Vow for the September Moon

So today has been the September full moon.  I didn't do too bad last month and finished up only tossing some milk and a handful of grapes.  A couple stalks of celery almost didn't make it, but I sliced them up and pickled them by packing them in aka miso for a day.  I hadn't tried that before, but it was pretty good.

New month, new vow, fortunately, it was an easy decision. 

Since I haven't been running around waiting tables all summer, my activity level has not matched my caloric intake.  On top of that one of my classes was Plated Desserts, so yeah, that was healthy.  Plus, in keeping with last months vow, I had to eat things to keep them from going bad.

So this month, for my benefit and my girlfriend's benefit ("about time," she'd say) I'm going to watch what we eat.  This is essentially an attempt to live the fifth Grave Precept the way I see it: to not pollute the mind, body, or environment. 

We have the added benefit of me being enrolled in a class called Principles of Healthy Cuisine, so this should be easy.  I've already made progress through some of last month with cooking more often.  But a big help is thanks due to the federal government.

While I'm not the last person to get up and defend what the government does for us, I'm certainly not the first, but they've provided an unbelievably good service to citizens with MyPyramid.gov.  Everyone should go here and check it out.

While it's not news to me that a meal should include a starch, vegetable, and a protein, I wasn't really doing the balance right.  I've decreased the protein portions greatly, increased the veggies, and paid more attention to how much butter and oil I add.  Sometimes I'm even lucky enough to throw some fruit in there as well.

It's important for people to remember that lowering your caloric intake instead of increasing your physical activity is not an acceptable substitute.  You have to move to burn fat and if you don't, you trick your body into slowing your metabolism down.  This actually causes more weight gain when you lapse in your diet than if you'd just skipped the diet completely.  And on top of that you have to reset your metabolism in addition to everything else.

We'll see how it goes as I try to keep up last months commitment and implement this months.