Since this blog is still new many of you might not know I am a vegetarian. I wasn’t always a vegetarian but after a weekend with Anthony Robbins in Vancouver December 2007 I haven’t looked back. I went to his UPW (Unleash the Power Within) conference expecting great insights, life and attitude changes. While I did have those, I was not expecting what would occur on the 4th and final day of the conference.
The final day of UPW is all about Health, Wellness, Nutrition, Energy, your body and feeling good GREAT! Anthony Robbins doesn’t try to make anyone a vegetarian and does provide people with many options and alternatives. However for me, everything just clicked and later that night, sitting in the airport White Spot restaurant, as I handed the menu back to the waitress I realized that shockingly I was now a vegetarian.
Well that was 8 months ago now and I am still with it. When I first was welcoming this into my life it was pretty easy. I didn’t miss meat, and I didn’t have any cravings. The biggest problems I had to deal with were the social ones. Things like:
- Christmas at my mom’s with a giant turkey on the table she worked hard to cook and I wasn’t having any
- Going to a potluck at work and not having many of the dishes that people brought to share
- Wing Wednesday? While you can still go, it doesn’t seem the same if you aren’t gorging on 1,000 wings for $0.10
The funniest thing that happened was about 1 week after getting back from Vancouver a giant 5 lb bag of beef jerky I ordered 2 weeks earlier to support a co-worker’s soccer team arrived. (Though it made a good Christmas present for my Step-dad)
Then there was support, over support, and non-support to deal with. As you can imagine I loved the support! (Thanks to Sathiya at work for welcoming to the Vegetarian club and giving me this “membership card”)
Lots of people were supportive of the change, cheered me on, and shared great recipes. Some people (thank goodness not many) weren’t very supportive at all. Then there were the over supportive people. They were the cautious ones. They were worried that I was going to get sick, or concerned that I wasn’t going to maintain proper nutrition. You might call these people non supportive but I prefer to think of them as over supportive because they seemed sincerely concerned and worried for my health. It was because of these people I promised to have my doctor oversee my diet change and monitor my health.
Well I am proud to announce to everyone that I saw my doctor today and I am healthier than ever before! In addition to an overall thumbs up I received, my iron, magnesium, and calcium levels are all right where they should be. Iron and calcium I know people were specifically concern about.
Well I think this post served it’s purpose. For blog readers new to my life (btw welcome to the following new countries Australia, Turks and Caicos Islands, Germany, Hungary, & Poland) you now know I am a vegetarian and how that came to be. For everyone else in my life you know that I am good and healthy!
Off now to wait patiently for Big Brother 10 to start tonight where I get to find out the fate of Jessie Godderz! 🙂
