Drastic Times

For a long time, I've been meaning to start eating healthier and becoming more active, and I just keep putting it off. However, I think finally I might have sufficient motivation to start changing my habits. The temperature has sharply risen here, bringing summer to mind, and I tried on all nine pairs of my shorts and two skirts last night and found that none of them fit. Sometime between last summer and this spring I gained enough weight so that I can barely get my shorts up my thighs, and buttoning them is utterly hopeless. So, besides all my other valid reasons for becoming healthier and losing some weight, I have two more to throw on top:

a) I do not want to spend money on a whole new summer wardrobe when I haven't worn half of the stuff I own.
b) I have an extremely low tolerance to heat and being overweight is going to make it worse, especially if I have no shorts/skirts to wear.

So! Today I'm off to a good start. This was my super-healthy, vegan lunch:



A whole wheat pita with hummus, lettuce, carrot, red onion, mushroom, and broccoli. The soup is split pea and barley. I got the recipe from Nava Atlas's The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet, and I made it about a month ago and froze the extras in batches. I cut some parsley to put on the soup, then forgot it; I was going to go back and put it on top and take another picture, but then I decided to get over myself and just eat it, so I did. The verdict is mmmm.

Dessert:



Chocolate almond milk and a vegan chocolate chip cookie from the batch I made last night. Delicious.

Even though I was once completely vegan for over a year, I've never warmed up to vegetables. I don't even like fruit that much. If it's gooey, cheesy, salty, or sugary, I love it, but if not...so when I eat vegetables, I really need them to be tasty and almost as convenient as Kraft Dinner and a tub of Ben and Jerry's. The pita sandwich was easy to make and the hummus, the red onion, and the pita itself made it taste really good. I didn't feel deprived, either; I was so full that eating just that one cookie wasn't a trial at all.