Vegan in Vegas: Day 17

Morning weight: 178 - whoa!

Breakfast - Honey Nut Chex with almond milk and apple juice

Lunch - Spanish Rice and oreos (Yay! Still excited that Oreos are Vegan!)

Dinner - I was bad. I tried a new place I found called "Novecento 900 Pizzeria". It is both glorious and evil. Seriously, the best pizza I've had in Vegas so far! Very good, made fresh in front of you, and bakes in a 900 degree wood fired pizza oven for 90 seconds. DE-FREAKIN-LICIOUS! Wow. Yum! I ate the entire thing in one sitting. Yes, it had cheese on it. And yes, it was delectable! I cheated. BIG TIME!

Bedtime weight: 179

Today's recap: Even with the pizza, It was still a good day. The pizza cheat was sooooo worth it. If it was crappy pizza I would more upset with myself. At least this was deliciousness!

Vegan in Vegas: Day 16

Morning weight: I didn't weigh myself this morning- I got up and went straight to the kitchen to cook lunch that I didn't do yesterday.

Breakfast - Honey nut Rice Chex with almond milk and apple juice

Lunch - Spanish rice, and water

Dinner - Spaghetti - plain, I didn't have any garlic or herbs left to spruce it up.

Bedtime weight: Fell asleep on the couch, didn't weigh myself before bed either.

Today's recap: I worked both jobs today. Apparently, It exhausted me more than I expected. Granted, I was only at the store for about an hour and a half. (Passed my training test 100% and got a free gift for being the only one to get the bonus question correct). I need to work on my energy levels to keep myself active and going throughout the door with having two jobs again. 

Weekend Recap

I was bad.

Very bad.

I ate a chicken burrito from Del Taco on Saturday on my way to my second job, even decided since I was being so bad anyway, that I might as well really indulge and had extra cheese on it and a Dr. Pepper too.

I redeemed myself with dinner and had a bowl of garlic & herb rice and apple juice

Sunday was simple, I ate potatoes and corn for lunch/dinner. And OREOS! (see previous post about oreos) and almond milk.

Good weekend, didn't think ahead to make lunches for the work week though.

Oreos!

Copied this from Is It Vegan?


Are Oreos Vegan?

Answer: it depends on your stance on refined sugar.

Backstory: a few years ago, Kraft, the maker of Oreo Cookie sandwiches bought out Hydrox Cookies and reformulated their Oreo cookies. They removed all dairy elements, and with a serious glance, the ingredient list looked vegan (unlike Soft Batch Cookies that switched their packaging to include “dairy flavors,” sigh). Vegans of the world rejoiced and began dipping seriously into their collective soy/rice/almond/hemp/… milk glasses. But some vegans questioned the sourcing of the Kraft sugars.

This it the message directly from Kraft: 

Kraft has several sugar suppliers. Some of our suppliers DO use the animal-derived natural charcoal (also known as “bone char”) in their cane sugar refining process and some suppliers DO NOT use this process.

There you have it. The ingredients are all vegan, but the processing of their sugars can involve bone char.

If you're not a Vegan who strictly is against anything that touches an animal part, then you're probably okay. 

I'm not eating Vegan to eliminate animal usage. I'm only doing it to cut out meat and dairy mostly. So bring on the Oreos!

Vegan in Vegas: Day 13

Morning weight: 181

Breakfast - Nothing. My phone died when I fell asleep last night and I didn't realize it until I woke up for work an hour late this morning. I ran out the door with nothing.

Lunch - Spanish rice, apple with natural peanut butter and water

Dinner - Spaghetti with garlic sauce and apple juice

Bedtime weight: 180

Today's recap: If you can't tell by now, I'm a creature of habit. I like the same foods over and over again. I don't change my routine much. I find something that I like and I stick with it. 

I don't care...

So apparently, I have been informed that my little "blog" here is not entertaining, fun to read, or exciting in anyway.

I have news for you. I don't care.

Yup, that's right. I said it. I'm not here to make this into a book someday. I'm not here for your entertainment or anything else for that matter. I'm simply tracking my eating progress as a blog to keep MYSELF on track.

Read if you choose.
Comment if you wish.

If you don't like it, there is an "X" on the upper right hand corner of the window.

Click it.

Close the window and get the hell away from me because I don't like your negativity anyway.

(Unicorn will understand. She's the only one whose input I really like, listen to or respond to anyway)

Vegan in Vegas: Day 11 (Xmas)

Xmas Day... or as I refer to it "A forced and unwanted day off from work"

Morning weight: 180

Breakfast - Apple cinnamon cheerios with soy milk and a glass of apple juice

Lunch - Nothing, I hurt my back again the other day so I spent most of my day laying on the couch watching Netflix on pain killers. I was dozing off and didn't eat lunch.

Dinner - Herb and garlic rice 1 cup (I ate a lot) with apple juice

Bedtime weight: 180

Today's recap: Uneventful and boring. Because the painkillers (and rum) I was asleep and out for the night around 6:30 or 7pm. I couldn't function at all. 

Vegan in Vegas: Day 10

OOPS! Forgot to finish and post this on Wednesday!

Morning weight: 180

Breakfast - Apple cinnamon cheerios with soy milk and a glass of apple juice

Lunch - Spanish rice 1/4 cup with a 34 oz bottle of water

Dinner - We went out for dinner on Xmas Eve. Red Robin. I had a crispy chicken tender salad. I set aside most of the pieces of chicken. Maybe ate three little chunks total. The salad was delicious. I also had a Guinness. - Not sure if that was on the Vegan alcohol link I posted the other day. But it was on tap and delicious.

Bedtime weight: 180

Today's recap: I started my shift at my regular full time job an hour earlier than normal today, so lunch was early also and it totally threw off my "body schedule" today. It's 3pm and I feel like I'm starving for dinner already.

Dinner was around 5:30pm. Very glad we got to the restaurant early as it got busy... FAST! Had a quick glass of rum when I got home and headed straight for bed as soon as I finished coloring my hair.

I'll catch up a speedy recap of my day off yesterday next.

Vegan in Vegas: Day 9

Morning weight: 178.2

Breakfast - 6am - Apple cinnamon cheerios with almond milk

Lunch - Apple and natural peanut butter and the rest of yesterday's spanish rice with water

Well, I landed a second part-time job this afternoon. So I had to run to the store to do paperwork and a drug test (hooray!) Thus, making myself horribly late going home.

As soon as I arrived home, my husband asked me to go run errands with him. BAD IDEA. The second we hit the freeway, I'm fucking starving. Husband stops at Jack-in-the-Box. My kryptonite! I LOVE JITB!

Dinner -  Large curly fries and large Dr. Pepper (Unicorn... Dr Pepper for you!)

Bedtime weight: 180

Today's recap: I feel disgusting. I went to bed at 10:30pm, and was up at 2am in the bathroom for over an hour. TERRIBLE IDEA! JACK IN THE BOX IS EVIL! PURE EVIL! (and fucking delicious)

Vegan in Vegas: Day 8

Morning weight: 178 pounds (must have been from being sick)

Breakfast - 6am - small baggy of apple cinnamon cheerios on my way out the door. I've been waking up WAY too late this past week. 

Work Snack - Nothing at all

Lunch - Spanish rice with tomatoes - this was DELICIOUS and only half of a serving filled me up (1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup). Not sure if it was because of the food, or the little bit of sickness that I still have. 

Dinner - Spaghetti with garlic sauce (homemade)

Bedtime weight: 178

Weekend Recap

I didn't keep an accurate log of my food and such over the weekend. Mainly because I was sick as a dog and lazy as hell. I didn't eat anything too terrible. But I'm sure I could have been better also.

I actually hardly ate anything because I was feeling so awful. Both Saturday and Sunday was Cheerios or Special K with soy milk. Lunch was either jello or nothing, because I couldn't keep anything down. Dinner both days was white rice with cinnamon, all I drank was apple juice or water.

I'm finally feeling better today, I'm realizing that I don't like working in a close-quarters office again with multiple sick coworkers constantly. I've been drinking Emergen-C and other autoimmune boosters like crazy. Don't know if these fall into "vegan" category or not, but with my horrible immune system, I can't take any extra risks of not protecting myself.

I can keep food down so far today... so let's get back on track!

Vegan in Vegas: Day 5

Morning weight: 181.8

Breakfast - Bowl of Special K with soy milk and apple juice

Lunch - Water only - I didn't sleep well last night, probably because of the caffeine from the evil Pepsi, so I have no appetite at lunch today. I'm now realizing what that amount of sugar and badness does to me.

Snack: At work, my co-worker bought me a Pepsi. I didn't want to be super rude and refuse it, so I'm drinking it. I feel the caffeine shakes and uncomfortable-ness in my belly and it's evil. PURE EVIL!

----My Unicorn friend is right.... I'll definitely feel better the less bad stuff I eat. Dang you Unicorn! WHY YOU ALWAYS SO RIGHT?!

Dinner: plain spaghetti with tomato sauce and a gourmet vegan cupcake.



Bedtime weight: 181.7

In bed with NyQuil and melatonin by 6pm

Vegan in Vegas: Day 4

Morning weight: 180.1

Breakfast - Again, running late this morning. I brought a bag of dry Cheerios to snack on this morning.

Lunch - The company "Holiday" party is tonight, I didn't bring a lunch with me today in anticipation that the Sports Bar we are going to for the party is likely to not have very much that will fit within my food restrictions. So, I skipped lunch in case I eat bad later.

Snack: More dry cheerios at my desk.

Dinner: not many options at the party for food that I felt was safe within my new restrictions to eat. I had apple slices, a weird spring roll type of burrito thing. I don't know what was in it. No meat or cheese. It tasted good... But I cannot vouch for all the ingredients. And I had a Pepsi (BAD TANYA).

I did find a good website, which I hope is a reliable source for information about liquor, wine and beer which is Vegan-friendly. Check it out! Barnivore you can sort by country, type, etc.

Bedtime weight: 182

Vegan in Vegas: Day 3

I need to kick this cold. I want to start feeling better NOW. I'm not sleeping very well this week at all. It's a combination of being sick and worries about home life. However, I'm committed to giving this Vegan life a try! If it can at least help with my physical pain levels, it'll all be worth it? Right?

Cheese. All I want is cheeessseeeee. Seriously, I woke up at 1:30am CRAVING cheese. I was fucking dreaming about cheese. Really? Who does that?

Morning weight: 180.1

Breakfast - I was running super late this morning, so I didn't have breakfast at home. I brought a bag of dry cereal (Cheerios) to work with me and I'm snacking on them at my desk for the first couple hours.

Lunch - 11am: White rice with cinnamon and water
(Serving size is 1/2 cup dry rice before it's cooked.) 

Snack: Seriously, craving cheese fries and rootbeer - Had more dry cheerios instead.

Dinner: Baked tortillas sprinkled with garlic

Bedtime weight: 180.1

I'm barely hungry at dinner time and only had two tortillas tonight. I don't know if it's the sickness that's making me not hungry or the way I've been eating. Overall, food intake is down. Therefore, cheaper grocery bill! Bonus!!

Watching my new DVD: Dearly Departed Volume 2 and going to sleep. Nite!

Spoon Theory: Explained

I frequently refer to "my spoons" or "spoonie" and "spoonlife". Many people outside of those of us who suffer from chronic illnesses have no clue what I'm talking about. Here. I'll take a minute to copy and paste some information to help some of you understand more. 

THE SPOON THEORY
The spoon theory is a model used by people with a chronic illness to describe their everyday living experience when their disability or illness results in a reduced amount of energy available for productive tasks. Spoons are an used as an example of a unit of measurement used to track how much energy a person has throughout a given day. Each activity "costs" a certain number of spoons, which might not be recharged until the next day. A person who runs out of spoons loses the ability to do anything other than rest. One of the tenets of the spoon theory is that disabled or ill people must plan their activities to ensure that every day is manageable, while healthy people have a "never-ending supply of spoons" and thus never need to worry about running out. Because healthy people do not feel the impact of spending spoons, they may not realize that chronically ill or disabled people's considerations include mundane tasks such as bathing and getting dressed. Spoons are widely discussed within the autoimmune, disabled and other communities. (source; Wikipedia)

Spoons might be recharged after a night of sleep. However, people with certain Autoimmune diseases also suffer from sleep disorders and may have a particularly low supply of energy. Some people with invisible disabilities or illnesses may not be fatigued by the disabilities themselves, but by the constant effort required to pass as non-disabled and function within "normal society".

The term spoons was coined by Christine Miserandino on her website, But You Don't Look Sick. In the article "The Spoon Theory" she recalled a conversation in which her close friend and roommate asked her a vague question about what having Lupus feels like. As the two were in a diner, Miserandino spontaneously took spoons from nearby tables to use as a visual aid. She handed her friend the spoons and then asked her to describe the events of a typical day, taking a spoon away after each hypothetical activity. In this way, she demonstrated that spoons, or energy, must be rationed to avoid running out before the end of the day. Miserandino also asserted that it is possible to exceed one's daily limit, but that doing so means "borrowing" from the future, and may result in not having enough spoons the next day. (source: Wikipedia)


I hope this helps to explain what "The Spoon Theory" is. If you want to read more, I recommend checking out Christine's website: But You Don't Look Sick

Vegan in Vegas: Day 2

I work up very lethargic today, but I'm blaming that on more of the cold that I have (sniffles, sore throat, major sinus headache/pressure). I didn't sleep well at all. But now that I'm awake and at work, I already feel more peppy than I usually do in the mornings.

No work snack today, just a huge bottle of water that I'll likely refill three or four times throughout the day (32oz bottle).... I actually drank 6 refills of my 32 oz water bottle today.

Morning weight: 180 pounds

Breakfast - 5:45am: Cheerios with soy milk, water with lemon

(I've discovered already that I'm not a huge fan of soy milk. Next grocery trip, I'll try rice milk with my cereal or almond milk possibly)

Lunch - 11am: White rice with cinnamon and water
(I'm really liking this for lunch. It fills me up (I'll post the serving size amount tomorrow)

Snack: ALL I WANT TO EAT IS CHEESE! IT'S A HORRIBLE ADDICTION! I fought the craving and did not snack at all today. 

Dinner: Spaghetti with garlic powder and apple juice.

Bedtime weight: 179 pounds... Down one pound

It's 5:30pm... And I am already in bed. I haven't had any stomach pains associated with food intolerance these last two days... But I'm already drained of energy today. Again, I'm blaming this on the cold I have.

Good night

Vegan in Vegas - Day 1

Vegan in Vegas

So, I can't eat hamburgers or red meat. So, I can't eat ice cream (FML really? I live in Vegas! It's hot here!) Through my no uteri life, which I now refer to it as... I have met an amazing new friend online. Unicorn.

Unicorn has been on a similar, yet very different medical journey as I have and has turned me onto the idea of trying to eat Vegan. The thought of this is scary. I LOVE CHEESE. The cheesier, the better! I really can't fathom the idea of not being able to randomly grab a few slices of colby jack from the fridge for a snack, or mac & cheese cup for lunch. But alas! I'll give it a shot!

So here we go! Day one of eating Vegan in Vegas! Posting my daily food intake, weight, exercise (yeah right!) etc. 

Morning weight: 180 pounds

Breakfast - 5:30am: Bowl of honey nut cheerios and soy milk with a glass of apple juice.

Work Snack - 8am to 11am: Sunflower seeds and water at my desk

Lunch - 11:30am: White rice with cinnamon and water

(weak moment... the Boss brought homemade snicker doodles - I had three of them).

Dinner - 6pm: White rice with cinnamon and apple juice

Bedtime weight: 180 pounds - no change

Today's recap: usually when I would be on the drive home from work, I would be starving. Stomach rumbles and all. Today, I wasn't even super hungry when I made dinner. I even took 15 minutes to prepare lunches for the next couple of days. Despite having a cold, my energy level has been staying steady and strong too.

Let's hope there are no cookies at work tomorrow. 

Food Intolerance

Food Intolerance

Who knew that these "tummy aches" that I constantly had were because my endometriosis didn't tolerate eating certain foods. There are hormones in foods that react negatively with women who have Endo. Red meat, certain dairy products, etc all cause excruciating pain, nausea and lengthy bathroom breaks (to put it nicely). 

Thus, has begun my journey into changing the way I eat. 

My History - 12/15/14

My History - 12/15/14

I'm a 29 year old woman who just moved from Alaska to Las Vegas in May of 2014. I have a variety of chronic autoimmune diseases. Here's my history: 

When I was 12, I was diagnosed with chronic plaque psoriasis. This isn't the kind of dry skin that goes away with any sort of lotion or medication. This is there. Always there. At my worst, I was 95% covered by the scales and dry skin. My face, my feet, my fingers and hands. Nearly EVERY inch of my body was covered in psoriasis. It was miserable, and for many years, I gave up on trying new medications. I was sick of being a guinea pig.

When I was 22, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Again, miserable. Every single joint in my body pops, crack, creaks, strains and stiffens. There are days I cannot walk. I can't wear "regular" shoes because of the bones and joints in my feet.

When I was 28, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Endometriosis. This is the big one. I was having issues with every sort of birth control I've ever had. Finally, my primary care doctor recommended sterilization (I've only been asking since I was 14!). I have never wanted children. Never wanted to pass along to another generation. Primary care doctor wrote the surgeon referral immediately. Surgeon agreed to tubal ligation immediately. I was scheduled for surgery less than a month later.

Tubal ligation surgery went well. Within 15 minutes of waking up from anesthesia, Dr. D (surgeon) tells me "the news". During my tubal, she found a lot (A LOT) of endometriosis lesions on my uterus, tubes, cervix, ovaries, and potentially even other places. Dr. D asks me if I would like to schedule another surgery after I recover for a total hysterectomy. 

Less than two months later, there I was... 28 years old, having a total hysterectomy that will send me into menopause. 

Little did I know, that this endometriosis diagnosis will answer so many other questions about my life and the pain I've experienced every day, aside from the arthritis.