'm dashing back to the house to get to the bathroom.  (TMI? Maybe?)

But after a few months, this way of eating turned its back on me.

I felt tired all the time.  My hair lost its luster.  My nails were brittle.  My skin grew sallow.  I looked haggard, and not just because I was pushing myself through a brutal school regime every week.  I wasn't fueling myself properly, and it wasn't even because I was working out a lot.  I had turned my cardio way down in favor of strengthening my yoga practice, but I never really felt full.  And I was eating a LOT of veggie-based protein, so that wasn't it.

In addition, my 'regularity' began to turn against me.  My stomach hated me for all of the stuff I was, well, stuffing it with.  My mom began to refer to my food as 'roughage.' And it was rough.  Oh, yeah, it was rough.  I was in pain all the time and didn't know what to do.  Basically, it was only a matter of time before someone asked me if I was pregnant.

I underwent a bunch of treatment and got supplied with antibiotics and probiotics, as well as muscle relaxants.  Those helped, but still wasn't enough to take care of the amount of problems I was having with my stomach, hair, nails, and skin.

When I began training for my half-marathon this past June, I was still attempting a mostly vegan diet.  I began adding egg whites back in just to get some more protein.  Then I started eating Greek yogurt again because the idea of oats in the morning made me sweat just thinking the one thing I wanted above anything else?


Meat.


Lots and lots of meat.  I began craving turkey slices, tuna packets, smoked salmon on toast with avocado (still my favorite brunch item of all time), gobs of meat loaf and meatballs and MEAT.  The works.  And eggs.  Oh, all the eggs.

My energy went back up through the roof.  I actually felt FULL after eating, not just 'I just ate a shitload of kale and I'm still hungry wtf is this mess?' My nails, skin, and hair improved.  (Keep in mind as well: I was taking a LOT of vitamins at this point.  A LOT.  So I don't want any vegan Nazis coming at me saying I wasn't getting enough iron or whatever.  All of my levels were normal.  So stifle.)

I still love eating vegan and vegetarian.  Breakfast and lunches usually for me are still one of the two.  I just know now I can't do that for my entire life and have that be my diet.  I am naturally an iron-deficient person, and in order to get that and my needed amount of B-12, I either have to eat a pound of nutritional yeast mixed with spinach a day (although that kind of sounds good...) or I have to start incorporating meat again.  It wasn't exactly a difficult decision...I took a bite of veal osso bucco on my birthday this year and I think I blacked out with joy.

So I have been eating meat once or twice a week and fish 3 times a week, and the difference is staggering.  Also, cutting out food groups is not something one should do when training for any sort of race.  Nor should it be something you do if you're in recovery for disordered eating.  I don't care who you are, what you propose to do if you are suffering from any kind of restrictive eating.  The way to go about it is NOT to cut out a major foodstuff.  To me, that is lunacy.

I talked to my Mom and a few others close to me, and I realized I was doing myself a huge disservice.  Like I said in my post when I announced I wouldn't be running the half...I'm not an athlete.  Nor would I ever call myself one.  I'm shaped like one, but that's because I'm actively avoiding morbid obesity to the best I can.  


People ask me how I stay in shape.  It's not rocket science.  I quote Gwyneth Paltrow (I love her, haters to the left): "I work my ass off.  It's not good genes."  Diseases related to cholesterol run in my family.  I take care of my body because I have to, and I eat clean because my stomach would have a full on panic attack if I didn't.  


But because of my other dietary restrictions, I need to eat meat.  I just do.  My body doesn't work right if I don't have it.  I can tell something is missing when I don't have it.  Part of my recovery from EDNOS is honoring what my body needs.  So, I have it.  


Now, I eat meat about 2 or 3 times a week, usually for dinner.  But if I am craving a turkey sandwich for lunch, I have it.  

Now, on to my second part of the post.  I managed to schedule all of my courses this semester so that they fall directly in competition with lunch time.  Not exactly ideal.  I also quickly, QUICKLY realized that packing a giant kale/quinoa/broccoli/squash salad to eat during those classes is also not exactly ideal, as you begin to get hate-stared at by the rest of your classmates.  You want to pack things that are satisfying, but aren't distracting so you can hear the rest of your classmates discuss Rhet/Comp, Gender Studies, Old English translations, etc.

Another thing you have to be conscious of? Not stinking up your class.  Seriously.  A lot of the food I really love and would love to pack for a lunch any day smells like crap.  Tuna fish sandwiches, seriously, are delicious but smell AWFUL sometimes.  So I can't pack those.  Egg salad, also, is out.  So are most soups, especially the kind of Indian curried lentil soups I love.
So, in a nutshell, these are the things I pack for lunch/snacks pretty much every single day, and they are things I can eat that will fill me up but not cause the rest of my classmates to despise me due to smelly things in the classroom.  

1. Hard boiled eggs.  I eat a LOT of eggs.  A LOT.  And hardboiled eggs are the best thing to bring with me that will fill me up without either making me feel too full or causing me to epically crash.  Also, these don't stink if you just eat them plain, without mayonnaise.  Plus, they don't distract from discussion.  That is, unless you forget to peel them before class.  Which I do on a daily basis.  Another good one would be turkey slices, but those are a little less convenient.  Plus, my school sells hardboiled eggs with salt and pepper packets, and there is something so delicious about simple, lightly seasoned eggs.
2. Larabars, etc.This is such an obvious one, but meal-replacement bars are one of the only ways I can get food in my gullet during class in a way that satisfies a proper amount of calories and fills me up at the same time.  I am currently seriously digging Superfood or Super Protein bars by Odwalla.  And in case I don't have option #3 as a secondary snack, I'll pack a bigger bar such as a ProBar or a Rockit.  Both come in around 370 calories with 22 grams of fat.  This is more of a meal replacement than a snack, obviously, so when I pack these babies I usually just pack fruit and veggies as my 'sides'.
3. Popchips.  I know, these are the domain of Jillian Michaels and everyone and their mother eats them.  But they're better than greasy potato chips, they're gluten free, and SO GOOD.  Honestly.  I have about forty billion bags of these things in my fridge.  A runner-up if I can't get these are rice cakes.  Seriously.
4. Fruit and veggies.  This is a no-brainer, but I've found any kind of fruit with the exception of those that come in a rind are very easily ported from class to class.  My personal favorites to eat during class are apples, pears, and grapes, but lately if I pre-peel a grapefruit those are good too.  As far as veggies, you want something that again is portable and easy.  Carrots, cut up peppers, celery, etc.  


Keep in mind: Those are options for when I have to eat a lunch-style snack thing during class.  If I'm just up at school and don't need to worry about mess/smell, I'm packing a gigantic salad or a turkey sandwich.  That's just how I roll.


When I can't get my shit together in time to make or port lunch/snacks from home, I just buy soup from the student union.  It's the only thing that won't tear my gut a new one, and it's easy enough to bring to and from class.  

My point is this.

Take everything on HLBs with a grain of salt on top of some thick-cut bacon.

You don't have to be a vegetarian.

You don't have to be a vegan.

You don't have to run marathons, or even half-marathons.

You don't have to do yoga.  (wait.  you totally should do this one.)

You don't have to be anything other than yourself.

And if that includes eating some turkey sandwiches, you keep at it, sista.

Rock on.