VEGETABLES This isn’t meant to come off as preachy or self-righteous or anything. I despise that, but if it does, let me know. Or hit me. Emoticon punch me. Something. But first, a little backstory. My family has a long history with high blood pressure, something I’ve long since attributed to their eating habits. At the same time, I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed with a seemingly god-like level of high metabolism (my brother and I appear to be the only ones in the family to have this). I can out eat just about anybody, but have absolutely nothing to show for it. Because of this rather tall and slender body type I posses, I’ve always had to deal with family telling me to eat more because they assumed I was starving, malnourished, and deathly ill, and more recently, friends being somewhat (jokingly) jealous of me. College gets everybody with the “freshmen 15 lbs”; I did too, don’t get me wrong, but I still was able to maintain my skinny frame, compared to the changes my friends underwent. That being said, when I really sat and thought about the history my family has had with high blood pressure and other potential health risks in regards to the heart, I knew I didn’t want to wind up being in the shape that my relatives are now. I have this feeling that my metabolism is going to wear off at some point and all the admittedly unhealthy eating I’ve done over the years will catch up to me. Lately, after researching and reading up on vegetarian recipes, Vegan lifestyle in general, and following vegetarians/vegans on Twitter and here on Tumblr, such as Mindy White and Ethan Luck, I’m strongly considering switching to a vegetarian diet. I’ve seen vegetarian meals, and they look delicious. I’ve since made it into a habit of ordering Boca burgers when available, and they taste delicious. I really enjoyed shopping at Trader Joe’s when I was living on my own for a year and half, and would like to start buying organic, which I haven’t been able to do since I moved back in with the relatives, and back to the rather unhealthy eating. I want to try out Whole Foods, Native Foods and everything else. This consideration is really more of a personal decision for me; it’s not to prance around and roll with a group of veggie lovers to save animals or anything. It’s more for the health reasons, something I’ve seriously taken into account this year as part of an effort to make healthy choices in my life (for example, claiming straight-edge on my birthday). Now that the backstory is out of the way (sowwy), onto the point of this whole shindig. The other day I got into a rather heated and lengthy debate with a friend on whether or not vegetarian/vegan was anymore healthier or beneficiary compared to sticking with meat. We used the prevailing case of obesity as an example, but honestly, my point wasn’t to scrutinize fat people for being fat because they ate meat. It was all about being healthy. Humans are omnivores. We can do both. If consuming meat and fatty foods without any sense of moderation is what got you to your current state, then why wouldn’t you switch it up and go to the other end of the spectrum; fruits and vegetables? Why not? Does eating smaller portions of the same unhealthy stuff really help? I wouldn’t imagine so… you’re just eating less of it; that doesn’t make the food in question anymore healthier. And here’s where the argument really dialed up. If you don’t want to change up your diet or anything and stay with your eating habits, that’s cool. Fine. But you got to at least exercise. Right? If you want to lose that weight, you gotta do one or the other. Sitting around and not doing anything other than complain that you’re fat isn’t going to burn the calories for you. My friend pointed out that I was making sweeping generalizations and judging people for being fat, which my friend illustrated, for some, it was out of their control; namely genetic predisposition. But that’s making it sound like a handicap, and borderline an excuse. Ok, just because you’ve been unlucky to be hit with “fat” as part of your physical makeup DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO BE. You CAN exercise! You CAN get in shape! My friend brought up that some people just don’t know any better. I refuse to believe this. No one can be that uninformed or oblivious as to what they are doing to their own body. You just cannot be that… stupid. If you don’t know any better, fine, but you have to pray tell me, why DON’T you know? Is it really a situation where the information is not readily presented for you and thus you do not know what’s going on? Or are you just lazy and WON’T do the research? At the end of it all, my friend did bring up the final point: it’s the person’s choice. Which I’m not entirely sure as to why it’s perfectly applicable in defense of people who continue to make poor eating habits but not for people who choose to become proactive in taking care of their bodies. *shrugs* But whatever, it doesn’t lessen my friend’s point of people having the right to choose. I can accept this. But I refuse to feel sorry, give out pity points, or throw pity parties for people who become charity cases because their CHOICES have resulted them in being obese and unhealthy. It can be prevented, but you refused. At the end of the day, you got into it, you can most certainly get out of it. Why you blocked out people who tried to help you from ruining your body and your life, but then when it was far too late is when you all of a sudden complain to US is not a question that I should answer, but more you. Anywho, my friend won the argument by the way hahahaha. I hope that didn’t come across as me enforcing my beliefs. I’ve just seen too much stupid stuff and overall negativity that people inflict on themselves that it’s hard for me to really bite my tongue when I KNOW it can be helped, as opposed to the general helplessness people like to live up. I’m gunna chow down my vegetables -“Vegetables” by The Beach Boys

VEGETABLES

This isn’t meant to come off as preachy or self-righteous or anything. I despise that, but if it does, let me know. Or hit me. Emoticon punch me. Something.

But first, a little backstory. My family has a long history with high blood pressure, something I’ve long since attributed to their eating habits. At the same time, I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed with a seemingly god-like level of high metabolism (my brother and I appear to be the only ones in the family to have this). I can out eat just about anybody, but have absolutely nothing to show for it. Because of this rather tall and slender body type I posses, I’ve always had to deal with family telling me to eat more because they assumed I was starving, malnourished, and deathly ill, and more recently, friends being somewhat (jokingly) jealous of me. College gets everybody with the “freshmen 15 lbs”; I did too, don’t get me wrong, but I still was able to maintain my skinny frame, compared to the changes my friends underwent.

That being said, when I really sat and thought about the history my family has had with high blood pressure and other potential health risks in regards to the heart, I knew I didn’t want to wind up being in the shape that my relatives are now. I have this feeling that my metabolism is going to wear off at some point and all the admittedly unhealthy eating I’ve done over the years will catch up to me. Lately, after researching and reading up on vegetarian recipes, Vegan lifestyle in general, and following vegetarians/vegans on Twitter and here on Tumblr, such as Mindy White and Ethan Luck, I’m strongly considering switching to a vegetarian diet.

I’ve seen vegetarian meals, and they look delicious. I’ve since made it into a habit of ordering Boca burgers when available, and they taste delicious. I really enjoyed shopping at Trader Joe’s when I was living on my own for a year and half, and would like to start buying organic, which I haven’t been able to do since I moved back in with the relatives, and back to the rather unhealthy eating. I want to try out Whole Foods, Native Foods and everything else. This consideration is really more of a personal decision for me; it’s not to prance around and roll with a group of veggie lovers to save animals or anything. It’s more for the health reasons, something I’ve seriously taken into account this year as part of an effort to make healthy choices in my life (for example, claiming straight-edge on my birthday).

Now that the backstory is out of the way (sowwy), onto the point of this whole shindig. The other day I got into a rather heated and lengthy debate with a friend on whether or not vegetarian/vegan was anymore healthier or beneficiary compared to sticking with meat. We used the prevailing case of obesity as an example, but honestly, my point wasn’t to scrutinize fat people for being fat because they ate meat. It was all about being healthy.

Humans are omnivores. We can do both. If consuming meat and fatty foods without any sense of moderation is what got you to your current state, then why wouldn’t you switch it up and go to the other end of the spectrum; fruits and vegetables? Why not? Does eating smaller portions of the same unhealthy stuff really help? I wouldn’t imagine so… you’re just eating less of it; that doesn’t make the food in question anymore healthier. And here’s where the argument really dialed up.

If you don’t want to change up your diet or anything and stay with your eating habits, that’s cool. Fine. But you got to at least exercise. Right? If you want to lose that weight, you gotta do one or the other. Sitting around and not doing anything other than complain that you’re fat isn’t going to burn the calories for you. My friend pointed out that I was making sweeping generalizations and judging people for being fat, which my friend illustrated, for some, it was out of their control; namely genetic predisposition. But that’s making it sound like a handicap, and borderline an excuse. Ok, just because you’ve been unlucky to be hit with “fat” as part of your physical makeup DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO BE. You CAN exercise! You CAN get in shape!

My friend brought up that some people just don’t know any better. I refuse to believe this. No one can be that uninformed or oblivious as to what they are doing to their own body. You just cannot be that… stupid. If you don’t know any better, fine, but you have to pray tell me, why DON’T you know? Is it really a situation where the information is not readily presented for you and thus you do not know what’s going on? Or are you just lazy and WON’T do the research?

At the end of it all, my friend did bring up the final point: it’s the person’s choice. Which I’m not entirely sure as to why it’s perfectly applicable in defense of people who continue to make poor eating habits but not for people who choose to become proactive in taking care of their bodies. *shrugs* But whatever, it doesn’t lessen my friend’s point of people having the right to choose. I can accept this. But I refuse to feel sorry, give out pity points, or throw pity parties for people who become charity cases because their CHOICES have resulted them in being obese and unhealthy.

It can be prevented, but you refused. At the end of the day, you got into it, you can most certainly get out of it. Why you blocked out people who tried to help you from ruining your body and your life, but then when it was far too late is when you all of a sudden complain to US is not a question that I should answer, but more you. Anywho, my friend won the argument by the way hahahaha.

I hope that didn’t come across as me enforcing my beliefs. I’ve just seen too much stupid stuff and overall negativity that people inflict on themselves that it’s hard for me to really bite my tongue when I KNOW it can be helped, as opposed to the general helplessness people like to live up.

I’m gunna chow down my vegetables

-“Vegetables” by The Beach Boys