Today was a great juicing day! I had green juice first thing in the morning, and I'm surprised to say that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. When I first started juicing last year, I got kind of sick of drinking greens, but I absolutely loved my juice this morning. My hubby liked it, too! The juice had:
1 bunch of kale
1 zucchini
1 cucumber
1 kiwi
2 small granny smith apples (normally, I'd use one, but these were tiny!)
2 pears
a handful of green grapes
1 lemon
a small nub of ginger
I put everything in the juicer except the lemon; it makes the juice too bitter. I just cut it in half and then squeezed the lemon juice into the pitcher. Everything went in unpeeled, but I did cut up the apples and pears to get the seeds out.
It was zingy! I'm not sure if that's really a word, but I like it!
My family came over today, for lunch...it's our Sunday tradition. We eat, and then the grown ups sit around talking after lunch until the kids get bored and sneak away to play in their rooms.
I decided ahead of time that I am not going to talk about the fact that I'm juicing again...not just to my parents, but to anyone. I know that sounds funny because I'm talking about it here, but most of the people around me don't understand why I would even want to do this. I made the mistake of telling everyone the first time, and most people just wanted to give unsolicited advice about why I shouldn't do it, or they would make that judgmental face that I can't stand...it's was so annoying.
I'm about to go on a Math rant, so bear with my math/vegetarian analogy.
I work with Math Curriculum development and implementation. In the past three years, I've been called a Math Coach, a Math Consultant, a Math Curriculum Specialist, and most recently, the Math Director for our company. None of those changes in title have changed what I actually do. In the end, what it boils down to is that I help teachers get better at teaching math, and I help low students with strategies that their teachers might not know.
The reason I tell you all of this is because in my line of work, I have to deal with a lot of stereotypes and negative attitudes towards math, and I've realized that I will have to continue facing stereotypes for being a vegetarian, as well.
I've had young girls tell me that they're not good at math because girls aren't good at math--to which I responded, "What am I?" I've had parents tell me that their kids aren't good at math because they were never good at math when they were kids--to which I responded, "No, you just had bad math teachers." I've had more than one teacher tell me that he/she is a "reading person" not a "math person," to which I've responded, "Aren't you a college graduate?"--not my most PC response ever...
Frankly, I am just sick and tired of how acceptable it has become in our society for people to say, "I'm not good at math." People would be embarrassed to admit that they can't read or write...but somewhere in time, it just became OK to be "bad" at math. It makes me just as angry as when people say, "I couldn't possible stop eating meat. Don't you miss it?" when I tell them I'm a vegetarian. It wouldn't be OK for me to ask them how they can possible stomach eating a carcass of rotting flesh that has been kept blood red with chemicals. That would be rude!
I am also SICK of the stereotypical math geek persona. If one more person asks me if I like the show, The Big Bang Theory, I just might sit on them. There's this kind of mystery or elusiveness surrounding "math people" that feels very similar to the treatment that vegetarians get.
People feel threatened...or intimidated maybe...I don't know...so they lash out with ugly judgement. I get the same look both when people find out that I'm a "math person" or when they find out that I'm a vegetarian. It's the same EXACT look...the I'm-not-sure-about-you look...or the you're-kind-of-weird-aren't-you look. Only once, have I met a stranger that thought it was fascinating that I was making this change. Sure enough, she had read the Engine 2 book and was interested in a plant-based diet, herself.
So, now that my rant is over, I can proceed with what I did about it today. As I said earlier, I didn't talk about juicing or being a vegetarian to my parents today. I simply had a large reboot-friendly salad and some garbanzo beans that I prepared, and passed on the chicken. When my mom asked me if I was going to have any, I just said, "No, thank you," and went about the business of enjoying my food. I didn't even have a conversation about it, and I didn't try to watch for her reaction either. I already know they don't like the idea of my being a vegetarian, so why torture myself?
I didn't have any of the chocolate cake either! That's another thing that I've noticed about juicing...it kind of makes all of the silly cravings go away, and it's easier for me to say, "No, thank you." I'm going to continue eating reboot-friendly foods on Sundays when my parents come over.
As far as work is concerned, I think I'm going to be going on a lot of lunch time errands for a while. I travel to so many school sites that it will be easy to drink my juice in the car when I'm going to another school site. Most of the time, I don't get to sit and eat with any one group of people on a regular basis anyway, so this won't be too much of a difference.
Alright, back to today...
Later in the day, I had a coconut water based protein smoothie. It's my favorite yummy treat.
1 cup coconut water
1 scoop protein powder
1 banana
8 drops chocolate stevia
2 T. ground flax seed (I've been adding ground flax seed to my smoothies to make sure things stay regular...gotta have that fiber!)
lots of ice
I also drank plenty of water today--12 cups. All in all, I'm very proud of my intake today :)
I don't normally get this negative, but I guess I've just been holding this all in, and it just bubbled over...I'll try to keep it on the lighter side tomorrow.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
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