I figure I have a bit of anonymity here, so I should just schpeel all the gripes that are plaguing my thoughts and only the extremely bored or nosy will read... and let me warn you, that's your own fault!
I took the plunge to go vegan back in February, and honestly I feel great. I really miss a nice runny, fried egg, but other than that, I haven't looked back. (For me it's about the meat and dairy impact on the environment and wanting to be a caring, active, good steward of the planet.) I've done a lot of nutritional research and I'm taking my B12 supplement and making sure I get enough everything. The fact that I'm trying to lose weight at the same time that I'm telling people I'm now a vegan is getting somewhat bothersome though. What I would prefer to be a casual conversation of why I'm not eating certain foods gets intermingled with my weight loss and people assume that because I'm a vegan, I'm starving. Well I'm not. I could be a fat vegan if I wanted to. Hell, Oreos are vegan (yeah, that's not real dairy in that cream.). I shouldn't care, but I'm annoyed about this co-mingling because 1) people seem to get bothered when I lose weight due to their own insecurities about their weight and the fact that they're doing nothing to become healthier and 2) I don't want to perpetuate the thought that vegans are usually malnourished. So blaagh about that.
As the person who cooks and buys groceries in my house, I am by default the person who directs everyone else's nutrition. For my daughter, this is perfectly fine. We should be conscious of what our children eat and what they need and make sure they're meeting their needs, no matter what foods we feed our families. Parents guide their children; that's normal. However, I'm also dictating my husband's nutrition, which is starting to weigh on me (no pun intended). He has lost quite a bit of weight in the last 2 years and has become a dedicated long distance runner. Awesome. That's great for him. But athletes have different nutritional needs than the hoi polloi and I feel that he needs to address those needs himself. I'm not his nutritionist or dietitian. When he feels tired all the time or losses more weight than he means to, that shouldn't fall on me... but it does. I try to buy more easy to prepare and eat foods for him to up his caloric and nutritional intake to meet his needs, but in reality he needs to be doing the real research and taking that responsibility. If he wants to hand me a list of what he needs, great, I'll buy it / cook it / whatever it. Right now, that's not what's going on and it's driving me crazy. And yes, of course I've talked with him about this.
So I will continue to be vegan, and separately from that, I will continue to work on losing weight until I meet my goal. I'm so close to the end that most people are not very understanding. Yes, I'm not overweight anymore. But just because I crossed into the "normal" BMI range doesn't mean that I'm done with my journey-- a guided journey, I should add. I've been part of an ongoing weight study through a university for the last 5 years and I've gotten every metric you can possibly get for weight and body mass and body density etc etc. So I'm not going off the deep end with my goal here! I'm getting back to my healthiest self. So haters, naysayers and Mother-in-Law, just F*ck off. I'm a f*cking vegan, and I'm losing weight AND it's none of your business!