Day 9: the dreaded weigh-in

When I left England back in April 2014, I weighed in at around 52 kilos. I wasn't particularly happy with my weight back then but after hopping on the scales at the gym today I'd kill to have that as my starting point! A year and a quarter's worth of travelling has seen me pile on 3 kilos (55.2 kilos) which I would very much like to shed before my visa is up. I wish I'd weighed myself when I first arrived before I embarked on a vegan and fitness regime - it would be interesting to know whether I've lost anything so far (if so I don't even want to think about what I weighed before!). Anyway, today:

Breakfast - an orange

Lunch - 2 fresh bread rolls (whoops - I discovered vegan butter for the first time) and a sugary tea :(

Afternoon snacks - a handful of cashews and blueberries

Dinner - mango, avocado and macadamia salad. I stumbled across this recipe online yesterday and tweaked it a little by adding blueberries and using spinach leaves instead of whatever weirdo leaves they wanted me to use (rocket or something a bit bleurgh). Been a bit naughty today gorging on fruit and bread but hey ho - still better than pizza and cake!

Activity - cycle to gym, 30 min run, Bodystep class, cycle to work. I don't think I'll be going back to the Bodystep class; I was so busy trying to learn the steps that I don't feel like I got a good workout. The run was good though :) I joined the gym this morning - for some reason I hate running outside but I'm happy on the treadmill, and the classes should be good. Got a couple more to try before I figure out which ones are for me but overall good decision!

Day 8: my best day in the Bay to date! :)

Today I learnt the true meaning of 'lady of leisure' - I went out for brekky with my Melbourne housemate who was up for the day, then got a facial and pedicure (happened to walk in on a day where everything was half price so all for $40/£20), went to a yoga class & had a session on the treadmill (both for free since it was my first time at the gym), cooked dinner and went to bed! 

Breakfast - banana and then brekky out :) Slice of toast, cup of baked beans, heaps of mushrooms (which I've always professed to hate but actually don't mind!) and 2 crispy hash browns. Really filled me up!

Lunch - small bowl of cornflakes, a few blueberries and a handful of cashews

Dinner - steamed sweet potato with steamed spinach & broccoli and fried onions, garlic & tomato

Activity - 1 hour cycle to the café and back for brekky, 10 min cycle to gym for a yoga class and 30 minute run and cycle back. Lots! I'm using a new bike which is heaps easier to ride than my old one which makes getting to the gym so much easier. I'm probably going to join up tomorrow...$250 for 3 months but when each class is $15 and each session (run, swim, cross trainer etc) costs more on top, it'll work out way cheaper to become a member.

Day 7: a month without meat!

29 July. A whole month without meat - and I can honestly say I haven't missed it at all.

However. 7 days into the hardcore vegan stuff and I'm slightly losing my shit over not being able to have pizza for dinner after a long day at work, or sink into the sofa with a bar of Cadburys. Sob. However, despite being surrounded by biscuits, muffins, chocolate and cheese again today on Blue Dolphin, I managed to maintain my composure and stick to my vegan regime:

Breakfast - small bowls of oats, banana

Morning snack - half a hummus & cucumber sandwich with wholegrain bread, rice cake 

Lunch - few spoonfuls of bean salad, a few pieces of fruit, small tub of cashews/walnuts/blueberries/cherry tomatoes

Afternoon snack - rest of my sandwich

Dinner - 2 whole wheat wraps with half a veggie burger, avocado and bbq sauce

Activity - walked to and from work. I arrived and left in the dark so couldn't get out to exercise, although I was knackered from being on my feet for 12 hours anyway.

I'm looking at this along with my other entries wondering whether this is too much food for the day? I'm just eating when I'm hungry? I really don't want to get into calorie counting - better things to do - and I don't want to deprive myself by not eating when my stomach bleats at me, especially when I'm chowing down on healthy yums anyway. Will see whether I notice any difference in a couple more weeks (in terms of weight, energy levels, overall wellbeing) and then make adjustments accordingly...

Day 6: I really really want a chocolate chip muffin

Breakfast - banana

Morning snacks - cereal bar

Lunch - hummus and cucumber sandwich on wholegrain bread, spoonful of bean salad (lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas, corn, tomatoes and red onion), small tub of blueberries, cherry tomatoes, cashews, walnuts and a sprinkling of cornflakes

Afternoon snack - muffin cravings hitting hard. Settled for a bowl of cornflakes instead

Dinner - beans on toast! Feel like 5 years old again but it's what I felt like so...why not? 

Activity - cycled to and from work

Had a good day today working on board Blue Dolphin today, it was so relaxed and cruisey compared to Whalesong! Although I did miss working with my girls. And morning tea consisted of muffins, chocolate and cookies, NONE of which I can eat! Went on a training run today but tomorrow I'm working on my own - first time handling everything on my own on one of the boats but sure it'll be fine :)

Day 5

I'm super tired today so this will be a no-frills post! Keepin' it simple:

Breakfast - cornflakes with soy milk

Lunch - leftover veggie wrap

Afternoon snacks - banana, cereal bar, a few cashews

Dinner - chopped up veggie burger over a bed of brown rice, spinach, leek, zucchini and tomato. What I actually wanted was a big bowl of cornflakes but I figured that wasn't too nutritious so made myself eat some veggies and get a protein fix. Not entirely satisfied but I'm so tired anyway it doesn't even matter. Sleep time!

Activity - run/power walk and 33 times up and down the steps before work. I was out for an hour and a half altogether, so pretty good on that front. The running, however, was a travesty! I'd much rather have gone for a cycle but I'm trying to mix things up to see results sooner - I've been upping the exercise for almost 4 weeks now and haven't seen any difference :(

Tomorrow should be good - I'm going on a training run on another whale boat so that I can work for the skipper should any of his crew fall ill or be unable to come to work for whatever reason. It's a good boat; a sailboat which carries 24 passengers maximum so makes for excellent whale viewing opportunities. Plus it has an immersion platform where you can dangle your feet in the water with the whales or even dunk your head under with a snorkel!

Day 4: a big pile of urgh

I couldn't make that yoga class today as I'd been pencilled in for a shift starting an hour after it ended. Hoping to make tomorrow's session instead, but again depends on work. It's getting a little frustrating not having a roster - would be nice to plan which gym classes I can make and be able to make appointments in advance (I want to try a facial at the local spa to see whether it makes a difference to my skin...for some reason it's not been looking its best recently). 

As it turns out I probably wouldn't have made it anyway as I got woken up at 4am by noisy drunk people coming back to the house which was a bit rubbish. Couldn't get back to sleep over the next 2 hours so in the end I just got up and went for a bike ride. So annoyed! I now feel tired and sick and have a shift starting at 12.30, which would have been fine had I got more than 4 hours of sleep but right now it's the last thing I want to do - and that's saying something when there are whales to be seen. Grrrr!

Breakfast - a banana, an orange, half a cereal bar (a healthy one made from seeds & dried fruit and not laced with sugar) during my bike ride and a bowl of cornflakes with soy milk when I got back. 2 peppermint teas which I'm hoping help my tummy, it's doing flips :( 

These cereal bars were a good find; a little more on the expensive side and they took a bit of getting used to, but now I can eat one without grimacing I'm hoping I'll learn to enjoy them in the next few weeks! 

Morning snack - handful of soya crisps

Lunch - 1 veggie wrap left over from yesterday, hummus and cucumber, handful of cashews 

To make a bad day even worse, I got a call after lunch from my boss informing me that I'd been on standby the whole time and I wasn't needed because we didn't have the numbers...not a happy bunny, I cancelled a yoga class and made myself eat an early lunch because of that shift :( I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, napping and looking at flights back to the UK for November (my tax return came through yesterday so now I can actually afford to fly home once my visa is up!). 

Afternoon snacks - slice of wholegrain toast with hummus, handful of soya crisps

Dinner - chopped up chickpea burger over a bed of spinach, tomato, cucumber, capsicum and red onion. BBQ sauce to serve

Activity - 1.5 hour cycle, 30 min walk along the beach and 15 times up & down the steps

The Bay at 7am. Pretty, but would rather have been in bed!

On a side note, I should probably make more of an effort to cut down on bread - bread and pasta are included in vegan diets, but that's not to say they should be included in mine. I don't eat huge amounts of pasta (or at least I haven't recently) but bread is a major weak point. Yesterday I had 2 wraps and a bread roll, and the day before I had a slice of toast and a bread roll. Obviously my diet is already fairly restrictive so I don't want to be too fussy when it comes to things I'm actually allowed, but I reckon I'd see a difference faster if I really cut down i.e. limit myself to one slice a day, whether that's with avocado for brekky or hummus for lunch/an afternoon snack.

Day 3: willpower vs cheese platter

Today was a pretty cruisey day until about 4.30pm when I had to get ready for work, which worried me initially because I find my eating habits are far better when I'm busy or distracted. So, I spent the morning immersed in whale books getting my knowledge up to scratch (now that whale season has really kicked in people are starting to ask me questions) and when I'd had enough I ventured into the great outdoors and went for a cycle. 

Breakfast - small bowl of Uncle Toby's oats (brown sugar and cinnamon), 2 peppermint teas

Snacks - handful of cashews, an orange, handful of soya crisps. I discovered sea salted cashews for the first time just yesterday and they are SO good and packed full of protein which is great for vegans! I made sure I drank a full glass of water after the salty cashews. 

I made this discovery on the plane from Brisbane to Hervey Bay; they were given to us for free during the journey. Initially I was suspicious, so much so that I didn't open them and they sat on my bedside table for the next 2 weeks. I only opened them when I was starving and totally out of snacks, and guess what - they're delicious! I accidentally stumbled on this big bag in the nuts and dried fruit section at Woolies. Yum!

Lunch - 2 veggie wraps. I roasted chopped sweet potatoes, pumpkin, zucchini and tomato sprinkled with olive oil and mixed herbs, then spooned them into wholegrain wraps with BBQ sauce to serve. This has fast become one of my fave meals since a good family friend made them for me in Brisbane - and they're so easy! Add pan-fried or grilled tofu for an instant protein boost, or chopped up chickpea/quinoa/veggie burger.

Dinner - I worked an evening shift at a private function today so had to have my main meal at about 4.30pm to get me through. I knew this wouldn't be the last thing I ate today so made sure I had a small breakfast and super healthy lunch to compensate for the evening munchies - and sure enough, when I got in I heated up a chickpea burger and stuffed it into a bread roll with avocado. And I practically inhaled a sugary cup of tea. Felt bad eating at 11.30pm but I was starting to feel ill from lack of food. It was so hard resisting all the food on the boat...I'm talking cheese platters, spinach and feta pastries/dip, yummy party food and leftover Subway from the day cruises. Sob. 

Activity - I went for a cycle along the esplanade for around 1hr45 and ran up & down the steps 15 times. There's a whale-related event on today which I unfortunately can't go to because of work, but I passed by as they were setting up. It's called Paddle Out For Whales and involves people paddling out on kayaks and stand-up paddle boards to protest against whaling that is STILL practiced in a few places around the world.

I think I'll do some yoga tomorrow morning, if I'm not working - really excited to get started! Although the last yoga lesson I took was in Chiang Mai and when the instructor found out I couldn't even touch my toes he asked what I was doing in his class! I still can't touch my toes but am determined to try tomorrow anyway and see how I go.

P.S. I had a sneaky read of my housemate's new book on quitting sugar this morning, which made me think about re-reevaluating some of my food choices...I didn't agree with some of the things the author said (why give up fruit, for example? - and with sugar in basic foodstuffs like bread and tomato-based pasta sauces there's really no getting around sugar completely) but one thing I got out of it was that bananas are loaded with fructose, so once I've munched my way through the 5 in the cupboard, I might ditch that habit and swap them for blueberries. Having said that, they're full of potassium and good for getting me through busy mornings at work - it's not like they're unhealthy! It's so hard knowing what to and what not to eat when different experts promote very different diets. I guess it's just experimenting and finding out what works for you; everyone's different, after all. 

Hervey Bay: The (literally) cruisey lifestyle

Beaches to walk along 

Esplanades to cycle on

My noble steed :)

Not a bad day job! That's me in the corner :)

The Bay may be small, peaceful and akin to living in a retirement village but I love it! The skipper for 'my' boat (Whalesong) told me yesterday that he picked out the 4 new crew members this year from around 30 people who handed him resumes, which just makes me even more grateful for the opportunity to be working such an amazing job and living in such a beautiful place where the sun almost always shines! Talk about counting your blessings. 

Days 1 and 2: a whaley good start

My 101 days started yesterday (Thursday 23 July) and I didn't even have time to blog. An excellent start.

Usually I find the first week or two of a diet is relatively smooth sailing and the cravings start to kick in later, but I found my first day really tough this time. I was uncharacteristically hungry all morning, and serving platters of cake and prepping lunch in the morning didn't help at all! I managed to stave off the hunger pangs with some fruit, and just as they got really bad we had a pod of 3 whales mugging* the boat which instantly made me forget all about my stomach! Distraction really is key. 

DAY 1

Breakfast - a banana and an orange

Morning snacks - a few grapes and some watermelon

Lunch - bread roll and a handful of Greek salad (minus the feta)

Afternoon snacks - I'm always SO hungry after work as by that time I've spent around 11 hours on my feet with very little time to eat or take a break. I had a bread roll, some cucumber and half a carrot with some hummus!

Dinner - brown rice with chopped up chickpea burger and veg - leek, spinach and tomatoes. Again on the good start theme, I forgot to take a photo before I gobbled it all up, but I made a very similar meal a couple of weeks ago (minus the burger and I spooned the rice into a roasted pepper) so that will have to do for today!

Other - 3 peppermint teas

Activity - cycled to and from work (20 mins)

Yummmm! So easy to make I don't need to include a recipe. Hint: Uncle Ben's rice and a generous helping of soy sauce :)

The best kind of distraction :)

DAY 2

Breakfast - a slice of raisin toast loaded with half an avocado and some cherry tomatoes, an orange and a peppermint tea 

Morning snack - handful of pretzels 

Lunch - a fresh bread roll with hummus, a few strawberries and a handful of cashews & almonds

Dinner - potato curry

Recipe: Mix boiled potatoes with softened onion, garlic and ginger, a can of diced tomatoes, peas, a can of coconut milk and load on the curry powder. Simmer for 5 minutes then serve! NB. This is the original recipe I found online, but after asking people to do a quick taste test we reckon sweet potato would have been better (in terms of taste and healthiness), I should have used curry paste rather than powder and I could have added leeks and fresh coriander for a chunkier texture and more flavoursome dish.

Other - 2 peppermint teas, 1 black tea (2 sugars)

Activity - 30 min cycle and 30 ladders up and down the stairs 

Healthy brekky :) avo on toast has become one of my newfound favourite foods since coming to Oz

Potato curry - not bad but could do with a few tweaks

*Hervey Bay must be one of the few places on the planet where a 'mugging' is a good thing. Rather than having your belongings violently stolen, a mugging means the humpbacks (or humpies) come in really close to the boat to have a good look at the passengers on board. Often they'll do pec slaps, tail slaps and peduncle rolls for us, or breach if they're really showing off! Having said that, someone did lose their phone to the sea yesterday while taking photos. Gutted!

Let's start at the beginning

I struggled over the title of this blog. A life without cheese: welcome to hell. 101 days of pure self-inflicted torture. A cheeseless existence? I'll be (e)damned! Or, I'll brie damned. Anyone still wondering what I'll find the hardest to give up?

Cheeeeeeese :(

I settled on Vegan 101 for a couple of reasons: firstly because I plan on doing this for 101 days, up until the end of my time working on a whale watching boat in Hervey Bay. Secondly, because I am a total beginner at living a vegan lifestyle - I can barely manage healthy living let alone an unforgivingly restrictive diet that bans meat, cheese, butter, eggs and milk from my kitchen. I initially 'went vegan' the day after moving up from Melbourne to Hervey Bay at the end of June to start my new job. I did really well for 2 weeks, but it all went downhill on my third weekend in the Bay when a 14 hour long 20th birthday party led to heavy boozing, the dreaded munchies and greasy hangover food (it was a spinach and feta pastry that eventually brought my vegan intentions crumbling down, and I'm ashamed to say it was delicious). The following week and a half was a complete disaster, and prohibited items including vintage cheddar, margarine and chocolate found their way back into my fridge. After 10 days of slipping back into old habits, I decided enough was enough and a blog was born to help me stick out the full 101 days.

My friends and family haven't been shy about voicing their opinions on the subject of veganism (but, but bacon?) with some raising relevant concerns about getting enough protein and iron. So why, after 25 years of carnivorous tendencies, have I chosen to remove animal products from my diet? It all started when I saw a video on Facebook about factory farming which revealed all manner of horrible, graphic truths about the industry. A few examples include:

*Keeping cows in a constant state of gestation and nursing to maintain milk production, causing them great discomfort - and taking their calves away as soon as they're born so they don't take the milk 'meant' for humans

*Holding piglets by the tail and slamming their heads against the floor to kill them if they're not growing quickly enough

*Filing down chickens' beaks so they don't peck themselves or others to death while they're caged up in cramped conditions

You can watch the video by clicking on the link below. Obviously, this comes with a graphic content warning. I've included the title of the video and the name of the company behind it - when I tried to access the link from my blog YouTube required a sign-in due to the distressing content, so it may be easier to use the search bar instead.

http://youtu.be/zF7Ega_TpZE 

'Can you face the reality of factory farming?' Mercy for Animals

Since watching that, it's been incredibly easy going veggie - to be honest I didn't eat all that much meat before. It's giving up dairy which is proving tough, but if I'm ever going to do this, it should be now. I'm living a stress-free, cruisey lifestyle in a beautiful town right in the beach and working my dream job on a whale watching boat. For the first time since arriving in Australia, I actually feel like I'm on a working holiday. I've got no excuse for stress or 'emotional' eating, plus the family I'm living with is very health-conscious, which is great motivation. They have no qualms about telling me off if they see me snaffling a piece of cheese or munching on a Twix, so I'm slowly being conditioned to feel embarrassed about eating junk/non-vegan fare. 

The second reason I'm going vegan is simply to lose weight. With pizza, cheese and chocolate off the menu, I'm hoping to shift a few kilos by the time I head back to the UK - and because I can't have butter I'll be less tempted to eat bread, another one of my downfalls. I'm also eschewing alcohol and cutting down on sugary tea, replacing it for the most part with peppermint and other herbal varieties. Since I haven't got a car, I'm walking or cycling to get me from A to B, but also for fun - the beaches and esplanade with coastal views make a cycle or power walk much more tempting than usual. Combined with Zumba and yoga classes that I'm planning on starting soon, and ladders up and down a steep set of steps I've been doing for 3 weeks, this should work in conjunction with the diet to get things moving! There are also places to hire kayaks and stand-up paddle boards - I'm hoping to hire out one or the other for an event on Saturday called 'Paddle Out For Whales', a peaceful protest against whaling.

I'll be recording my meals and snacks each day and uploading pictures and recipes of any main meals which might be of interest. There are a couple of vegan cookbooks winging their way to me from the States as we speak so I'll be learning lots of new tips and tricks (hopefully a substitute for cheese sauce) along the way. Wish me luck!