I,
Vegetarian?
My
name is Ganesh and I am a non-vegetarian. Isn’t that the way to introduce oneself
at Alcoholics Anonymous? Truth to tell I haven't been to any AA meeting but I
have seen the same scene plenty of times in films where recovering alcoholics
go to AA meetings and use the above introduction. It’s called acknowledging your addiction in
front of others, agreeing you have a problem before you ask for help from the group.
It probably works too as AA has a burgeoning membership all over the world and
so I decided to go the same way in my challenge to turn vegetarian.
So
to begin from the beginning, it’s been a week since I turned vegetarian and I
seriously need help to continue being one. Well let me make it clear that my
turning a vegetarian at this late stage has nothing to with a moral or ethical
conviction that vegetarianism is superior, as the PETA people say. My
understanding of the food chain is simple- you can either eat the plants
directly or you can eat the animals that eat the plants indirectly- it doesn’t
matter for ultimately it’s all from the same food source - solar energy - the sun.
As the sun undergoes a nuclear reaction inside itself - fusion between hydrogen
and helium atoms takes place and it pours out the nuclear energy as radiant
energy to the planet earth where the plants eat the energy as photosynthesis
and grow, the animals eat those plants and grow and people like me eat those
animals and grow too much while at the same time the germs inside me are eating
me right now and the worms will eat me after my death to recycle my atoms again
into the universe as pure matter- so all in all life is a neat cycle and
nothing is wasted.
So
ultimately all I eat is nuclear energy regardless of the intermediate source I
get it from- plants or animals. But the reason I have switched over to
vegetarianism recently is pound for pound non-vegetarian food is more calorie
rich when compared to vegetarian food and hence I am getting more bang for my
buck. Although in theory getting value for money is a good thing, in this case,
when I am looking to lose weight and I want to create a calorie deficiency I am
looking for something which is equally filling but at the same time less useful
for my body - voila, plants. And hence my, so far painful, conversion to
vegetarianism.
As to why I want to change over,
well let me put it bluntly - it’s because I want to live to see my fortieth
birthday which seems quite a remote possibility right now unless I really make
some lifestyle changes immediately. My cholesterol levels are way over, I
suspect I have hypertension and I am well on my way to having my first heart
attack -it’s just a question of when and not if. In addition to this, I am
moody, cranky and I am picking fights with everyone for no reason at all making
me universally disliked. My weight has boomeranged till I look like an
overblown balloon nowadays and I have long since forgotten how the inside of a
gym would look like.
And I cant even blame work
pressure or work overload for this neglect to exercise as in the past whenever I
got busy at work and couldn’t hit the gym I used to make sure that when I came
home at night, from the car park I would walk right back into the street and
walk up and down and up and down the street in front of my house for an half an
hour or forty five minutes before going back to ring the door bell of my house
and then supper. Somehow I used to make time if I didn’t have the time during
the day. But all that is in the past for now I come home, hog supper and flop
myself in front of the computer to check face book notifications and type
blogposts like this when I should be out walking and getting a little exercise.
If I were a psychiatrist and if I
were a patient before me, I would probably say something like this "son, you
have a deep seated psychological problem which is causing you to put on weight
and de-motivating you from exercising by making you lethargic. Find the cause
and fight it first". But well I am not a psychiatrist and anyway I don’t
believe in all that mumbo-jumbo. So I have decided to take the practical route
with a series of small goalposts to help me along- forget the big aim at the
end- it’s all small steps I can live with for now
1) Turn vegetarian- lose the meat
- cut cholesterol
2) Reduce quantity- put myself on
a semi-starvation diet by intermittent fasting
3) Get at least ten minutes of
walking a day- more than that I cannot promise in the initial stage- but at
least that. For if I do force myself to take off for an hour a day I am sure
that won’t last more than two days. So for now- ten minutes is all I need and I
think its doable.
These are the three small goals I
have for this month on my HAP-LLG "Heart Attack Prevention and Long Life
for Ganesh" plan. And I have already crossed the first hurdle of resisting
temptation by sitting down at the dinner table today with a small plate of
beans while everyone else around me were eating spicy fish curry with relish. I
hope my resistance to temptation and my newly converted vegetarian zeal lasts the
whole way. Wish me luck for if I fall off the wagon I am pretty sure I would be
falling straight in to my grave. Let’s hope the plants I am eating now - those
bland, tasteless, grassy stuff (yuck) - hold me back from that early grave. And
good luck to all those animals who have escaped my attention- you are indeed
lucky I changed my mind.
