"Breadatarian" or "Dead"-atarian

Recently I've found some new motivation to blog more often, but an unexpected trip to the East Coast, with Mark and my youngest son Gabe, left me crazy busy getting ready to leave 2 kittens, 5 cats...(one of which is on a diet), and the stress of making sure we all had everything we needed, as well as the stress of knowing we would spend half of the 48+hours we would be gone sitting in some sort of transportation....plane or car.....talk about getting stiff (not to mention the challenge of not getting too dehydrated.....I wasn't sucessful at that one.)

It's easy for me to plan food for any trips I spend away from home, taking frozen soups, shredded salads, cooked oatmeal, fiber, cream and other comforts of my diet, checked on board in a cooler and then transferred to a hotel fridge, but this time I decided to not take anything pre-prepared with me....on purpose! I decided it was time for me to try to relax and trust myself to make the best choices possible.....but that's a different blogpost, this one is about how other people eat.....not me! So........

On this trip we were with Marks family, most of who claim to be vegetartian. Vegetartian, hmmnn..... It's interesting to me when I meet vegetarians that don't cook, OR prepare most of their own meals. Vegetarian, to me, means a person that bases their meals around....hmmnn....I'm guessing....vegetables? Not just a person that doesn't eat meat! Eating a diet based on vegetables requires, last time I checked, quite a bit of food prep, I didn't say time consuming, because that's relative, but in my opinion it does require "hands on" control of your food....at least it should.

I always find myself "spying" on the food choices other people make, especially "skinny" people...but, again, that's another blogpost, but.......what I find is how very few people eat healthy, in a nutritious way, even vegetarians, especially vegetarians that don't cook their own meals! Goodness, this is such a huge subject (many blogposts, lol), but here's a conversation I had with a "vegetarian" nephew about my weightloss.....here's the scenario:

We're sitting around a table in the dining room of the Residence Inn during the "Breakfast Buffet". At this buffet they had many food choices, one of which was "fresh" waffles....what are "fresh" waffles? Well, they had "freshly made waffle batter" to which you, yourself, could cook on their waffle maker....voila, "fresh waffles!" They also offered fresh fuit, like bananas, apples, oranges, and some fruit salad made of pear, papaya, pineapple, peaches and bananas, along with many other foods like the usual sausage, eggs, pancakes, potatoes, breads, donuts, pastries, cereals, oatmeal, yogurts, with all the "fixins'", syrups, butters, jams, jellies, honey, PNB (!), etc.....

Nephew: "Did you eat alot of fast food when you were fat?" (in other words, he was asking if this is what made me fat?)

Me: "Of course! I loved fast food! But it wasn't just fast food, it was lots and lots of food! I love to eat....alot of food!"

Nephew: "Oh, well I don't eat fast food!"

I looked at him as if he was crazy and then asked him if he ever purchased a bagel for a meal, OR what he considered the "fresh" waffle he was eating as? (with syrup and sliced banana)

Nephew (getting my point very quickly): "Oh, then I guess I do! I never looked at it that way!"

Me: "I consider a granola bar 'fast food', I consider anything prepackaged, and all you do is open it as 'fast food', or anything you don't make yourself, from scratch. What do you think the difference is between the waffle you just "made" yourself, and a waffle you could drive through and purchase at McDonald's is? The waffle you just ate was made with "waffle mix" the kitchen simply made by adding water to. It is processed flours, hydrogenated fats, and probably some sugars as well as who knows what else. AND you chose a banana, instead of papaya, pear, peach or apple to top it with.....I don't consider a banana as a fruit I consider it as a starch....like a potato!"

Nephew: "Oh my gosh! I eat like crap! I don't make anything myself....it's too much trouble, and besides, I don't know how! I've been wanting to become more healthy (because I know I'm not!), where do I start?"

This, of course, created a much longer conversation, but again, that's a different blogpost.....

What I noticed about spending a couple of days with vegetarians was the consumption of breads, bagels, and cereals, spreads, like cream cheese, hummus, not to mention the granola bars, pastries and donuts (yes, even a couple of "Weight Watcher's" brownies! good Lord).....a few carrot and celery sticks, but mostly breads.....(Oh and Red Bull, lol) Mark said to our son Gabe.....and I love this...."Bread is not a meal! It's eaten with a meal" I don't eat alot of bread myself, but when I do, I go crazy! I don't chose bread because I have so many other food choices, bread is not a priority, but when I eat "out" bread is usually so abundant it's hard not to indulge....especially when it's "free", lol! There's nothing wrong with bread, just like there's nothing wrong with any kind of food, it's how you eat it that can create a problem.

I always tell people that I eat more vegetables than most vegetarians (because I eat more food than most people....you know, it's that "overeating thing"), but seriously, vegetarism should be about vegetation, shouldn't it? Vegetation is alive (until we kill it and eat of course, lol), but it comes from the earth....the living, breathing earth. How could you not feel full of life and breath by eating these live foods? How would you feel eating a diet based on bread? I know how I would feel.....maybe not "dead", but certainly constipated, lol!

Are you a "Breadatarian"? Or in my opinion a "Dead"atarian"?

This trip inspired so much I'd like to write about, but for now I've got to get to my Sunday KB classes......and maybe yoga later today.....2 days no workouts.....another blogpost subject? For sure!