Playing Chicken... Or Not.

I've been interested in the idea of going vegetarian before -- "C'mon, Caitlin," I'd say to myself. "'Just once. Just for a short period of time, just to see if you like it. I mean, it's not something we have to do again if you don't like it, but you should really give it a chance. Who knows, you might LOVE being a vegetarian and want to do it all the time."

Yes, I *did* give myself the vegetarian-virgin coercion speech. And *no,* I am not ashamed about it.

That's right, people, I have pledged my status as a carnivore to the Lord. After a lot of deliberation and a particularly hilarious text-convo involving Oprah, a bottle of fine wine (K) and a trough of $2 beer (yours truly), my fabulous coworker, Katie, and I have decided that for the next 47 days, we are giving up all beef, pork and poultry.

We started our quest by putting the "Fat" in "Fat Tuesday" -- and I mean literally. I went a little wild at our "Farewell, Meat!" lunch and instead of my normal Mini Bolocco Cajun Bowl with brown rice, white meat chicken and light on the cajun spices (blood pressure, you know), I went ALL-IN:

Small, full-on cajun burrito with a WHITE tortilla, BOLOCCO RICE, STEAK, FULL-ON cajun spices AND GUAC. Collective gasp now, everyone! #sarcasm.  (Sidenote: I wish I had broken off my calorie-counting ways enough to NOT have looked up the nutritionals under the guise of "curiosity". But I did, and was not terribly upset to see my lunch consisted of about 700 calories and over 2,000mg of sodium. The real killer is the roasted corn salsa, which I am planning to make myself this week so I can cut the salt but keep the flavor.)

Day 1 was yesterday, and I'm happy to say that it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. I'm not going to be photographing ALL of my meals, or even posting them here, but I thought since it was the first day of a new routine, I'd document it for you. The good thing is, I've been having one or two days per week where I eat a basically vegetarian diet anyway, especially since I've started making some of the amazing dishes from my favorite healthy living websites. I never knew how amazing lentil soup could be if you just add a tablespoon or so of curry! I promise to link up to the fab recipes I'll be trying so that you all can share in the love, too!

Copious amounts of greek yogurt will be consumed, I can tell already... along with OSG Angela's AMAZING chocolate crunch dessert granola:

Holy. Yum.

My first veg meal was a plain Chobani yogurt bowl with chia seeds and crack granola. (Side note: I promise to never use the phrase "In the Mix:" on this blog, unless I'm referring to an awesome compilation cd. I <3 many bloggers who DO use it, but I always kind of cringe because I'm sick of seeing it everywhere. XO Caitie). Perfect little "non-meal" for Ash Wednesday and just enough to get me through my dentist appointment at 8:30!

Three fillings (well, two fillings and a "coating", which was basically a filling that my dentist slapped on a perfectly fine tooth because I have MAJOR sensitivity due to a horrible dentist I had years ago) and a numb face later, I drove the 40 minutes home, packed up my next mini-meal and headed to the office. I could FINALLY feel my face by 2, so I cracked open this baby and set to work:

 

Romaine, Tribe 40 Spices hummus, English cucumber, a slice of muenster and a few caesar croutons all wrapped up in a FlatOut. My absolutely fabulous cousin, T, is an 18-year old varsity swimmer and pole vault champ, and has been a VegHead for a few years now. This was one of her suggestions based on my facebook plea for recipes, and I was not disappointed! It kept me nice and energized without that whole post-lunch weigh down feeling.

Then I got slammed by a rockin' headache (novacaine wore off), and there weren't enough OTC painkillers in the WORLD to take care of it. Katie and I were picking up race packets for our 5k this weekend right after work, so rather than hitting the gym, we walked the 2 miles to the pickup and then parted ways. By the time I got home, I wanted to curl into a little ball on the couch and sleep, and eating was the last thing on my mind with my sore mouth and pounding temples.

I swore to myself that I wouldn't live off of pasta and cheese during this little experiment, but by the time B got home at 7, the soft goodness was all I wanted, so that's what we had. B boiled water for about 3 servings of whole wheat pasta while I prepped the rest of the ingredients -- aka opened cans. We strained the pasta over a bed of baby spinach, wilting it a bit, then threw it all back into the pot along with a few ounces of fresh mozz cubes, half a can of diced no-salt-added tomatoes, half a can of no-salt-added cannellini beans and a sprinkling of both garlic and kosher salts. I'd throw up a pic but B was in heaven and inhaled it all before I could even get to my camera! He also brought me home some Edy's Mint Brownie ice cream (after I BEGGED him to stop and get me ice cream for my swollen mouth!), and that was a great way to end the night (apologies on resolution -- I can't find a bigger photo!).

[Source]

All in all, I'd say Day 1 was a success! I'm very excited to see how the no-meat lifestyle affects me PHYSICALLY, more than anything. Vegetarian friends have always waxed on and on about how GREAT they feel after they quit eating flesh, but I've always wondered if they were just using it as an excuse to consume mass amounts of peanut butter and double stuf oreos (I'm kidding -- I just used to tease my veggie bff/roommate about eating that stuff!).

Not that I'd complain! ;)

So, tell me: Have you made any big lifestyle changes lately? Are you celebrating Lent this year? If so, what did you give up/decide to do for others?Have any fabulous vegetarian recipes for me? Post them in the comments to share the love or simply send 'em my way! CaitieExperiment [at] gmail.com -- I'd LOVE to hear from you!