The importance of doing what works

I had a bit of a wakeup call today. For the past couple of days I had been exercising as normal, but I just felt too lazy to cook something on the stove, so I resorted to microwaving potatoes and eating the late beta versions of some muffins that I'll hopefully perfect soon. I'd been topping the baked potatoes with black beans among other things, and figuring that all would be well if I just ate enough baked potato with Mexican topping.

I got this crazy idea in my head from reading some vegan fitness forums. A lot of the advice on vegan fitness forums seems to fall along the lines of, "If you don't feel right, just eat more (implied anything)." That might work for some people, but for people like me (and others I'm sure) it does quite the opposite of working. Illustration: Eating too many starchy foods like potatoes, and even black beans to a certain extent, kills my appetite for higher-protein foods, which in turn decreases the amount of high-protein foods I eat, which in turn makes me feel sore and sick because I don't eat enough protein, which further kills my appetite. In addition, black beans, potatoes, and soy milk (which I was drinking in hopes that the protein would level me out some) among a myriad of other vegan foods are actually inflammatory because of their impact on blood sugar, and other factors of which I am not aware yet. I ordered a book on the subject to better understand it.

To summarize, lack of appetite + too little protein + inflammation = BAD. Terrible, in fact. The last thing I want to do is to have to rely on animal foods again without it being an absolute necessity, so I was really torn up over feeling so terrible. I was really feeling great for a while. I was working on building some good arm muscle, and my mile time was the best it had been in a year. So what happened?

Obviously I had gotten lazy, and I had gotten some bad advice. Now I was in some of the worst pain I'd experienced in a long time. The good thing was that righting this day-long hell took all of 20 minutes. I cooked a pot of seasoned lentils and broccoli; an anti-inflammatory and very high protein meal. I ate it and felt better almost instantly.

I remembered today that it wasn't just adopting the grain free diet that had enabled me to stick with being vegan, but it was paying attention to factors like inflammation, and eating non-inflammatory foods like lentils. In fact, more than anything I owe being a healthy vegan to discovering the amazing qualities of lentils. They're just what works for me, and given their nutrient profile I can't imagine them not working for anyone. I guess for people like me they're just extra-important to consume daily, and if I really want to feel good on a long run I should consume them in pretty large quantities.

That's not really a problem for me because I'm hooked on them. And they're all of 1.00 a pound. Woot.

Needless to say I felt like crap all day so I didn't write up any recipes. I do feel lucky that I got to watch the Rachel Maddow show in bed, along with the Daily Show. Thank god for streaming TV shows and wireless routers. How about that plane, huh? And that inauguration? Crazy days... crazy days.