Eating green, feeling green

I've discovered two problems with being a vegetarian in the past five weeks. First, there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing. 

Despite being touted as a wonder food, kale is actually not a good thing to over-consume. Seriously, you'd think the way people go on about this one type of lettuce as the best thing you could ever eat that more must always be better, right? Like, Popeye and his spinach, right? Wrong. First, it's hard on the stomach when consumed raw, like I've been doing in smoothies as of late.

Fruit/veg smoothie, heavy on the kale.

The brief, but intense nausea is no fun, I can assure you. Crouching in front of the toilet for five minutes waiting for the hot shivers to pass while intensely concentrating on not gagging is an ironic waste of time. I mean, if I'm going to feel like hell on wheels because of something I ate, shouldn't it be from UNhealthy food?? It's not exactly encouraging to discover that a Tim Hortons hot chocolate immediately makes me feel better after an overdose of dark leafy greens.

Also, too much kale can suppress your thyroid. Yeah. So there's that. AND... kale is high in oxalates, which are known to lead to kidney and/or gallstones. I've already had a calcium oxalate kidney stone before and I'm not jonesing for another one any time soon, so I'm going to cut back the kale to about once a week.

Here's the second problem I've been having: I still hate cooking and have been avoiding it like the plague. It's hard, okay? My roommates are always making vegetarian stuff and are super generous. For example:

Fried eggs and potato pancake breakfast I didn't make.

Veggie burrito dinner I also did not make.

And I've eaten enough Subway "veggie delight" sandwiches in the last two weeks to get a couple of them for free using points. It's sad, I know. I should be in the kitchen, making quinoa salads and other fancy things from scratch, but I've been lazy. I really have no excuses for not doing more cooking, but at least I've not caved once to eating any meat, so at least I can still say I'm a real vegetarian.

So that's the diet update. 

Fitness is slow going –– I can now do two minutes of plank, front and each side, but I still can't walk more than four blocks without my back pain soaring to "must lie down on my side right now with a pillow between my knees" levels. But I've got new back strengthening exercises from the physio to work on and I'll be seeing an orthopaedic specialist on Tuesday. Hopefully he'll have some insight into my ongoing lower back pain saga. 

Onwards!