Getting the Cheese Monkey off my Back

I have a monkey on my slightly slimmer vegetarian back. Monkey thy name is cheese.
(NOTE: I know the picture is of a RAT with cheese on its back - but come on - its SPARKLY CHEESE!) I've said a dozen times in the past to my vegan friend - lets call him "Vegan Guy" - A life without cheese is a life I'm not willing to live. But, you know, I kind of think I may be changing my mind.
I am very much about visualization.
I like to imagine how things will go in my minds eye and then I can imagine where they will end up. You know, its how prepare myself mentally.
I read this book - Wally Lamb's "She's come undone" and in it the heroine (if she could be called that) loses a bunch of weight. She explained that her weight loss method was to imagine all of her food with mould and decay on it. It grossed her out so badly that she wasn't able to eat and lost weight. Ta da. Good idea - right?
So - I've been using that to help me as well. I seriously haven't had a hard time adjusting to this meatless life because when I even remotely crave meat, I visualize the animal. Carved up bleeding head off animal. UGH
Now, let me tell you, I didn't start this change in lifestyle because I cared about baby chickens and saving the poor trapped veal calf - living in a tiny white hut chained to its home - fed only milk. Nope - I could have given a royal rats rump. This change was all about me. Screw the animals.
Or.
Well okay well maybe I do care. A bit. And picturing the animal really really has helped.
On New Years day I roasted a turkey - something I've done a million times in my life. This one though - this one gagged me.
I touched its slimy skin.
I pulled out some stray feathers.
I washed it and dried it.
I pulled out a bag of its guts.
I touched the bones in its disembodied neck.
And I cooked it.
And I carved it.
And I didn't eat it.
And my kids didn't eat it.
My husband ate it. All of it. In one week, my husband ate an ENTIRE turkey (except for whatever Doug ate). And today while he munched down the final serving of my famous turkey ala king, I pictured a turkey in my head and felt really quite ill.
It was that bit of throw up in the back of my mouth that tipped the scale. I think I'm ready to be done with cheese. Its made from milk. Milk from a cow usually. Cow milk is food for baby cows. Not for me. Baby cows. UGH.
I've been cruising vegetarian chat rooms for weeks now. Reading. Exploring. Trying to find out how to shake the cheese monkey on my back.
Some people say that if you crave stuff its because your body needs it. You should give in to the craving because your body needs the calcium. Calcium. If my body needs calcium why am I not craving spinach or salmon with the bones in it?
Some people say that if you crave stuff you just have to ride it out. Suck it up buttercup.
Others suggest substituting soy or rice versions. But I don't want fake cheese just like I don't want fake meat.
But the advice I like best is one that I've followed for lots of other things. If you can give up something for 3 weeks - just 3 weeks then you can give it up forever. It takes 3 weeks to form a new habit (and apparently only 6 days to break one).
I'm still in the contemplation phase folks so don't get too excited. But really. I can do this. As I go to bite into that wonderful wedge of Gouda I will try mooing to myself......just a quiet baby cow moo. "why are you taking my mommy's milk lady? moo"
OH - and btw - the kids requested - yes REQUESTED the brown rice pasta with homemade veggie sauce and soy meatless meatballs - and tomorrow - that is their lunch. Yay!
I'm getting there.

Chinese Food

I have a long and very colourful history with the weight loss industry that began when I was 11 years old. Its been a help and a hindrance and a bain to my existance for the best part of 30 years. I imagine, it helped to make me who I am today.
Not long before she died, my mother and I had a discussion in which I blamed her for my neverending battle with my weight. Whether or not she believed it was true - I, to this day, believe that it is. I don't think anyone will convince me otherwise. My mother bred my bad habits, nurtured them and cemented them over the years.
When I was 11 my mother enrolled me in her Weight Watchers group held each Tuesday in the basement of the church. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the ritutals of the Weight Watchers weigh in - but, basically, you get in a line when you arrive - a line of fat women. You wait your turn while Marge or Lois or whatever her name is says that its your time.

The weigh-in out of the way, you shuffle to your seat and wait. Then the worst part - roll call. Your name is called and you shout out what you lost or if you had a bad week what you gained. It is truly one of the most demoralizing things that you can do to an 11 year old kid. There we lessons on nutrition and recipes exchanged and pledges and elections and a whole nightmare of boring administration type things.
After we left Weight Watchers each Tuesday night we would go out for chinese food. I'm from a small town - but not that small- in Southwestern Ontario. We had one chinese food restaurant and it was the quintessential Canadian Chinese food. Chicken balls with orange sauce and fried rice all around. We would all order the special dinner with egg rolls and sit around and chat. Or rather my mother and her other portly 1970's stay at home mom friends would chat and I would eat and look sullen and disinterested.
Wedneday and Thursday we would eat like normal people. You know, as normal as my family got. We had very odd food habits. We only ate fried rice - and then only with chinese food. We never ate pasta because the only Italians eat pasta - and that by the way is pronounced "EYEtalian". We were big on potatoes with every meal and almost always had some nice white bread with whatever we were eating, and ate tonnes of butter and salt on both.
As for meat - my family loved meat - ground beef and lots of it and all the salty processed meats. Yum Yum.
One of my mother's specialties was "thickened hamburger". It is as disgusting as it sounds by the way. Here is the full recipe for those of you who want to follow along and make this at home. Fry regular ground beef. DON'T drain off the fat! That is where all the goodness hides! Add lots of salt and a tiny bit of pepper. Thicken the disgusting fat that this mess produces by adding a slurry of cornstarch and water. Stir until it makes a greyish but translucent gravy type mess. Serve over mashed potatoes and canned green peas. YUM. I swear to you we ate that twice a week. Its a wonder I survived at all.
Actually, when I say we ate normally I mean - normal for my family. We breakfasted on sugarry cereal and/or toast; lunched on our hot meal of the day; and had a dinner of white bread and canned soup every night. My father was from a family of farmers and the big meal of the day was always lunch and it continued into our house.
To continue, on Friday and Saturday we ate like crazy people. We ate in restaurants on those days or ordered pizza. Pizza in our house was NOT a meal - it was a snack. We would eat our regular meals for the day then, at 10 or 11pm we would order pizza - like some people eat popcorn! And I'm not talking about a slice of pizza here. No - one medium pizza per person. Yum.
As for snacks - we were big into snacks. If there were no chips, cookies or junk, we were sent to the fridge to eat cheese. Yes. Big huge honking peices of cheese. You know those giant bars of cheese that the grocery store sells? We went through at least one a week. We love our cheese.
Sundays my mother broke with tradition and murdered a roast of some kind. A favourite in our house was cottage roll which is basically super fatty ham. Like ham could get any fattier. That meal was served with scalloped potatoes. Always potatoes.
Now, because we had eaten all week, on Monday we began to panic about the impending Tueday night horror show! So Monday we did the counter famine to our week long feast. Monday was strictly a "tuna from a can and iceberg lettuce" day. Tuesday was fasting all together. Even water might put on the weight! EEK!
By the time Tuesday night rolled around and I again (with my headache caused no doubt by low blood sugar and dehydration) lined up for Marge or Lois or whatever her name was I felt awful. All those bad things I had eaten: the thickened hamburger and yummy mashed potatoes, the butter and bread, the pizza and chips and cheese - the glorious cheese - those things made me have to suffer through this. They made me awful and fat. They made me be here while my friends were home watching Happy Days. They made me different from everyone else.
AND THEN BANG - I would invariably be up a pound. "Oh come on now" my mother would say, "your pants must weigh a pound - take them off!" Well then I'm up a half a pound. "Well, take off your earrings and your necklace and what about that shirt......?" With all the trappings shed taking my dignity with them, I managed to stay the same. Nothing lost but at least nothing gained. Only my humilation to show for the sins of the previous week as I stood in my training bra and underwear in front of dozens of fat chicks middle aged women who were just like me. Broken.
I truly believe that it is the cycle of reward and punishment that broke both my metabolism and my will. I've tried weight watchers twice since only after years of pressure from my husband and my doctors. Its as if as soon as soon as they hand me the weigh in book it triggers something inside my brain that makes me become instantly obsessed with everything about food. Its horrible.
And they still make you stand in line by the way. And new Marge and Loises are there to approve or disapprove of your performance. I just won't do it anymore. And I do blame my Mom - although I'm sure she knew no better as it was the cycle she forced upon herself too. Look where it got her.