Food, my Weight, and trying to be Vegetarian.

16/06/20 (in the am again)

I was packing my stuffs earlier this night. And I happened to chance upon my 2018 bujo / bullet journal. Which wasn’t really a “bullet” journal as much as it was a brain dump and a tracker of many things of sorts.

There was a period of time in that journal, where I tracked my food and eating habits every day. Towards the middle of 2018, I somehow got the idea of becoming vegetarian / trying to be vegetarian. And the first thing I decided to do was to track it down. Because, the guilt of having to write down how much animal products I’m eating may just make me more conscious of my everyday choices and choose vegetarian options.

From there, I moved on from just tracking my daily meals, to also tracking the snacks, beverages, and fruits that I’m eating. A more health focused thing. And for a while I believe I even began to track my poop habits and the amount of water I am drinking. Is it bad to focus so much on what I eat? Different camps have different opinion. But the main problem for me is that I was spending way too much time on tracking everything.

What about the original goal of trying to be vegetarian? Soon enough, I realized that it wasn’t so much “my choices” when buying food that is stopping me from becoming vegetarian. (Though vegan might be a different story, because there really aren’t that many vegan options.) Instead, it was the meals I ate at home that prevented me from successfully transitioning to vegetarianism. When I was outside, I could easily choose the vegetarian option, such as by eating cai png with only vegetarian dishes, or by getting a vegetarian pasta, or a Beyond / Impossible burger. However, when I ate at home, there was meat at every single meal. Either that, or fish. Sometimes, the only dish available was meat to go with the rice. And I certainly wasn’t going to eat plain rice.

And I am far from confrontational. In fact, I am scared of confrontation. Certainly, I am not going to tell my parents that I only want to eat vegetarian food, or that I was trying to be vegetarian, and ask for their support. Because I am far from being independent or responsible enough to prepare my own meals, and troubling people is messy business. Oh, and everyone still thinks that my favorite dish is fish and chips. I mean, it is, but I kind of dislike how when I order something vegetarian, it is merely seen as being “adventurous and trying new things” to my family.

The vegetarian experiment which began 2 years ago was a failure. I consider myself “vegetarian / vegan at heart”, but a “non-practicing” one. Because I still believe that I should be vegetarian, or even vegan, just that I do not bother following my beliefs. (Hey, ain’t I one to say that I have no beliefs? Hah I guess not, then.)

The closest I got to becoming vegetarian? Some 3 days (or was it 4?) of camp, in June last year. It was an orientation camp with a whole bunch of people I had only just met. Hans was in that group. Somehow when filling up the form, I had the idea to select the vegetarian option for the dietary requirements section.

But the catering was bad. I would even say, absolute trash. I mean, the rice is dry, not enough dishes, and not enough fresh vegetables and protein. Like, seriously, how does any caterer have the gall to think that potatoes and rice is a nutritious meal? And I even paid $80 fucking dollars for that camp, lol. I guess the only pls point is that the vegetarian option was very slightly more appealing than the non-vegetarian option, I guess.

So now I have a group of about 20 people (I sincerely cannot recall how many people were in there, nor their names. I only remember Hans.) who all think that I am vegetarian. When in actual fact that camp, was the longest time, in the time I tried being vegetarian, that I actually was continuously vegetarian for. So, in conclusion I am a fraud. But it is not like I actually talked to anyone at all during that camp, lol. But there’s still some reputation implications in how they thought that I was vegetarian, but it turns out I still eat meat, a few weeks later.

And immediately after that camp, I stopped this vegetarian trend. Well done, me! What an imposter.

When school started, I met Hans in a class a few weeks in, and we went for lunch together. And I guess I tried to be vegetarian in school for a while. Because it really isn’t that hard. But after a while I just couldn’t give a shit, you know.

The first few weeks of school I skipped a few meals. Something to do with staying in a hostel that is not a Hall and not knowing anyone to have meals with, and all my friends (uh, actually it’s just Rei) having went home already. And having very bad anxiety when it comes to eating alone. I lost about 5 pounds. Some of which can also be attributed to the bender I had on the first two days of the first week of school, which left me with intense nausea for the next two days. Drinking till you puke, three times in a week, is no go, man. 10/10 would not repeat.

But the weight loss was nice though.

Something I am thinking about is to start on the meal tracker thing again. I wonder how it will be now, with me not eating breakfast on most days, and eating supper at 3am on most nights. Is supper a breakfast? Do I count it as the previous day of the following day? And perhaps, doing the meal tracker might just make me mindful of my eating habits and make me stop eating supper.

Ahhh, phase 2 of the reopening of the economy is starting soon. Soon we can go to drink. And club. But, will anyone even want to drink with me? Ugh. Everyone hates me now, especially since I “bailed” on the hackathon, and being such a useless groupmate.

Another thing which is more interesting, retrospectively, though, is this: what would it be like if I tracked my eating habits on the first few weeks of the start of my first semester in uni? I regret not tracking it then. Because I really wanna know what was the thing I did which allowed me to permanently get under 60kg that semester, when I have been over 60kg for the past few years.

Currently, my goal weight is 50kg. I thought of aiming lower, but I do still want to be able to donate blood sometime. Perhaps not now, while my weight is fluctuating, because it could be dangerous. My current weight is somewhere between 53kg and 54kg. I hit 52.7kg sometime back in April, I believe, but I haven’t been able to weigh in at that low since then. And for some reason these last few kgs are really hard to shake off.

I remember being sooo happy that time I saw my weight dip below 55kg. Because it meant progress. And I’m certain that finally seeing a 50.something will make me so happy as well.