Im beating the meat...

[Chasym]

Yeah thats right. I went vegitarian recently.
probly not more for animal rights reasons. tho i saw a slaughter video recently that kinds nudged me more towards my choice.
but mostly for my health.
Ive had chest pains alot in my life, im very out of shape any more. i weighed 160 all my life, i was a skinny guy with average weight. Then within the past year i went from 160....to 195. And its visible. and i dont like it.
I ended up in the E.R. last month because i thought i was having a heart attack. It hurt so bad, so very bad.
And im only 22.
dont say im too young to have one either...i know a 19 year old whos had 3 heart attacks already >.>

But also, My family has a histroy with the men. They all die of heart attacks in their 60's. I dont want that to happen to me and going Vegitarian can reverse heart disease! so...im going for it.
On march 31st i threw a cookout and grilled up some burgers, ribs and hot dogs. kicked back with some friends and drank some coronas.
that whole month, i ate whatever meat i loved that i could never eat again, i tried to get anything i wanted in. I gained like 10 lbs in that month alone lol.

So april 1st i become a vegitarian, No. its not april fools lol.
And i wanna talk about vegitarian food.
I personally always thought this stuff would taste plain and nasty. But really...its not that bad.

I got some Veggie burgers, Veggie bacon and sausage and chicken patties. I got some veggie corn dogs even recently. and wtf, for the most part YOU CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE. the only thing i ate so far that i wasnt fond of was the sausage links. didnt taste the same but didnt taste bad. Im eating corn dogs right now and they taste 100% the same, chicken...tasted like chicken...and the burgers were great.
The bacon was flat and looked like a beggin' strip but it tasted like bacon. and because it was meat free it didnt shrink and ball up like real bacon, it stayed flat so it felt like i was getting bigger pieces.

I still get tempted tho. Open the fridge and see some salami and get ready to grab it and stop and go.."oh yeah, cant eat that"
thats happened many times with many things lol.

SO what to do for losing weight? well, i got good at DDR awhile back but i didnt play as often.
I made sure to have a daily time for playing DDR, hopefully help me lose weight. I can finally keep up with standard mode so it really seems to help. I certainly feel the burn!

any other vegitarians out there or people wanna talk about the food?

Btw, im a HUGE italian fan, and to be able to keep eating spaghetti and veggi lasagna is still a good thing for me!

 

[Acutie]

If ya wanna be a true vegetarian no more cheese! no milk, No ice cream, no dairy of any kind. No wool or leather clothing either. No fish, no oils of any kind.
Be hardcore!

 

[Strid]

Easier way than cutting down on a healthy diet, it can't be healthy for the long run if it's not meaty, is to remove thy chair from yer arse.

 

[Sculli]

Vegetarians often actually gain weight instead of losing it because they go on a carb based food plan (as you said, pasta and such).

It's difficult to eat well as vegetarian, you will need to highly educate yourself on the subject, and stick to it, including dietary supplements.

http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/ is a good resource.

Personally I believe that one can be perfectly healthy eating a balanced diet that does include meat. Going vegetarian isn't going to fix things that are inherently broken, and being vegetarian does not equal weight loss, or good health. In fact, many of the vegetarians I know are actually in worse health than people who do eat meat.

Weight loss is a matter of energy intake vs. energy demand. If you eat 2,000 cals a day and only burn 1,800, then you will gain weight, regardless of where the cals come from.

Weight loss simplified: Eat less and move more.

 

[Shaidalyn]

Chasym, you just gained a lot of respect in my book. Most men, your age especially, like to think they are invincible. You are taking a HUUUUUUGE step and moving away from something I'm sure you love, to better yourself. That's amazing.
And DDR is awesome. My best guy friend IRL just finished everything on 8th Mix I think? (DDR Extreme) except one song (Paranois Surviver Max/ Oni steps) And I got into it a little but I stopped doing a lot a few years ago so I gave up on it.
I say cheers! Cheers to better health, and cheers to stickin to it! I for one salute you and wish you the best. ^^

 

[alanon]

Trust me, go Vegen. I was a vegetarian for 10 years. After about a year, I started gaining excess weight and getting sick more often. The doctor found that a lack of vitamins was my problem. After I started balancing out my diet and allowing myself to eat fish, chicken, milk and cheese (basically no red meat) all was well.

The whole change wa actually pretty easy for me. The only time I even thought about eatting meat was when I would smell someone grilling something. Even now, I do not eat a whole lot of red meat at all.

 

[Tim Wakefield]

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sponsor

Had to post it ^^

 

[Songi_]

I'm no vegetarian, but I can tell you this: don't play DDR to lose weight. Play DDR to develop your calves. By doing this you will gain (a little) weight, but it's muscle so it's not so bad. It's also pretty good cardio if you do it nonstop, but don't expect to lose much by doing it.

Oh, and if you like pasta, definitely try spinach fettucine. I thought I would hate it but it's great.

 

[Sanoske]

Just for the record,,, Vegans are the hardcore people who won't touch anything with animal byproducts... vegetarians can still eat fish, wear leather, whatever.

And good for you Chasym, one of my closest friends went Vegetarian last year for his health and it's been doing him good. Hope you start seeing some nice changes soon.

 

[Tagrineth]

Veganism is AVOIDING all those things you just said you allow yourself to eat, Alanon...

 

[Shaunessy]

Blah Blah I don't eat meat beacause it's bad for you. Here's a little tip..If you gained 35 lbs. in the last couple of years, get off your fat ass and do something else beside drink beer and play FFXI. I hate people that think that because they don't eat meat all of there problems are going to be solved and the world will love them and god will shine his graces on thee because instead of a hamburger for dinner you chose the brussle sprouts and artichoke hearts. Jesus christ man, from 160-195 and you think that it is meat doing it to you??? I have a very simple plan for you. Do you know how to tell how fast your heart is beating? If you do then get your heartrate up to about 120-130 BPM and keep it there for about 30-45 mins. Do this 3-4 times a week and you will be back down 160 lbs. in about 2 months. All the while you can eat what ever you want, in moderation ofcourse, and your confidence will improve just by doing this. Or you can be one of those rabbit turd emo vegans and wonder why your muscle mass is decreasing faster than your body fat percentage.

 

[alanon]

Either way. It was just something I did for me. Never really got into the terminology. I never wanted to be associated with the Peta wackos.

 

[Chasym]

Well id love to get out and excercise more, but at my current time thats just not a high option I cant really leave the house because i have a 1 year old daughter and a 1 month old son, We have them and take care of them all day, We drive to tons of doctor appts for them and us, Make time to grocers shop then have them home in time for a nap.
Dont get much free time besides sittin at the computer or playin DDR while they sleep.
I get to work occasionally. but my job is seasonal and not daily, i work in setting up concerts and hockey games at a sports arena.

I do know about balancing vitamins and such. And im geing vegitarian, not Vegan! Vegan denounces anything from animals, Vegitarians just denounce meat.
yeah i know most people think vegitarian and Vegan are the same thing...i did too, till it was explained to me at a PETA booth at the taste of chaos concert. And there i learned that just because you eat fish...does not make you vegitarian.

But i still drink milk and eat cheese. i currently eat no meat at all though.

Ive researched this ALOT before i decided to do it. I dont just wanna jump into something and not know what im doing and ending up worse off. I know nothing with this is a guarauntee that ill get better or lose massive amounts of weight, But its worth a try.
I admit. Im lazy, and get bored with things fast and dont follow through with something i start.
But this time...this once. I wanna prove to myself i can. I wanna better myself. and i think i can do it.

And on that link, No i dont think im higher than anyone and will not put down anyone who decides to eat meat. Hell if my kids wanna eat meat, i wont disallow them that choice. Because this is MY choice. and my choice alone.
Tho my wife is attempting to do this with me too and i keep telling her she wont make it...and she agrees XD.

I know im not invincible, no one is. Ive felt the grips of wondering if im in my last moments of mortality. When i quit smoking cold turkey, I went through withdrawls so bad...i was afraid to sleep alone so i slept in my parents living room and my mom slept on the other couch, I was losing my memory alot and swore i wouldnt live through the week...this lasted two weeks, i was so bad from this i lost my job during it cause i was too weak to do ANYTHING. smoking is something alot of friends are proud i quit, i smoked almost 2 packs a day >.>

Im also lucky, Every male in my family. and i mean EVERY has been an alchohalic. I am not. I can drink and have been drunk, but i dont like to drink JUST to drink. I drink on celebrations or sometimes just to hang out. but rarely and most of the time i dont drink that much. Theres that occasional time where im like...fuck it, Lets drink and get wasted.
But i dont feel like i need to drink nor do i like it that much. Which im happy about.

I have some other medical issues that come up recently in the past 3 days that got me in the doctors office the moment i told them what was up, gone through blood tests and have to go to another doctor soon. Im actually worried about the out come of this one, I dont really wanna talk about what it is cause its uncomfortable for me. But one of the three probabilities for it, the least likley i might add. Is cancer. And that worries me alot.


I just got a call from the doctor >.> they wanted to check up on me and see how i was, This scares me more cause ive never had anything where a doctor calls to check up on you and wants you to call daily.
They want me to see a specialist ASAP but they are booked till may 4th, They want to keep tabs cause if i get worse they are gonna force them to take me in right away. I mean...if they are that concerned it gets you worried ya know?

DDR has helped me lose 5 lbs so far. i was @ 200 which was kinda the turning point for me that said "hey, do somethin you fat fuck" im not used to this at all, I was a skateboarder, never had a gut and now im just like wishing i could get some metabolism on back order.

This for me is a trial of getting better. A trial of persistance and accomplishment. Something i need at this point in my life.

First thing that has made my year, I had the WORST teeth, rotted to the gums, holes in em. All from when i got jumped by about 20 people (not even exagerating) when i was 16. I couldnt afford to get them fixed till this year. And they even rebuilt teeth i thought they would just pull. I have two teeth left to fix and im done...i have a full set of teeth again. This was something that depressed me for years and really raised my spirits.
Its fueling my fire to move and accomplish this next step in my life

 

[Chasym]

Blah Blah I don't eat meat beacause it's bad for you. Here's a little tip..If you gained 35 lbs. in the last couple of years, get off your fat ass and do something else beside drink beer and play FFXI. I hate people that think that because they don't eat meat all of there problems are going to be solved and the world will love them and god will shine his graces on thee because instead of a hamburger for dinner you chose the brussle sprouts and artichoke hearts. Jesus christ man, from 160-195 and you think that it is meat doing it to you??? I have a very simple plan for you. Do you know how to tell how fast your heart is beating? If you do then get your heartrate up to about 120-130 BPM and keep it there for about 30-45 mins. Do this 3-4 times a week and you will be back down 160 lbs. in about 2 months. All the while you can eat what ever you want, in moderation ofcourse, and your confidence will improve just by doing this. Or you can be one of those rabbit turd emo vegans and wonder why your muscle mass is decreasing faster than your body fat percentage.

Maybe you misread my reasonings. Id LOVE to get out more, Read post above. I have other obligations that come before ME. I dont drink beer and play ffxi all day. That would make me quite hypocritical on attempting to do anything. Who cares what god thinks on what i do.
Am i doing this for god? hell no. im doing this FOR ME.
Im not going vegitarian for the specific purpose of losing weight. Im not retarded. Its gonna take more work than that, and i know it.
and im doing it. Im not some lazy ass retarded kid who goes..."All veggies, all skinny, all the time!"
i have some sense, and know how to use it.
My family has bad heart disease problems, all pointing to clogged arteries. And i want to help heart disease.
And in my research, A vegitarian diet CAN reverse heart disease. No, not JUST eating vegitarian diet will do this. It has more work to it than what you eat.
And im taking the entire path.
you can criticize my choice because you consider your choice a higher choice and dont support others decisions.
But im not making decisions to impress anyone.
Im making my decision to help me out, To work towards what i feel good about.
I feel good about my decision and thats all that matters.

 

[Westyle]

Human bodies are enefficient.

Go cyborg.

 

[Sculli]

Chasym, doing *something* to better yourself is by far better than doing nothing.

A lot of nutrition related research is published by so called experts who just happened to find someone to fund their publications. I am just going to say this one more time. Going vegetarian will make it harder to lose weight, especially considering that it doesn't sound like you have a lot of time to prepare meals.

Different weight loss techniques work for different people. I used to be around 190lbs at 6' for a long time till I moved to the U.S.. Back in Germany I used to run 5k three times a week, I would ride my bike to work during the workweek (about 20k each way), and all things equal, the food quality is just better in the old world where you still have butchers, bakers, fresh produce that's not waxed or GMO or whatever.

Once I got here things started to go downhill. Lots of processed foods, driving everywhere, plus long Winters in AK. After living in the Staates for some 8 years I woke up one day and was 245lbs. That's a 55lbs gain over 8 years, which is not all that rapid but more creeping.

I didn't consider myself fat because I didn't have the huge gut and the man-boobs, my fat was nicely spread out over my entire body. It wasn't a self esteem problem for me either, I have an ego the size of Texas and there is really nothing that could chip away at that.

However, I was beginning to simply feel uncomfortable in terms of doing stuff. Running with the dogs, bending over to tie my shoes, stuff like that. I went to get a health check and everything is fine, cholesterols, blood cells, no diabetis problems either. Though I was still heavy.

So I decided to do something about it - diets!
It was a disaster. From NutriSystem, to Atkins, to South Beach, all ended in me abandoning the whole thing, and not really losing any weight worth mentioning. They were simply boring, and the stuff you had to eat would gag a maggot.

Then one day I picked up a Sonoma Diet book because I heard a blurp on it on the radio. I read it, it made sense, and I started doing it. I am about 8 weeks into it, and I have lost 32lbs, 20 or which I lost in the first 3 weeks.

Sonoma is basically not a diet per se. You eat regular stuff all the time, just no processed foods, and not a whole lot of starchy foods either. Preparing the meals is time consuming, but they taste good and are not much different from what I used to eat except for the amounts.

I don't really have time to go to the gym atm, but I walk twice a day for about 15 minutes, and I do some basic stretching in the mornings and evenings. That's all I do, and I continue to lose weight.

The biggest issue is that it takes a lot of time to prepare the meals from scratch, but it pays off and to me is worth the time.

I think that excluding meats "just to try and see whether it will make a difference" is a bad idea. There are a lot of things you can do at home to excersise, without to buy expensive equipment, just using your own body weight.

I meant to set up a forum for people who simply do not have the time to go to the gym for an hours every day of the week, to show them ways and means on how they can make a difference in their lives without much extra effort at all. But I barely have enough time to manage QCDN, there is currently no way I would have time for a new project. I did get the domain names last year though, so I will do it one of these days, hopefully by the end of the summer.

 

[Flymop]

Btw people who have posted, i havnt read all your replies but ive read most, Chasym is also worried about having a heartattack like the rest of the elder males in his family. A lot more veg will help but i think cutting all kinds of meat out wont. As long as you dont go deep frying or frying at all then you should be alright, oven bake/grill everything, heck of a lot healthier, and heck of a lot less fatty.

Also to keep your heart in top condition, you wanna be trying to scare yourself at least 4-5 times a week, which ive heard really does keep your heart healthy

 

[Westyle]

Back in Germany I used to run 5k three times a week, I would ride my bike to work during the workweek (about 20k each way)

Sculli IS a robot!

 

[CmdrFly]

Veggie bacon

WHY GOD, WHY?! WHAT HAS MAN DONE TO DESERVE THIS... THIS PLAGUE?!!!!?L#$....Starting MS-DOS...!!?!!?~!@~!@!!one!?

 

[Chasym]

thats awesome sculli. See it didnt start as an embarrasment for me either, i would joke about it all the time with my friends and family. "Im so fuckin fat, check this gut out! do i look fat in these pants!?"
it was all a joke till one day i was walking through a store and looked down and saw that my t-shirts now displayed a hefty hump in them.

The exclusion of meat is just my choice tho. Im not using it as a test to see what happens or anything. Its just something i want to do. I have a side to me that doesnt like seeing animals get killed, especially this thing i saw a farmer do to a pig that rather disgusted me and the human nature...Dropping a cinder block on its head and watching it squirm as it dies while blood just rushes from its ears while the farmers just stand there in a circle laughing.
Im sorry but i dont care what anyone says, that really is just plain out fucking wrong.
And id like to agian state that i am NOT an animal rights activist.
I have a friend who went vegitarian, a close family friend. And hes doing great, he feels good about himself and he isnt the depressed gaining weight guy i always knew, hes fit and happy and continously working on it.
i talked with him awhile about this, and researched on my own as i said.
its just something i feel is what i wanna do.
I can see alot of people dont agree with this. But its what society brings us up to believe.
I mean...i go to the store and vegitarian meals are so...limited compared to everything else. Really really limited.
Me any my friend have talked about how most companies dont want us to know theres a choice if we wanna make it so theres not much support for that area.
which i understand.
Some of my own relatives, even my grandmother who lost her husband from a heart attack doesnt like it.
But i really feel good about my decision regardless of what anyone else thinks. I gotta make decisions for myself ya know? even if someone else thinks its wrong...if i feel good about it im gonna go through with it. im determined now.
i dont unacknowledge your guys' comments at all by the way. Im not putting it off in anyway. Im open to this, hence the reason i posted.
i wanted the discussion about it, to see where other people stand on it, and even get some more insight beyond my own research.

There is one thing ive discussed with friends that doesnt make me a 100% vegitarian in a way. But i want to implement myself a rewards system kind of.
Say, hey you went a month or two months without eating meat, excercised and lost some weight. Met a quota if i decide to set one.
I can go out and celebrate with a cheeseburger or some tacos or something.
im thinking about doing this, but i never know by time that comes i may not even want it.

and about being scared...with my current med problem that has no solution or conclusion yet...im scared 24/7 lol