Grugger’s Way

As usual, summertime brings many competing activities, and time for all is simply not possible. I’m sure that most readers share that experience. So I will do my best to post frequently, but I know that the daily post will be absent for a while.

Two weeks ago I began my efforts to eliminate meat from my diet, and by way of a progress report, I can say that so far I have been successful. I do eat fish, and have found the texture of fish tacos quite satisfying. I enjoy the taste of bar-b-que sauce on baked potatoes and yams, so that substitutes for pork ribs, etc. Not really a replacement, but the taste of “hickory-smoked” bar-b-que sauce satisfies some mental memory. Wierd.

So it’s on to week number three. We are eating quite a few artichokes, and thanks to Mike Foster over at Livelife365 How to Eat an Artichoke, I have learned how to properly prepare them. His little “you tube” video is worth a visit, so I have linked to that.

We are now eating salad every night, and I eat a lot of burritos as beans do provide protein and seem satisfying since they sit pretty heavy in my stomach, like meat.

I used to think vegetarians were rare (no pun), but it seems that vegetarianism has existed for centuries!

Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, Socrates, Plutarch, and Pythagoras were all vegetarians. (This is based on their writings.)

Albert Einstein, Voltaire, Van Gogh, Henry David Thoreau, Albert Schweitzer (at the end of his life), Charles Darwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Leo Tolstoy.

In recent years, many celebrities have become known for their vegetarian ways. Often times, they use their celebrity status to promote causes, like animal rights and so on, like Pamela Sue Anderson.

Did you know that all four Beatles were vegetarian? Paul, John, George and Ringo. Incidentally, Linda McCartney, Heather Mills (McCartney), and Yoko Ono (Lennon) too.

There are a lot of musicians who list their preference as all-veggie, including Michael Jackson, Carrie Underwood, Ruben Studdard, Avril Lavigne, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, K D Lang, Leona Lewis, Tommy Lee, Pink, and Seal.

Actors are prominent in their veggie-ness too, including Robert Redford, Mary Tyler Moore, Hayden Panettiere, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kate Winslet, Sandra Oh, Diane Keaton, Vanessa Williams, Lisa Kudrow, Alyssa Milano, Anne Hathaway, Bernadette Peters, Brad Pitt, Brooke Shields, Candace Bergen, Christina Applegate, Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson, Pierce Brosnan and Woody Harrelson.

Then there are those who don’t fit into any of the above categories but are prominent in the public eye, including Ariana Huffington, Ellen Degeneres, Vanna White, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, and Paramahansa Yogananda.

The fact of the matter is there are hundreds of people whose names or work are familiar to you and me. They are famous for many reasons, and a vegetarian diet is just one aspect of their lives that gets attention.

I researched this in order to become more “assimilated” with the veggie diet, and feel like I am not so “out-of-the-mainstream” as I used to think. This will take some time, however, it is not automatic. I may falter, but I will not fail. My health is at stake.

Today, I tried exercising to reduce my hunger pangs, caused in part by a meatless diet (to which) I am striving to adhere. (English is SO FUNNY.)

I am not starving; I’m simply not feeling satisfied after ANY MEAL! I don’t want to eat junk between meals, so am really trying to snack on fruit, which is mostly water and, incidentally, goes RIGHT THROUGH ME!

I am about “fruited out” for the WEEK! My wife recommends carrots or celery. I don’t like celery, so carrots it is. I get tired of chewing carrots, and still don’t feel satisfied.

My exercise was cut shorter than the time I had planned because my heart rate hit the maximum for my age, (62), but a pulse of 158 doesn’t seem too high; I recall 185 and 195 when I was much (MUCH) younger. (The simplest formula to obtain your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220.)

When I was in the Navy, I was never a really INTENSIVE exerciser like some, but I did fitness training with the special forces people in Coronado, California, that is, the Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams (EOD) and the SEAL teams (1,3,5). We had a great obstacle course at the Amphibious Base there, and it was put to good use by all of us who were at least moderately fanatical about fitness training.

Before I left the Navy I had run in over forty 10K races, five 13-mile half-marathons, and one 26-mile marathon. I vowed never to run another marathon. I didn’t think it was a good thing to do to my aging body, and I was 46 years old at the time.

Now, at age 62, and long retired, I have a very modest workout and very low expectations. Shame on me.