Too much of a good thing

After watching Super Size Me again recently, I had an idea. If Morgan Spurlock could end up that sick and unhealthy-looking after 30 days of eating bad food and not exercising, I wondered whether we could make a significant difference to our health and fitness if we did 30 days of healthy living…but ‘Fitness Month’ hasn’t got off to a very good start!

The plan

We decided to wait until Vegan MoFo was over before we started on our own ‘Fitness Month’. The idea is that we do all the things we’re supposed to do:

• Food: Follow Ginny Messina’s Plant Plate from Vegan for Her.
• Alcohol: Follow the Australian guidelines for low-risk drinking.
• Exercise: Follow the National Physical Activity Guidelines for Adults.
• Mind: Do some kind of meditation/relaxation exercise each day (couldn’t find any guidelines for that one).

We plan to follow these for 30 days and see whether we feel any different.

A good start

The month got off to a roaring start on Tuesday, with me (having only just learnt to swim the length of the pool) swimming each day and eating well. We really enjoyed One Pot Black Beans & Quinoa from JL Goes Vegan. We served it with sauteed greens, and with mashed avocado on top.

The second day I arrived home to find that H, bless her little cotton socks, had made Tofu Frites and a huge salad to put inside fresh wholemeal bread for a huge, dinner sandwich. Like a healthy chip buttie! I’m not sure if this is the recipe she used, but they were a bit thicker, and shallow fried, so not quite as oily…but they were delicious, and appreciated because I was way too tired to cook.

Where I went wrong

Today, despite my good intentions, it has all fallen apart. It was the last day B and I both had free before he starts a new job on Monday, so we thought we’d do something fun and active for our 30 minutes of exercise.

We went down to St Kilda (where we lived a looooong time ago) and went for a long walk for a couple of hours, in the freezing wind and rain and bright sunshine, depending on which minute we’re talking about. (The weather has been ridiculous!) We were on the lookout for somewhere we could have a healthy, vegetarian lunch.

I assumed there would be lots of places, since St Kilda used to be the home of the wonderful Soul Mama vegetarian restaurant on the beach. Well, I don’t know where all the St Kilda vegetarians eat now, because the best I could see was a falafel takeaway place, and that wasn’t what I had in mind at all. I was looking for one of those lovely, big salads with nuts and bits of tofu and lots of green leafy vegies. If anyone knows of anywhere good to eat in St Kilda these days, please let me know! I know there must be somewhere we overlooked.

Back to an old faithful

We eventually gave up and headed back to Brunswick Street, and after lots of debate (and a lack of imagination on our part) we ended up at the ever-reliable Vegie Bar. (I was actually a bit cross that I’d forgotten that there is a new Shakahari in South Melbourne these days. That will have to wait till another day.) And this is where it all started to fall apart…

The simple dish of stir-fried greens with tempeh and brown rice in tahini sauce sounded just perfect…and it was gloriously delicious…but OH, it was ENORMOUS and I couldn’t stop eating it until it was gone…and now I feel like my stomach will burst like a ripe tomato…! (Do you like that imagery? B can take the credit.)

The stir-fried greens look deceptively reasonably sized…but it was a HUGE serve.

B had a lovely, sensibly-sized pizza with caramelised onion, rocket and haloumi (so it wasn’t vegan, of course). We had juices as well. He chose the Berry Blast and I had my usual favourite—carrot, celery, apple and ginger (although they had a fancy name for it…Purifier?).

By the time we finished all that I was unable to sit up straight and was begging to go home for an afternoon nap…and then I remembered the raw vegan desserts! I couldn’t pass up the chance…could I? No. I had a Bounty Ball, which was kind of like a Bounty Bar, but the raw, vegan chocolate was way better…and the dry coconut filling was way worse. Oh well, perhaps if I’d been even slightly hungry I might have enjoyed it more.

B had the strawberry cheesecake (again, not vegan) and said it was creamy and delicious. He was proud of himself for not over eating, and was able to walk away without moaning and groaning and undoing his top button.

So I’ve made the decision that (this month at least) I’m going to add another item to my guidelines:

• Portion size: Must be reasonable, and I MUST STOP EATING when I’m satisfied, instead of finishing everything on the plate!

A lesson I should have learnt from Mr Creosote a long time ago