A Date to Remember...

Memorable occasions are funny. Some permanently infuse in your memory cells like a room of a million candles; some burn brightly while others fade like a candle near the end of its wick, flickering every so quietly and then suddenly gone without notice or notification.

The times that prominently infuse aren't always voluntary or consciously determined either. They just happen. The downside of the electronic age is the death of the Diary, but the great thing about it is Cloud technology, where you can save dates, notes, events, memories much like diaries of the past, but theoretically without ever losing a single virtual cell. The Great Memory in the Sky. A memorable event.. an epic occurrence... a significant date.

The funny thing about the word "date" is that it can mean so many things, which I blame solely on the evolution of the English language. Much like my first significant other, the English language doesn't seem to have a singular pattern, instead made up of so many rules that one almost thinks, in the first few years of learning to understand it, that it just does what it wants, and makes up the rules as it goes. Words in English have a randomness of pronunciation and context. Exempli gratia, I don't remember the date of our first date and whether or not that date shared a date with the first time I tried a date.

One thing is certain, regardless of the first date upon which I shared my first date with a date, it was an unpleasant experience reminding me of an overly large raisin with far too much date-iness. It was an such an unpleasant first date, that I forgot the date of that precise date, blacking it out entirely from memory. Most likely subconsciously, still.

Which brings me to the Pro to outweigh the Con, by forgetting the first date with a date, I was able to enjoy a whirlwind second romance. Not quite a repeat date, and certainly not a double date but a second first date nonetheless. And it's been true love ever since.

In a sea of fish, swarming across a plethora of dating sites, I met my latest love on Pinterest of all places. A date like no other. A diamond in the rough, or rather a medjool to be precise.

Truth be told, the love connection all began with the decision to forego all processed foods (again, or at least as much as I realistically can) such as energy bars, snack foods and so on. I had grown lazy once again, and my scale never lied about it. In fact, I've had to dust off my beloved Omega, that has valiantly stood guard in my kitchen for months now, untouched. I made the conscious decision to force myself back into the steps of healthy eating, and it started with coming up with a healthier way to still snack between meals. 

I have a soft spot for sweets. I can't deny. In fact, as a kid, one of my favorite times of day was between 3:50PM and 5:15PM. It was during that witching hour that I arrived home from school, well in advance of my parents, and I could enjoy mitt fulls of cookies, unencumbered. In fact, I was so elated at this practice I actually wore mitts. The increased surface area meant I could handle more cookies, sometimes having to make two trips just to go back for the giant half litre glass of milk. By age 12, barely standing 5' 2", I weighed in at a "husky" 184 lbs. Needless to say, I owe my childhood obesity to Mr. Christie. I wanted to blame mysterious elves for sneaking into my room while I slept, like sadistic cousins to tooth fairies, and fattening me like a marinade injected ButterBall, but the reality is, the plate on that getaway car said "KEEBLR1" and I was an accomplice.

Back to present day, the adult Fat Guy, no longer living in the rear view mirror of his past (secretly hoping to relive those glorious dates of divine gluttony), I look to find alternative, healthier snacks. Enter: Medjool dates.

More accurately digressing, back to present day dating, I can tell you that romance isn't romance if it doesn't get a little nutty. Medjool dates + cashews = the base for incredible energy bars.

One of the easiest no-cook recipes was simply this: 

1. Equal parts dates to equal parts cashew + 1 tablespoon peanut butter.
2. Thoroughly combine in food processor. Once suitably conditioned, add just a few drips of water (literally one teaspoon at a time) until it STARTS to form a dough. 
3. Remove. Knead. Wrap in parchment or cellophane and refrigerate.

Thereafter, I usually formed my dough into a large brick, similar to a typical brownie size, and coated in organic coconut flakes or crushed pecans, almonds etc.

You can see a similar version here, here or here.

After several takes on this, I have decided that my favorite variant includes a half cup of unsweetened coconut at the time of processing, and a blend of cashew, almonds, pistachio, walnut/pecans. You can get a Premium Blend type nut mix from Costco, but those are just added as a portion of the receipe, the base is predominantly cashew. Just to add a little nutty flair, you know?

You can imagine how I fell in love at first bite, and kept on the path of this nutty-dating, with nothing less than enjoyable variation! After all, variety is the spice of life! Or is that saffron? No saffron is the divorce of spice, being the costliest.. but I digress...

The reality of the matter is this: By the time you leave the house, drive to the store, buy that junk food you're craving, get home and load up Netflix, I'll have already whipped up three batches of a completely raw, healthy-by-comparison alternative (nothing is good when over done) and within nothing short of achieving satisfaction. Unless of course you're craving chips, in which case that's a completely different blog post topic. Right now we're dealing with sweets... 

The question is whether or not you've had a bad date in past and whether you're open to try dating again. Especially dates with nuts. Total nutbars. I highly recommend it, depending on which context of the English language you're speaking of!

Cash-ew again at a later Date!
Fat Guy

Soya Wanna Be A Gangsta

"Sip the Juice, I got enough to go around..." - Eric B and Rakim

I'm going to give away my age again, but in the height of my mid-teens, the American crime thriller, Juice, hit theaters. It's title track, "Juice (Know The Ledge)", was virtually on repeat for weeks, if not months, on stereos everywhere and my bedroom boombox was no exception.

The "juice" referred to respect, or street cred, for which we all tend to be judged: How tough are we? Survival of the fittest. How Darwinian.

On that same soundtrack there was another title, "So Ya Wanna Be A Gangsta", by Too $hort, an ambivalent question of being sought out on both sides of the law for opposing reasons.

Recollection of that song brought out the Weird Al composer in me, as I tried coming up with my own 90s style slow-jam deep voice rap:

"So ya wanna be a vegan

And all that jazz

Just plants, no meat

No thanks, I'll pass"

I crack me up with my own sarcastic wit, I assure you.

Yes, I am comparing being veg*n to being a gangster. Ridiculous notion? At first, perhaps, but consider for the fact that it goes against mainstream, social following and it flaunts a blatant opposition to the governing bodies.

Milk doesn't do a body good, no matter what The Man tells you.

Now, that said, I'm not recommending you buy a handkerchief to wear on your head and tie the knot on your forehead, and brandish firearms to complete the look, although I will admit that sometimes a handkerchief definitely does help me keep the sweat outta my eyes at the gym.

What I can tell you is that it's incredible what lengths you will have to go to in order to justify why you abstain from meat, if you volunteer that you're "going vegetarian" at social events. 

You *will* spend more time bantering with friends and family about the merits of being a PBP and where you "get your protein from".

The first guess is always,"So you live on Salad?"

Then at some point, the smart ass of the group will point out that "plants are living creatures too."

Next thing you know you'll need to get tear drop tattoos, you plantkiller, you.

Sadly, the factor I think most people miss more than anything is that in factory farming, like any business, the idea is to turn a profit. To turn a faster profit, one must run more inventory through the doors. In the case of factory farming, the inventory is animals. To move more through the door, you need to breed them and grow them and then process them faster and faster.

Enter growth hormones and anti-inflammatory medications. 

Then of course, if you're like me and you juice, you'll need to justify why you take perfectly good fruits and vegetables, process them and discard the fibrous parts, and drink an unholy concoction of greenness that looks radioactive. 

"But Fat Guy..... those juicing diets are all fads!"

It's funny how those closest to you will be the ones that oppose your decisions the most.

This morning marked the start of my return to juicing. God, I missed it. I have taken nearly a year long hiatus for two reasons: the cost and the availability of organic produce.

You see, in the last two years since I took The Change, I've found standard produce just isn't enjoyable anymore, but mainstream grocery stores regard margins as more valuable than quality, and smaller scale operations can't always deliver healthy product in enough supply continuously through the year. I mean after all, Mother Nature IS cyclical. 

And then it happened. I found Whole Foods Market. I found my Mecca. I found my Shangri-la. I found my zen place.

I had been told it was overpriced. I had been told it was just another store. I was told wrong.

As a Northerner, living in Toronto, Ontario, I am somewhat limited in my options a few months of the year. In fact, until this month I had only ever seen one type of kale in our stores. Imagine my pleasure to find several varieties - and organic to boot.

I found a re-energized reason for excitement to bring to the conversation, "So ya wanna be a vegan?"

I found a place with the street cred to back my own. I found a safe haven, a place that will provide for my habit. I found the motherload. To juice. 

And so I did. I juiced this morning for the first time in a year. And it was good juice. Once again I could leave the house with my green goodness, a mineral and vitamin rich food source that was quickly and easily absorbed into my empty belly. Is it partially my imagination that hours later I thought I could feel a difference from my usual toast-and-peanut-butter start? Perhaps, but I'm not convinced. My gut instinct tells me there is a difference.

One more step in the right direction.

Spring is around the corner, with just a few more weeks before I can get back to enjoyable jogging out doors. I have found a fresh new source of enjoyable produce. I've discovered another reason to be excited about staying positive about being a PBP. All of which means that in a few more weeks, I'll be back down to the weight I was at, and even closer to the weight that I want to be.

Some day I won't be a fat guy. But I'll always be your Fat Guy who went vegan. The loss of weight might make the name sound a little funny when they ask, "Your name is Fat Guy? But you're not fat....?"

Exactly. But it's taken time. And persistence. I can assure you this is not easy. My love for food, above almost everything else in existence, has created demon cravings that my willpower can sometimes not even resist. Hence, being vegan has become much like being a hygenic person - every day I have to shower. Taking one bath doesn't make me "clean" for life. One day at a time.

But one day I'll prove being a plant-based person (PBP) works. I'll have street cred.

Sipping my juice, hanging on by my fingertips,

FG

A Tahini Tahiney Difference....

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

Have you ever gone for a long walk in sandals? Imagine how much different (Read "easier" or "enjoyable") the walk would have been in running shoes?

I can't tell you how many times, years ago, I was out on a hike with my Boy Scout troop and I'd surely realize why I should have packed hiking shoes instead of runners. You see, sometimes its the little things that make the biggest differences.

I made my first batch of tahini tonight, as part of an effort to make roasted red pepper hummus. Why? Because I love it. There's a particular brand at CostCo, that comes in a three pack for $10 that is to die for! OK. Not to die for. To murder for though, yes! As in, if there was just one pack left and someone almost beat me to it, I'd surely cut their arms off and watch them bleed to death as I headed for the check out, not withstanding the time it took to grab crackers first. Nom nom nom....

Back to my point.

So tonight, I made the decision to make hummus for the first time. Well... not the first time ever, but I refuse to ever speak of the first time, whereby I used so much garlic I nearly died (more on that catastrophe later). Rather that have a repeat of the first attempt years ago, I reattempted said hummus with a new receipe and four fewer bulbs of garlic; instead, I included red pepper, cumin, lemon juice and home made tahini.

Why such an intent to go homemade? Simple. There's been such a difference in life by making a small adjustment called "additive free". There is absolutely no reason to buy anything pre-made. Tonight's project took less than an hour and yielded a higher quality product than I can buy, meaning that for the same amount of time it would take me to drive to the store, find the ready made product, cash out, drive home and get ready to eat it, I had it made from scratch: no preservatives, no additives.

"...but Fat Guy, that takes so much extra work/time/effort!"

You know what takes a lot of effort? Going to the hospital for an ultrasound. Spending hours in a doctor's office waiting to see a gastrointestinal specialist. Investing time and lost wages in time off work due to unexplained stomach pains that your family doctor can't pinpoint. Or simply, your own sanity and happiness.

It seems to me that more people than not have gastrointestinal issues these days. Stomach pains, bloating, bleeding, the "runs", gas, gurgles... or just otherwise unsettle stomachs. Would you believe me if I told you it might not **just** be gluten?

Take xanthan gum for example. It's a common food additive that acts as a thickening agent, which has never required human trials because it's not considered to have generated concerns in animal testing to warrant further testing. Which is true if you consider bloating, gas and it's effectiveness as a laxative to be acceptable side affects. Tell that to someone with IBS, or worse (ie. colitis, Crohn's).

I'm sure I don't need to mention Monosodium Glutamate, but I will. MSG is commonly found in snack foods, not to mentioned take-away or take-out, and (quote)  Studies show that regular consumption of MSG may result in adverse side effects which include depression, disorientation, eye damage, fatigue, headaches, and obesity. MSG effects the neurological pathways of the brain and disengaged the "I'm full" function which explains the effects of weight gain. I can tell you from personal experience that I no longer tolerate any MSG in my foods purely based on the differences I feel after consuming items that contain it. 

Don't believe it? Consume an entire bag of Dorito's, or flavored sunflower seeds, and tell me you don't feel different. Yet these foods are fed, sometimes unknowingly, to children as snacks.

How does this relate to my trek to achieving vegreatness? It compounds for me the ROI of my efforts to move towards a natural plant-based diet.

I spent an hour tonight in the kitchen. It all started with the need for tahini paste, to make a hummus.

One cup of sesame seeds. Check.

One pan. Check.

Stove top. Check.

Within 10 mins, I had beautiful golden seeds. 

Another 10 minutes later, compliments of 3 tables spoons of light olive oil and a food processor, and I have a paste that resembles peanut butter.

Tahini paste. Check.

Next, a can of chick peas, half a lemon (juice only), a clove of garlic, some ground cumin, a teaspoon of salt and a few shakes of cayenne pepper, and I was staring down the barrel of a beautiful hummus. 

Now, to add the roasted red peppers... Do you know what it takes to roast your own red peppers? Red peppers. That's it!

Wash. Cut in half. De-seed. Press flat on a pan. Lay under broiler for 10-15 minutes, or until the skin blackens. The best part was they cooked concurrently with the production of the tahini. 

There I was, basking in the magical light of my overhead range vent, pureeing away a few cups of readily available products and in less time than it would take to run to a CostCo and find parking, I was making a beautiful additive-free hummus. All it needed was the red peppers.

It turned out to be a pretty salmon colored hummus, light and airy from the efforts of the whirling KitchenAid blade. The taste was pure heaven.

Years ago, I tried to make hummus, and failed greatly, with absolutely no hindsight understanding of why I did it wrong. I picked the right chick peas, had all of my mis en place ready. I was naturally smart and a quick study, even back then. Yet for some reason, I had it in my mind that I was going to make the best garlic hummus that man kind had ever experienced, so rather than using 4-5 cloves, I used 4-5 heads of garlic.

It was delicious, albeit potent. The burn on the tongue was enjoyable, especially with salty chips. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. If only the halitosis was the problem. 

You see, chopping or crushing garlic releases the compound allicin, which then breaks down into four other smelly compounds. The most mischievous of them is allyl methyl sulfide, which can linger in your body for a long time. It not only causes your breath to go rank, but as it seeps into your bloodstream, it also gets into your sweat and pee.

Suddenly, all I could smell was garlic. Waves of stench. Seconds turned into hours. Hours turned into Days. Days turned into weeks. And that was just the first 29 minutes.

It had only been a half hour or so since I polished off the batch, but an eternity crept by as the stench of garlic overpowered me.

The only thing I could do to save my sanity was stand in the shower, the water pouring over me, washing off the fumes of sulfur as it emanated from my pores. Once the water turned cold, I was off to the bed room to lay in front of a fan where the continuous blast of freshened air staved off some what of the smell, barely holding off the nausea that accompanies my garlic overdoes, until the hot water heater had done its job and I could get back into the shower.

I swore off hummus - and garlic - for years. Who knew such a small difference in interpreting a recipe would make such a drastic difference.

Back to Present Day... here I sit in my kitchen, with a fresh batch of the absolutely finest hummus I've had. No additives. No preservatives. No parking woes. No overdose. No big deal. 

And damn it tastes good. Except for one thing... I roasted the sesame seeds a little too long. They're a tad bitter and it's overpowering the subtle taste of sweet roasted red pepper. Unfortunately, when roasting the sesame seeds, I went by smell and sight, not taste, waiting until they really looked roasted. 

Next time I won't cook them as long. Funny, how just a few seconds longer made such a big difference out of such a tiny detail.

Sulfurically yours,

FatGuy

Thyme is on my side, yes it is....

"Until I am measured I am not known,Yet how you miss me when I have flown."  Time.

Time is a funny thing. It's that one thing we can't hold on to, save, bank, spare or otherwise take back. It's directional. It's intangible.

At some point, every man reaches the moment in his life where he utters the words of his father, a timeless echo,"...Youth is wasted on the young."

There are no take-backsies. That statement is so evident to me in the time that has passed since I began this journey; it is even more so evident in the time I spent "pausing" my journey. It is evident in the comparisons of where I was and how far I've come and the goals I've reached. And haven't reached.

A lot of time has passed since I first watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, the Joe Cross film that contributed to my evolution. As such, a lot of time has passed for the main characters. 

It's amazing to see what they did with their time, over the past few years.

Mr. Cross has gone on to build a juicing empire, with the Reboot brand. Man, am I ever proud of that man, and I haven't even met him.

And his guy Phil. Phil the trucker. Phil, my identical twin from another mother. Phil who, much like myself, found himself slipping back into the gaping maws of the Sarlacc pit known as Depression, Stress Eating, and Emotional Eating. Phil who bared his soul to the world, and shared his sadness about regressing yet is clawing his way back into healthy living. Man, am I ever proud of that man too, and I haven't even met him. But I know him.

And yet, it was the times that we experienced - good, bad and ugly - that put Life into perspective and allows us to course correct. Let's face it - if it was all smooth sailing, it would be bloody boring!

In fact, would it be fair to say that without revelations about what we're missing, we wouldn't change? No new experiences! No experimentation! There would be no need for difference if it were unnecessary! 

Fast forward nearly two years after my veg*n transition began, I live in one of the most culturally diverse cities in North American. I work for a Middle Eastern-family owned company. Our first company dinner was at a Lebanese restaurant. I couldn't pronounce a thing. And I loved it.

Take for example, a simple seasoning....

Za'atar meet Fat Guy. Fat Guy, Za'atar. 

Like the nice, quiet girl or boy reading their book in the far corner of the library, who has been walked by a hundred times, but never spoken to, I've probably passed canisters of Za'atar in the spice section, without paying a single notice too. Not because it isn't deserving, but simply because I wasn't looking for it.

Za'atar is a delightful spice blend. You can read about it here. It's really nothing more than a concoction of spices in a similar manner as curry, jerk, all-season, or any other common regionally-focused, culturally-enhanced blend inspired by the local available herbs and ingredients. And by gosh, it's good. 

You can buy it commercially made, of course, but the real beauty of this blend is in making it from scratch, to your personal preference. The prime ingredient is thyme. Naturally, I opted to dry out fresh organic thyme and grind it down in my handy dandy mortar with pestle, rather than use the canned stuff. That's when it clicked. Again.

I've known for two years now that processed foods are less flavorful, contain more chemicals, and are simply less enjoyable. Seeing fresh ground Thyme up against processed dried Thyme was a visual reminder of all of the things I'd forgotten. In a ring of spices, with three piles of a dried, commercial variant sitting above it, my fresh thyme stood out. Thyme stood still.

Suddenly, I remembered. I realized everything I'd forgotten. I was reminded again of my appreciation for fresh foods, free of preservatives and unnecessary processing. Life became simple again. Healthy eating became clear again. Sharing my pleasures of living simple, but living fully, came back to me in a rush of emotion.

It wasn't just about salads for weight loss. It was about eating healthy, eating right. Moreso, it was about opening back up to the world about my journey. 

So here I am. Back again. On the air. Reminded that my journey wasn't just about weight loss or well being. It was about enjoying the moments, the experience. Although significant time has passed, there is no looking back. I don't have time for that. It's all about looking ahead. I've got time on my side.

I'm still not fully Vegan. Some days, I'm not even Vegetarian. I guess you could say, I'm still trying to figure it all out. But I've got Thyme to figure it out.

Never a thyme-less beauty,
FatGuy