I’m planning on getting it published when I finish with it, and I’m about half of the way done with it.

Chapter one

The boring life

Tick Tock Tick Tock

The clock echoed in the spacious office.  Time flows, without meaning.

She scribbled away at her desk.  Who knew that the corner office would be so much work!

Zoe was putting the finishing touches on her report, Multidimensional Transmorphic objects.  Piles of papers that had to be dealt with sat in her inbox.  Even today, they still relied on the tried-and-true paper method.  Something about the physical paper in your hands brings back nostalgia.

She reached over and tapped the desk.  The three dimensional display of her report popped up.  With a flick of her hand, she flicked through the pages of MTO and satisfied, snatched the report and headed out of her office.

Zoe walked down the hall with purpose.  Today was an important day.  She had been working on the theoretical models of mutating, cross dimensional objects for months, and had finally finished her work.  A major project like this, solved so efficiently and quickly, usually meant a promotion.

Zoe was an ordinary girl in most regards.  She worked hard, and was a top performing workaholic.  An introvert, she did nearly all of her work by herself, only gaining input after she had a decent model created.  Even then, the input was minimal at best.

Somewhat tall, Zoe had a decent complexion and frame.  Nothing to brag about, but she was pretty.  She had wavy dirty blonde hair, and kept it hid up in a bun.  She wore glasses, and didn’t put on makeup.

She lived for her work.  Most days were spent in the office, and on her projects.  No social life to speak of, Zoe’s evenings consisted of TV dinners and sleep.  On the weekends, she pondered theory, while relaxing in her reclining chair.

Zoe’s footsteps clacked the marble floor as her heels hit.  Zoe didn’t typically wear heels, but it’s not very often she meets with her boss.  Her black skirt complemented her white blouse.

Susan Birmingham.  Susan was Zoe’s boss.  Genetics had favored Susan.   She had long, flowing silky brown hair, and looked like a supermodel.  Susan was the person that they coined the term ‘hourglass figure’ after.  Confident and cocky, she came across somewhat as a bitch.  Perhaps it was her unnatural genius-level talent and wisdom.

Zoe stepped up to the office.  The modern design of the building used lots of glass, accented by metal.  The offices were all giant, one-way glass walls.  Like the rest of the office, everything was automatic.  By walking to the office, Susan was alerted to Zoe’s presence.  When she was ready, Susan would allow Zoe to enter.

A door shaped opening appeared in the glass in front of Zoe.  She stepped into the office.

“I see you’ve completed the report.  Thank you Zoe.  I will review it, and get back to you.  I’ve sent a new project for you to work on while you wait.”

Susan had an eerie knack of being able to tell what was going on.  It’s as if she had read Zoe’s mind.  It took a while for her to get used to it, but Zoe had been Susan’s busy bee for a long time.

“Thank you Susan, I’ll get right to it.”

The exchange was quite short.  Not nearly as dramatic as Zoe anticipated.

She walked back out of the office, and the glass wall closed behind her.

Her breathing increased, her pupils dilated, and her pulse quickened.  What was happening?  Zoe felt calm, yet it was as if she was having a panic attack.  Not knowing what else to do, Zoe headed back towards her office.

Fear slowly crept into her thoughts.  What is happening to her?

She reached her office, and the glass opened.  Halfway through the door, a glimmer of light caught the corner of her eye.  Looking down the long hallway towards her boss’ office, Zoe saw a strange shimmering object, unlike anything that she had seen before.  The object disappeared down another hall as abruptly as it had appeared.

Zoe’s curiosity was piqued.  Maybe the object had something to do with her fear.  Despite being out of breath, Zoe ran down the hall.

Clack clack clack her heels went.  “Damn, I should’ve worn normal shoes” Zoe thought.

Reaching the end of the hall, she turned towards where the object went.  As she turned, a brilliant light filled her eyes.  It was like a spotlight, overwhelming her vision, not allowing her to see anything else.

BOOM!

Suddenly, Zoe was back in her office.  Her report was in her hand.

Related posts:

1. The New PersDev
2. Overcome procrastination
3. Creating a Productive Workspace

Nike plus is a great resource to maintain a motivation to run.  By allowing you to track your progress, pace, goals, and distance, you have a lot of data to track your progress.

So far, we’ve followed the schedule pretty well, occasionally switching days up as we needed to (blue stars, and ‘X’s).  I hope you find it as useful as I have.

As promised, here’s the calendars:

January Nike+ Workout Calendar

Febuary Nike+ Workout Calendar

They’re in XLSX. Most people I know can access this format, but if you can’t, post a comment and I’ll upload the XLS format.

Related posts:

1. Overcome procrastination
2. Managing Stress for Students
3. The New PersDev

I’m pleased to announce the relaunch of PersDev! A bunch of changes have taken place:

I’ve switched domains from persdev.sidecoder.com to persdev.com.

After waiting 7 months for the domain to expire, I’ve managed to get a hold of persdev.com, which I’m super excited about! Since last October, when I decided that I wanted to blog about personal development, I wanted a new domain name, instead of piggybacking via a subdomain on the SideCoder domain name. PersDev was everything I wanted: short, easily remembered, and instantly understandable. In other words, something that portrayed personal development from the first glance, a lesson that I learned from the Toastmasters name (when I talk about Toastmasters to someone for the first time, they always inevitably say, “Is that where you learn to make great toast?”). However, all of the domain names that I could think of either didn’t fit the criteria, or were taken. The only exception, persdev, was my first choice. It was in the process of expiring when I first discovered it, and I was instantly hooked on the name.

Be sure to bookmark PersDev.com!

A new updated theme and feel for PersDev

Ever since the launch of persdev.sidecoder.com, I’ve been dissatisfied with the green “Mondo Zen Theme” that I had. While that theme was ok, it wasn’t what I wanted for my site. I wanted something that was contemporary, visually stimulating, feature robust, and easy to use. My current theme, “Inanis Glass” satisfied that.

The new theme allows for user chosen themes, quick and intuitive access to the RSS feeds, and the ability to search the site. Plus it just looks nice.

I’m changing the feel and style of the posts

I’ve come to realize that there was a fundamental error in my thinking when it came to posting blog articles. I was focused on providing value, and therefore talked a lot on what I thought others could do to improve themselves. This was a mistake. Although that format does provide some value, it can come across as authoritarian, which doesn’t fit my personality.

From now on, I’m going to write primarily on my own achievements, insights, and goals. This has many positive effects:

• Original Content – I’m not going to use other people’s concepts and jargon, since I’m not going to be researching my articles. This allows for my true perspective to come through, not one that has been tinted by someone else’s experiences.
• Posting Rate – In the past, I stuck to a posting schedule, which didn’t work out for me. That led me to not posting for several months. By posting on my own experiences, not only will I post when I get something new (a lot more often than going a few months without a post) but I will be much more motivated to post.
• No BS – These are my own experiences. There’s no fluff. If I’m trying something out, and it doesn’t work out like expected, that’s what I’m going to report. The vegetarian experiment really showed me this – vegetarian websites made it sound so awesome, while my experiences showed me that it was a difficult lifestyle. If I just researched vegetarianism, instead of experiencing it, I would’ve never been able to talk about it.
  
  Another thing about No BS that is great is that it is so rare on the internet. I think that not only will it keep you here, it will also drive more traffic to my website.

An optional user registration system

With the new theme, user registration is a breeze and it comes with a variety of benefits:

• It allows you to post comments without typing in your information over and over again.
• You can edit how your comments appear on the site.
• You’ll be automatically enrolled for our newsletter. – Although I don’t have any current plans for a newsletter, I would eventually like to have one. If you don’t want this, you can always opt out of the newsletter. I guarantee that there will be an unsubscribe link at the bottom of it. The newsletter will have exclusive content to it, as well as letting you be in the loop of what’s happening on PersDev.

Related posts:

1. Nike+ Walk to Run Workout Calendar
2. Overcome procrastination
3. About

When I originally began the whole Vegetarian-For-Lent thingy, I intended on becoming vegetarian for 40 days, which was what I thought the time frame for Lent was. However, that’s not the case. Apparently according to this site, the 40 days of fasting doesn’t include Sundays, so Lent is actually 46 days long, to include Sundays. A couple days before I started, I counted out 40 days (including Sundays), and that was last Monday. Since I have no religious ties to Lent, I decided that this week I was going to wean myself off of a straight vegetarian diet back into a meat eating diet.

Surprisingly, my first meat was calamari, which I had never had before. My brother and I went to a fancy restaurant and he ordered it. I was intensely curious, so I stole a couple bites.

After that, I began switching between vegetarian or meat based meals. At that point, I was fully expecting to have gastrointestinal issues because of the meat. Besides feeling a bit queasy, I haven’t had any negative health issues from eating meat (note: I did have issues when I switched to a vegetarian diet).

Some of the things that I’ve had to eat this week are hot wings, chicken noodle soup, pepperoni pizza (I bet you could’ve guessed that one!), orange chicken, and of course, steak. I spent all week preparing myself to eat that steak (I had it earlier today). I figure that you haven’t truly broken a vegetarian diet without steak.

Emotionally, I still feel like a vegetarian. I still have this feeling of scarcity when I think about food. When I was vegetarian, I felt extremely limited in my food choices. Because of the limitations, sometimes I didn’t eat as much, or as often. Sometimes, especially when eating spaghetti, I’d get through a whole plate and my stomach was full, but I still felt hungry. This feeling of a lack of food, or of hunger, still is the predominant feeling that I get when I think about food.

This is not to say that everyone would feel this way. I think the only reason that I felt like that was that I didn’t get into a sustainable groove of cooking food that was satisfying to me. There were definitely foods that were much more satisfying (pretty much anything with beans or fresh vegetables) and those that were not (mainly spaghetti). If I was to do this again, I would make sure to prepare myself to be able to cook at least one meal at home everyday.

The most surprising thing to me was that when I did start to eat meat again, it was rather dull. I figured that after going without for so long, the taste of meat would be amazing. Instead, it was not really tasty, even less so before the vegetarian experiment. The reason behind this must be that my taste buds have changed. As I said earlier, I still feel vegetarian. I have to keep reminding myself that I can eat meat, and that I should eat meat, which isn’t a very exciting concept to me. Meat just doesn’t taste that great to me anymore. I love the fact that I have a lot more choices though. That was one of the biggest issues I had with vegetarianism.

Greasy, fatty meat is gross to me. A couple weeks in, I saw some ground beef at a Taco Bell and I started to gag. That hasn’t gone away since I started to eat meat. I don’t think I’m ever going to eat that stuff again. Even just the smell makes me borderline nauseous.

The biggest reason why I chose to quit before Easter is that I was getting REALLY sick of cheese pizza and bean burritos. A couple weeks ago, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and was really demotivated to come up with anything new or creative. At the same time, my workload doubled, so I was eating fast food all-the-freaking-time. Like I said in my last post, you have to be able to cook quite a bit at home to make vegetarianism sustainable. Well, that went really out the window for me. By the time Monday rolled around, the thought of staying vegetarian for another week was gone.

I didn’t think that breaking the habit of vegetarianism was going to be tough. I thought it was going to be like when you quit exercising. After you quit for a couple days, you don’t really have the urge to go exercise again. It’s been a week of eating meat, and I still have the urge to pick the vegetarian choice. I’m sure that it will greatly diminish over time, but it’s still kinda odd to me.

I’m happy that I tried vegetarianism, and I could definitely see myself taking a shot at it again sometime in the future when my schedule is less intense. I’m definitely going to incorporate more vegetarian foods into my diet from now on. There was several veggie meals that I loved, and I plan on continuing to eat those. I think I like veggie pizzas more than meat pizzas, as well as bean burritos. I’m probably going to stay away from both of those for a while, because I had way too much last week. In a couple weeks though, I’ll probably go back to having those as a regular part of my diet.

Starting a new habit is hard, especially when you are feeling stressed. Stress is probably the number one habit killer. Fortunately for me, I was pretty deeply engrained into vegetarianism when I started experiencing a truckload more stress. At that point, stressing my body by switching back to a meat eating diet sounded much less appealing than sticking to vegetarianism. That being said, I feel as though I gained a lot of perseverance to have stuck with vegetarianism as long as I did. I know now that if I had to do something like this again, I’d be able to last quite a while.

Overall, my experience was good. I’m glad I did it. I’m also glad I’m back to eating meat. I hope you enjoyed the ride!

- Neal

Related posts:

1. What is Vegetarianism?
2. Vegetarian for Lent – Day 0
3. Making Vegetarianism Work for Lent

Sustainable Vegetarianism
I’ve found that in order to sustain a vegetarianism lifestyle, you have to discover comfort food that meets the vegetarian criteria. If you hate Mexican food, bean burritos are probably not a good food to think you can eat for the rest of your life. Naturally, if you’re only doing the vegetarian experiment for a few weeks (like for Lent), then you don’t have to worry about this as much. You can suffer through a few bean burritos or just avoid them altogether.

I’ve spent the last few weeks implementing this concept. One of the interesting things about this experiment is that my tastes have changed. I remembered HATING cottage cheese as a kid, but the other day I was craving it. I bought some, and now I can’t get enough of it. The same goes for bagels and cream cheese. I honestly can’t think of anything that I enjoy as much in the morning as a cinnamon raison bagel with strawberry cream cheese. (Yes, I know this is weird, but it tastes REALLY good!).

Also, working at a pizza place over the last three years, I’ve come to accept the role of pizza in my life as a staple. Since cheese pizza is vegetarian, I’ve been eating that up, because it’s super convenient (and free!).

One great thing about this vegetarian experiment is that I’ve found that I eat a lot more fruit than I used to. I’ve always loved fruit, but now that my food choices are more limited, I’ve made sure to always have fruit on hand to eat. Fruit definitely is a staple for someone who wants to have a sustainable vegetarian diet.

My Diet
I love breakfast. As I said in my last post, I’ve discovered the joy of eating breakfast again. In the mornings, I usually eat either a bagel with cream cheese, fruit, or eggs. I got an egg cooker, and it’s been fantastic to make poached eggs in.

For lunch, I’m usually at school so my options are a bit limited. I basically only have the choice between Mexican, bagels, or pizza. Of course, I could eat some other small things like croissants, but I don’t think that’s a sustainable choice for lunch. That being said, I love pizza, and I love Mexican food, so I’m happy. Since I eat bagels for breakfast about half the time, I haven’t really been eating them at school. One of my staples from school is a really yummy burrito that has rice, beans and mushrooms.

Dinner is a bit different than I thought it would be. When I started vegetarianism, I anticipated that I would be forced to cook more foods because my options would be limited. While my options have been limited, I’ve found quick and easy solutions to avoid having to cook. Unfortunately, these options aren’t necessarily good for me.

For instance, I’ve been eating a lot more pizza (as in a couple times a week) because it’s quick, easy, and cheap to pick up a cheese pizza. On the days that I don’t pick up pizza, there’s usually left over pizza in the fridge, and it’s quick and easy to microwave that. Outside of pizza, Applebees has a pretty tasty Veggie Patch Pizza (I get a side of limes and eat it with lime juice).

I would say that I actually make something only once a week on average. When I do, I love it. I’ve made Guacos and spaghetti several times. I haven’t experimented much beyond what I made the first week of going vegetarian.

I made a really tasty vegetarian pizza at work. It had green peppers, red peppers, mushrooms, pineapple, provolone, and mozzarella.

I also made spaghetti squash. I LOVE spaghetti squash! It takes about an hour to bake (follow the directions on the squash), but it’s worth it. After you bake the squash, you take a fork and scrape the ‘guts’ of the squash to get naturally stringy “spaghetti”. Just add your favorite spaghetti sauce and any spices that you normally would eat with spaghetti (I add spaghetti seasoning and a bit of garlic to the sauce).

Also, another really tasty vegetarian dish that I discovered is veggie fajita’s from Chilies. It’s basically mushrooms, onions, broccoli, and green peppers, but it tastes fantastic!

My Future With Vegetarianism
I’ve decided that I’m going to quit being vegetarian on Easter day (when Lent ends). I started vegetarianism primarily because of the health benefits associated with vegetarianism, and quite frankly, I’m not seeing any. I’ve actually been eating more junk food since becoming vegetarian than I did when I ate meat. Home-made vegetarian foods is probably what most of the health benefits come from. I’m in a period of my life that I have a whole ton of demands that need my attention all at once, and cooking my own food is just another demand of my time. Because of this, I’ve been eating a lot of junk food. Obviously, because I’m eating junk food, my health hasn’t improved, and so the whole reason that I decided to become vegetarian is pointless.

Another reason that I’ve decided to quit is because of convenience. I live with my brother, and we split the food bill. Often, we share meals, especially since most food is in a bigger portion than for one person. Since Lent started, he has cooked food that has meat in it, and so we haven’t shared meals as much. This hurts him as much as it hurts me, because he isn’t as addicted to cheese pizza as I am. Seriously, it’s become a real inconvenience for both of us. If we’re going to a restaurant that he wants to go to, and I don’t like the one item on the menu that’s vegetarian, I’m not going to enjoy my meal. In turn, he’s probably sick of going to Applebees so I can get my Veggie Patch Pizza.

Also, I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t quite adjusted yet, or if it’s all the junk food that I’ve been eating, but my insides aren’t as calm as I remember when I didn’t eat as many beans. I’m sure that if you were serious about vegetarianism and cooked the majority of your own meals, you probably wouldn’t have this problem.

I would love to have another vegetarianism experiment in the future, when I have time to cook most of my meals. Right now, especially during school, vegetarianism isn’t a good choice for me.

Despite deciding to quit, I am determined to finish my vegetarian trial. I feel as though my will-power has grown tremendously through consistently avoiding the temptation of meat. I want to prove to myself that I can last until Easter.

Other Thoughts On Vegetarianism
I love how vegetarian has done a few things for me. Breakfast food is a much bigger staple in my life, as well as fresh fruit. I’ve also discovered several new meals that I enjoy.

My girlfriend has warned me that if I eat a steak for my first meal, it’s going to make me feel sick. If you decide to try your own vegetarian trial, keep this in mind.

Try the veggie dish next time you go to a restaurant. It’s possible that you discover something new that you absolutely fall in love with. You won’t grow unless you put yourself out there. In finance terms, there is no substantial return (personal growth) if there is no risk.

- Neal

Related posts:

1. Vegetarian for Lent – Week 1
2. Vegetarian for Lent – Day 0
3. Making Vegetarianism Work for Lent

I have done this before. I originally started this to see if I can do this; caffeine and meat are everywhere in our society. This is especially true for college students, since meeting group members over coffee or grabbing something from the local cafeteria and discussing the fundamentals of X-inactivation, the genetic imprinting, or just doodling punnet squares to try and figure out how Wolverine’s genotype is (okay, most people probably don’t do that; but I do).

What Neal says is true: there are very many vegetarian items. That doesn’t necessarily make it better (eating a dinner of jalapeño poppers and fries is not ideal). By cutting meat out of your diet, you’re basically eliminating every fast food place. Most fast food places only a few entrees, if any, that don’t have meat. I am personally talking about anything BUT fish (a lot of places do a fried fish thing for Lent). This means that any salad that has chicken in it is out. When you cut out meat from your diet and you go to fast food, you’re going to get something like a side salad and fries. The biggest exception I know to this is BK because they have a Morningstar veggie burger.

This should give you basically no motivation to go fast food, which is good! Fast food has tons of calories and is generally pretty bad for you, as well as being somewhat expensive. Even if you do go to fast food, you’re already thinking about what you can and cannot eat, which is going to put you a step ahead of the game.

Even if you’re going to go out for dinner, you may find that your options are super limited. I went to Applebee’s for my friend’s 21st birthday. I got mozzarella sticks and some of a veggie pizza that wasn’t that great. Neal pointed out some great items last week, especially the Einstein’s bagel with spinach.

I’ve found that it tends to be much more practical to not go out, though. There are some easy vegetarian options for dinner.

If you’re busy and don’t have that much time for home preparation, pick up some canned soups. Progresso has a great line of vegetarian soups, as well as other brands. For most of Lent, it’s probably going to be cold, so curling up with a nice bowl of soup should feel pretty cozy. It’s also got a lot of volume, but it’s mostly liquid, so you’re going to be feeling full sooner. Make sure to check out the sodium content, though.

They also package ready made salads. I know that they used to package several entrée salads, such as a Santa Fe one that came with tortilla strips and cheese. These are good for several days, and if you use the dressing somewhat lightly, can be a healthy, fresh, and vegetarian dish without much work.

If you’re trying to be vegetarian for 40 days, but still have some cravings for meat, I highly recommend Morningstar. They are amazingly tasty burgers that have around 100 calories per patty. I have found that even a faux burger will help with the meat cravings, if you’ve not allowed yourself any fish or if you have a seafood allergy. I haven’t tried any of Morningstar’s chicken substitutes, but I know that Morningstar is the brand of choice for the other 2 people that I personally know that occasionally go vegetarian. I have tried their bacon substitute, however. I will suggest you try something other than that. Nothing against Morningstar, I just think they haven’t perfected making things that aren’t bacon taste as good as bacon.

On to the real challenge: Giving up caffeine. Caffeine is everywhere. By eliminating caffeine, you’re giving up most sodas, except for stuff like Sprite, Mug’s Root Beer, and Fantas. That is unless you want to go for the decaffeinated stuff. I think the stuff tastes weird, so I just don’t. This is still a good thing! Soda contains a ton of empty calories. You should be drinking water or teas instead! Teas contain polyphenols (compounds) that help to induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cells, which help to prevent certain cancers (it helps prevent mutations). Water aids digestion, keeps you hydrated, and a whole bunch of other health benefits.

There are some drawbacks, though. Some teas aren’t decaffeinated, which means you can’t get the health benefits from drinking them if you‘re going completely caffeine free, which for the sake of Lent, I am. I really wouldn’t expect you never ever have caffeine again.

I won’t go into the negative effects of caffeine, since Neal talked about them months ago (you have been religiously following him, right?).

By cutting caffeine out of your diet, you’ll also have to cut out chocolate. Chocolate does contain caffeine. If you wanted to pull an all nighter, it’s not going to be the easiest way for you to stay up, but it does have some. This means that if you’re prone to mindlessly snacking on chocolate chip cookies, chocolate bars, or chocolate cake, you’re not going to be able to do this. You’re going to have to turn to peanut butter cookies or a different type of snack (hopefully a healthy one). Red delicious apples are super sweet. You could drizzle some yogurt chips (aka white chocolate, which isn’t actually chocolate) over strawberries. The fact that you dress up the strawberries doesn’t make them unhealthy! You just need to know that you need to include the white chocolate if you’re counting calories.

Lent can be a good way to start thinking more about foods and making conscious choices about what you‘re eating. It can definitely be used as a way of expanding your dietary horizons.

Related posts:

1. What is Vegetarianism?
2. Using Lent for Personal Development, even though you may not be Catholic
3. Starting your day right

It’s been quite an experience so far. Many of my expectations have been shattered, while many have been fulfilled. I’m really enjoying this new experience.

A big realization that I’ve had is that finding food to eat that is vegetarian is both really easy, and quite frustrating. Before I took this step, I never really noticed vegetarian choices at the places that I ate at. Now, I’m all about hunting out the vegetarian dishes on the menu. I never realized, but almost every food establishment has vegetarian options. However, it’s quite frustrating sometimes. Often, the menu only had one or two vegetarian options. If I wasn’t in the mood for that particular option, then I was out of luck, unless I wanted to cause trouble and make the people that I’m going to lunch with go somewhere else.

Challenges
There are several challenges that I’ve encountered with vegetarianism. You have to analyze your food choices a lot more. Because there are many fewer vegetarian choices, it’s harder to spot them. For instance, you have to read the fine print on salads, because many have bacon bits, or some other type of meat added. Sometimes it’s not exactly clear if the plate you want will have meat in it. It’s always a good idea to ask to make sure.

Another challenge that I’ve faced is that I’ve not enjoyed some of the dishes. As you would expect when experimenting with any new food, I’ve had some stuff that wasn’t very tasty to me. Normally, this would be fine. You would just go back to eating whatever you were before. You branched out, didn’t like it, and are retreating to the comfort zone. My problem is that I don’t have a vegetarian comfort zone. For the most part, all of the places that I’ve been eating at my comfort zone is food with meat.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Before my vegetarian experiment, I had a bunch of comfort choices: Mexican had meat filled tacos, burritos, quesadillas; Chinese had all sorts of chicken; American had burgers, country fried steak, mashed potatoes. (And that was the short list) Now, my cumulative list of vegetarian dishes: Bagels, fruit, eggs, bean burritos, cheese quesadillas, salad, and peanut butter. See what I mean? I could go into any given restaurant and be virtually guaranteed that I would find something that I love. Now, it’s a challenge to just find something to eat.

There was a small transition period, where my body got used to eating vegetarian. Because I had done a few short trials of vegetarianism before I started, I already knew what to expect. Between day 2 and day 3, I experienced some gastrointestinal disturbances. I’ll let you fill in the details.

Benefits
Before I took on this challenge, I usually rushed out the door in the morning, either completely skipping breakfast, or slurping down a bowl of cereal. Now that I don’t have many comfort foods, I make sure to eat breakfast every morning, because it may be the only meal that I enjoy that day.

I’ve never really been that fond of breakfast foods, but now that I’m vegetarian, I’ve really grown to love breakfast. I usually eat one of several things: bagel with cream cheese, honey peanut butter toast, and fruit. I can’t get enough of this stuff. Sometimes I start craving these meals while I’m out for the day. Eating breakfast is a great way to start your day, and is really healthy.

An expectation that I had was that I would have intense cravings for meat, and in turn, adjusting to vegetarianism would be extremely tough. I haven’t had any cravings.

I’m really curious to find out if vegetarianism makes me feel healthier. I would have an answer for you, but unfortunately I got sick right before I started. I’ll let you know in my next post.

I’ve felt like my willpower has been tested a lot this week. At the end of these 40 days, I will definitely feel a lot stronger. I feel that my will is a lot stronger already.

Meals
I’m going to skip everything that’s easy and common knowledge. I don’t think you want me to explain how to make bagels with cream cheese.

One of my morning staples is honey peanut butter toast. Basically, I put peanut butter on toast and add some honey. This is super delicious. However, there is a twist: I use homemade honey roasted peanut butter. I use my Blendtec Total Blender, and follow the recipe in my Blendtec book for regular peanut butter. However, instead of using regular roasted peanuts, I use honey roasted peanuts.

Croissants are another big one. If I’m at school and don’t have time / don’t want a full meal, I’ll pick up a croissant. The carbohydrates give me a good boost of energy that lasts for a couple hours.

My mom was visiting from out of town this week, so I ended up eating out a lot, and so I haven’t made any vegetarian dishes except for one. The recipe calls them avocado tacos, but I like to call them guacos. However, I’ve made enough changes to the recipe, that I would go off of what I say, instead of the recipe. Basically, they’re tacos or burritos that are a mix of guacamole, beans, cheese, and salsa. Adding the beans gives the guacos more flavor and fills out the dish. You can get a giant can of beans for really cheap at your grocery store. I think the regular sized can of red beans was around $0.30 or so.

When I went out, I made sure to try new vegetarian dishes. I went to Pei Wei with my mom, and ordered Mongolian with Tofu and Vegetables. I didn’t care much for this dish.

At Einstein Bagels, I had a bagel with spinach, provolone, tomatoes for lunch. It was pretty tasty.

We also went to a diner, and I got the vegetarian benedict. I didn’t like it very much, but I have a feeling that I wouldn’t like any type of benedict.

At Olive Garden, I had Ravioli di Portobello. It was pretty good.

At Chili’s I had the Guiltless Black Bean Burger. It was super tasty. I found a recipe for it, let me know how it is if you try it.

Over the next week, I’m going to continue to explore new foods, and experience vegetarianism in its fullest.

- Neal

Related posts:

1. Vegetarian for Lent – Day 0
2. Vegetarian for Lent – Update
3. Making Vegetarianism Work for Lent

Throughout the next 40 days, I plan on blogging about my experiences. I will talk about what I’ve been eating, my cravings, thoughts about vegetarianism, and perhaps even recipes.

Since I’ve never followed a diet outside of the Standard American Diet (SAD), I’m really curious about how a vegetable based diet is going to affect me, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I have a feeling that it will make a great impact on me in all three of these areas.

A big insight that I had in relation to my own personal development is that I had the tendency to read about, think about, and imagine what certain lifestyle changes would have upon my life. However, I never implemented those changes. I realized that I wasn’t improving my life at all, because I wasn’t experiencing the things I had in my head, or attempting to make those things a reality. When I realized this concept, I began focusing on action-oriented personal development, specifically, things I could realistically accomplish in a relatively soon. Vegetarianism is one of those goals. I have a strong belief that I will grow more from going vegetarian than I could ever grow through just thinking.

Part of my goal in going vegetarian is to explore new foods. If you have a tasty vegetarian recipe, I’d love to know about it.

Wish me luck!

- Neal

Related posts:

1. Vegetarian for Lent – Update
2. Vegetarian for Lent – Week 1
3. Making Vegetarianism Work for Lent

When I first decided to participate in Lent, I had absolutely no idea what vegetarianism was all about. I though that it was basically eating salad for every meal. Since then, I’ve come to learn a lot about the vegetarian lifestyle.

There is a lot of faulty information regarding vegetarianism. I’ve heard from friends, family members, and other acquaintances that the vegetarian diet is unhealthy. This usually takes the form of a couple different phrases: “You can’t get enough protein” or “There’s certain things that you need (like nutrients) that can only be found in meat” are the most common. I disagree. I think that if you eat a balanced, healthy vegetarian diet, then you will have everything you need. I think that the sheer number of people who are vegetarian today prove that you can live without meat.

Why Become Vegetarian?

I’m deciding to go vegetarian because it’s always been something that fascinates me. As someone who at one point lived on microwave chicken (literally, like 3 meals a day), vegetarianism has a somewhat mystical quality to it. How could someone eat only vegetables?

When I began to really approach personal development seriously (around the time I started this website), I began thinking of the notion of actually trying out vegetarianism. What I learned excites me.

Vegetarianism has numerous health benefits. Those who are vegetarian are 24% less likely to develop heart disease. As one study suggests, health conscious individuals who eat fruit regularly (a cornerstone of vegetarianism) “reduced mortality from ischaemic heart disease, [and] cerebrovascular disease”.

I am going vegetarian purely for the health benefits. Some other benefits that vegetarians/vegans tout are:

• Ethical: Vegans believe that eating meat is morally wrong. They argue that raising farm animals for consumption is mean to the animals and in turn unethical.
• Tastes: Some people prefer the taste of vegetarian foods / dislike meat
• Environmental: Whether it’s because cows produce too much methane, or that grain fields used to feed bovine deplete the topsoil, many vegetarians and vegans believe that eating meat causes harm to the envioronment.

I lied, there is one more reason that I’m going vegetarian: I want to experience something new. There is a lot of vegetarian recipes that sound very interesting to me, and I want an excuse to try them out.

I strongly believe in trying something out for yourself, and this is a perfect example. I don’t know if I’m going to become vegetarian for life, or quit on day 40. I will have to wait and see how I personally react to my vegetarian experiment.

For those of you that are interested in learning more, I strongly recommend reading the Vegetarian Starter Kit. It has a ton of great information.

- Neal

Related posts:

1. Making Vegetarianism Work for Lent
2. Vegetarian for Lent – Day 0
3. Going Back to a Meat Eating Lifestyle

Lent is a Catholic practice of giving up a vice, praying, and penitence. This lasts for approximately 40 days, from mid-February to Easter Sunday. Just because Lent is a religious practice doesn’t mean that you can’t also use this time to break from one of your vices.

When I was young, I though practicing Lent was silly. As time went on, I began to understand the underlying fundamentals of how habits are formed. Depending on how you go about it, habits usually take around a month to formulate and become more subconscious, and in turn less painful.

That’s where the beauty of lent comes in: 40 days of giving up something harmful gives you plenty of time to break any bad habits you have surrounding that. If you’ve been telling your friends for 40 days that you aren’t drinking caffeine, then it’s likely that they’ve stopped asking you to go to Starbucks with them, because they know you aren’t drinking caffeine because of Lent. Instead of grabbing a cup ‘o joe during a break at work, by the time 40 days is up, you’re probably already used to bringing in some non-caffeniated beverage or drinking water.

Because Lent is a religious practice, you’re also more likely to not get persecuted for practicing something outside of the norm because people don’t want to offend you by badmouthing your beliefs. You’re not going to get as much typical badmouthing such as: “Why are you doing that? You’re crazy!” or “You’ll never make it.” or “I can’t believe that you’d ever want to put yourself through that.”

Instead, you’re going to get: “Oh, it’s for Lent? I understand.” or “Good luck!” or (most importantly) “Oh yeah? I gave up XYZ for Lent.”

As you can see, there is much more of a positive atmosphere in relation to habits relating to a religious practice than there is for someone without a religious reason to practice something outside of the norm.

The biggest benefit of practicing Lent is that you’re not alone. There are about 1 billion catholics worldwide, and although most do not practice, there are still a significant number that do. That means that many people around you are giving up vices at the same time that you are.

This year I plan on becoming vegetarian for Lent. Vegetarianism has always been something that I’ve been curious about, and Lent is a great time to explore what it has to offer.

Lent is typically about giving up a vice, as opposed to creating a new positive habit (like working out). However, if you don’t have any major vices to give up, feel free to create a positive habit during this period.

Neal

Related posts:

1. Using New Years to kickstart your personal development
2. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Personal Development
3. Vegetarian for Lent – Day 0