Dissolution's Solution

[kirstykay]

You did an excellent job resisting all the obstacles that were thrown at you!!! And you had a weight loss as a reward waiting for you when you came home!!!!!! Congratulations! It's all worth it. I'm sorry about your wife's resistance. Hopefully, it will change, but if not, you are not letting it stand in the way of your own health. That, in itself, is a tremendous triumph!!!

[Melinda]

Ditto for me - what Kirstykay said! You did wonderfully, and getting on the scale must have made it seem all worth while!

[bunsofaluminum]

great going! It's wonderful that your son is doing this with you...well, E2, but there are some TERRIFIC recipes in that book!

I'd like to catch up completely on your journal, but no internet access at home...so I check off and on at work, if I get a chance.

anyway, I enjoy your journal VERY much. It's inspiring to read your stories.

Keep on going.

[fulenn]

You did good! So glad to hear that you are down so much, very nice.

Fulenn

[Dissolution]

Thanks everybody for your words of encouragement!

A couple of more things from this past weekend and trip.

One of my staple foods with this WOE is beans and rice. I use different kinds of beans and different kinds of rice and different kinds of spice blends to add variety to this basic dish. Typically the flavors I use are, taco, chili, italian, oriental or cajun. For the trip this weekend I made a very basic half brown rice, half red rice with red kidney beans and a mild cajun flavor. My E2-son (He lives alone) normally will only eat white rice and IMO eats far too much fake / highly processed vegan products (fake meat, veganaise). But he tells me this stuff is allowed on the Engine 2 diet. He fell in love with the beans and rice. Said he was going to switch to that instead of eating his boca burgers.

I knew I was getting close to my place of birth, when we stopped at a gas station and they had deep fried corn on the cob. Growing up I was always fond of fried okra, well obviously I can't eat it fried anymore, but had never had it any other way. One of my relatives offered me some pickled okra. I brought home 3 jars. It was very good.

I mentioned the doughnut incident. Now I have to tell you about the day before. My wife had offered to cook breakfast for everybody (about 20 people who were gathering at my Aunt's house before going to the church for the funeral) on Sunday morning. We bought the supplies and the menu was;

Biscuits
Sausage gravy (My wife's is famous)
Scrambled eggs
Bacon
Waffles (requested by the widow)

I ate oatmeal before she started cooking, I think E2-son had wheat toast with jelly (He says it's E2 legal). When the wife started cooking, I asked if I could do anything to help. She asked if I could please cook the bacon....Does that seem strange to anyone else?

At one point that morning I was working my way through frying 2 pounds of bacon and E2-son is browning 2 pounds of sausage, I think I semi-shouted to no one in particular, "Why are the vegans cooking the pork flesh?!". I dunno, I fried it all, and later "manned" the waffle station, trying to help her put on a good breakfast for my family.

The good news, I survived bacon.

The bad news, my wife is at the very least inconsiderate and at the most a sadist.

[Caroveggie]

Sometimes people's subconscious comes out in sneaky ways. That reminds me of when I decided to rid myself of animal products like leather and fur, when/where possible. I told my mother (who always asks what I want for gifts and then spreads the message to the rest of the family) that whatever family gifts I received, I didn't want any animal products like leather or fur, suede, down jackets, etc. or even stuff that looked like that.

She never really listened and then tried to give me one of her old leather purses as a donation. In her mind it was high quality, used, and "the animal was already dead". I thought it was ugly and it made me sad because I see dead cow skin when I look at that. Anyway, she got all upset when I said I didn't want it. I know everyone has their own personal feelings about leather and other animal products, but you'd think she'd respect mine. I don't make a big stink because she uses or wears leather, I just don't want it for myself.

[Dissolution]

Caro: You might be right. She got upset on the phone tonight, as I was on my way home, because she is worried about me finding another woman and cheating on her, or leaving her. She damned near accused me of being with someone today while I was at work.

I can only be me, do what I am doing. Try not to get discouraged. Lead by example and love her as much as I can.

I seriously doubt I will be able to get her going to a gym on a regular bases, and honestly me going without her, is just not an option if I want to stay married. So I have decided to start work on setting up a home gym in the basement, this weekend.

I'm very sorry about dumping all of my personal problems out here. I really am. I think it helps me though. Sorry it makes for lousy reading. Maybe I should color code all my whiny relationship issues so they can be easily identified and skipped over. Feel free to PM me if you think that is a good idea.

Anyways...

Dinner was excellent tonight. It was my first time cooking lentils.

3/4 cup of brown rice
3/4 cup of lentils

Cooked with appropriate amount of water in a rice cooker for 15 minutes and then added

1 full sized can of mushrooms (used steams and pieces)

** Ok I'm going to list the spices I used, but only for historical purposes. I choose spices almost completely at random. Please do not assume I know what I am doing. Duplicate at your own risk.

1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground clove
1 tsp Hungarian paprika
2 tsp Italian blend (no real clue what this is)

I must admit this was really really good. I haven't cooked lentils before. They seemed to give the dish a very "meaty" texture and flavor. Would probably be good as ground beef replacement. Oooo, shepherd's pie!

[Rosey]

I don't think any of us mind you talking about your relationship. It is part of getting yourself in a good zone. HUGS!!!

[yarnpetter]

I must admit this was really really good. I haven't cooked lentils before. They seemed to give the dish a very "meaty" texture and flavor. Would probably be good as ground beef replacement. Oooo, shepherd's pie!

I haven't tried it yet but here is a recipe on my list to try for shepherds pie with lentils. I am rarely disappointed with recipes from her site. http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2011/11/na ... m-shepherd’s-pie.html

[nomikins]

Without knowing your or your wife, I am going to say that she has some significant self-esteem and self-worth issues. She is very insecure. I used to be that person (and still am to a much lesser extent). You and she have gone along together with the status quo and it was comfortable. Now you are making some changes that make her uncomfortable and she is looking at herself and her own shortcomings. She's coming from a place of fear, anger, and self-hatred. You are making sigificant and strong changes to your routine and setting new patterns.

The dumbass women's magazines out there have all those "How To Tell if He is Cheating" articles. Sometimes they say if the husband is losing weight, getting new interests outside the marriage, etc., then he MUST be cheating. BULL$h!t.

Your wife needs more love, compassion and reassurance from you. She may also need some professional counseling. Maybe you do, too. Your marriage should not be at risk because you go to a gym and work out. Nor should your diet become a point of contention that it constantly evokes anger from either party. Again, without knowing either of you, for this to elicit the emotion that's coming, there must be something underlying. Look at yourself as well. Has anyone cheated before that is causing this response? No need to answer. Or maybe some friend or aquaintance went through a similar experience.

When I was at my heaviest, 230 pounds, I HATED myself. My husband is trim and attractive. He always treated me with great love and respect. I am the one who was angry and accusatory. For nothing. I fabricated all types of scenarious in my twisted mind, none of which were true. There were some problems, we went to couples counseling, and we are still together all these years later (I am 43 years old - with DH since 1991). It took ME getting in touch with MY issues to get things level.

Anyway, that is a ramble. Hope there is a crumb or two of value for you or someone else.

[AlwaysAgnes]

Rice, lentils and mushrooms sounds like a good combo to me.
If you like the combo of lentils and rice, you might like mujadara. Various spellings--mujadrah, mujaddara, moujadara, mejadra, etc. It's a dish of rice, lentils and caramelized onions. There are many variations for spices used. There's a recipe for one spice blend at this site: http://healthygirlskitchen.blogspot.com ... n-diy.html

[lmggallagher]

Dissolution:

About your away trip: I am sooooo happy for you and how great you did. Not just the weight loss; but the inevitable family questions from folks you haven't seen in a while ( the dialogue between you and the Cousin is priceless!) and having to field that type of thing.

Your prep and ingenuity on the trip is commendable too. And that you passed up the donuts and the "button pushing" also meritorious! Well, with a bit of an argument after -- but gee that was clearly an emotional eating trigger for you, and chances that those emotions would boil over about 100% likely.

Anyway, to be rewarded with that kind of scale reading at the end of it all -- was clearly deserved! High five buddy - way to go!!!

About the family issues: No one thinks you are being whiny and many have had similar experiences and are willing to say what worked for them, in hopes that something might be useable in your situation. I think you're making wise decisions like the home gym and other approaches -- so you recognize the big ways you can avoid increasing your wife's anxiety. I am pulling for both of you, with the realization that your putting your issues here helps diffuse some of your discomfort and some of our own too.

And because of your honesty here, I am looking at how my choice to do this is actually changing my relationship to everything I know. I kind of said I was doing it to reduce my global impact hugely and resolve my health issues -- but it never occurred to me that there would also be significant and frightening emotional upheavals in my most valuable human relationships.

As someone who has always thought I had a lid on my emotions, I am finding myself completely unglued internally by folks I love denigrating my intentions and commitment and in many of their cases choosing to feed their serious and life threatening illnesses instead of their good health. I now see these changes we have made have life and death implications and can make us reevaluate what love really is -- recounting and evaluating these challenges and figuring out how to take the next right step in each instance -- can't possibly be reduced to "sorry for the whining".

I think we all have to acknowledge and respect that for some of us, it's possibly the hardest thing we've ever done. That sharing the frustration, asking for an ear and receiving help from those who have been down this road before us -- is our best effort to do all we can to get us and our friends and family through this change intact. So I say thanks for speaking the truth, but please Dissolution, don't think it's whining when you do so

[Dissolution]

Yarnpetter: Thanks so much for the shepherd's pie recipe. We've invited friends over this coming Thursday so that my wife can let them try her Master Chef audition meal. I think I will make this for myself to have at our dinner party.

AlwaysAgnes: Moroccan Spice Blend!? Now you're going to get a story. A few months ago my wife and I were visiting friends and family in another state where we used to live. We were actually there to attend a wedding and my wife was making the wedding cake. So while her and my SIL were in the hotel room decorating it. I was hanging out with a friend.

Well, we stopped by this restaurant where my friend knows the owner. We're both in the IT field and the owner was having a computer problem, so we fixed it and got a free meal out of it. So we were hanging out and chatting after the restaurant closed. The owner / chef was from Morocco. At some point in the conversation he mentioned that he was cooking lamb shanks in clay pots the next day. I asked him why the heck he didn't have that on his menu and he said it was for some special guests. Well, it ended up that myself and my fiend and our wives were invited back the next night for lamb shank in clay pot.

The dish was amazing, the lamb shank was tender and it had chick peas and raisins with a spicy (not hot) brown sauce. My wife loved it and asked lots of questions about the spices and other ingredients (we have never eaten Moroccan before). At the end of a very pleasant evening the chef gave my wife a canister of his Moroccan spice blend. She uses it very sparingly because she can't get anymore.

I wonder how much trouble I would get in if I made my own...

Nomikins: This is my first marriage and her second marriage. Her first husband cheated on her a lot. She talks about him going out for a jog and coming back 2 hours later, freshly showered, stuff like that. Said she always new when he had a new girlfriend because he would start lifting weights and stuff.

Michelle: This WOE has not adversely affected my relationship with any of our 4 sons (all step sons BTW), or my Mother or Sister. My SiL and BiL that live in another state are both undergoing some serious health issues. He's going through kemo for colon cancer right now. He has some odd dietary preferences, but would never change for health, he's the kind of guy that continues to drink 1/2 gallon of whole milk per day despite doctors telling him it contributes to his chronic kidney stone problem. My SiL is having lumps from her back biopsied, and they told her she has arthritis in her spine. (nobody seems to know whether it is rheumatoid or osteo) I realize that even if they would listen to me or Dr. McDougall, that's it's probably too late.

It's just shocking sometimes to find out how opposed to this WOE my wife actually is. I was making humus yesterday (this always makes her grumpy), this time I was cutting up some red bell pepper to put in it. She can not believe that fresh bell pepper is healthy. She really doesn't. If I even mentioned the word antioxidant, she'll put her hand in my face and refuse to listen.

I found out on Friday that she has been telling some friends of ours that this WOE is causing me mental problems and making me forgetful and feeble minded. Sigh.....I don't think I can save her. I'm not even sure I can save myself.

[fulenn]

I love putting fresh bell peppers in my hummus!

I don't even know how to respond to your wife going around behind your back and saying negative things about you to your friends. Has this happened before with other issues? I hope they realize that this is not the case. As you continue losing weight and becoming healthy, the proof of your life/health will show what is really going on. Sure hope your wife will calm down once the weight is gone and you have stabilized for awhile.

Fulenn

[Dissolution]

Fulenn: That I know of, she has never talked about me in a negative way behind my back before. Actually in the past I've had hints and clues that she champions me secretly, so that I don't get a big head. That's why it was so shocking to find out what she was doing. I guess she's trying to get allies to help her turn me away from this WOE.

Did any of you ever watch the TV show Quantum Leap with Scott Bakula? Every week is soul/mind would transport into the body of another person is the past, in order to set things right. In one of the shows he transported into the body of a young man with downs syndrome. Even though his character was a super genius, and his mind was fully intact, because he was in that body, everybody still perceived him as being mentally handicapped, no matter what he did or said.

I would say about once a month for the past 10 years, I will get out to my car in the morning and realize I forgot my cell phone and go back inside and get it. Of course now when I do it, she says it's because veganism is rotting my brain.