About Me

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Austin, Texas, United States
I'll make you laugh, or break my neck trying. This is usually accomplished with daily bouts of swimming, biking and running. A former "chub-a-holic," I got fit and healthy the good old fashioned way and went from a mid-pack athlete to top age group runner and triathlete. I'm a Writer and USAT Level 1 Certified Triathlon Coach. I guess that makes me part Tina Fey and part Jillian Michaels. Visit my coaching site at www.fomotraining.com

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Tri to Be a Weirdo Vegan


What's your favorite?
What got you into this in the first place?
Do others have a problem with this?
How do you handle being around non-users?

Just a few of the questions I heard tonight at my first ever meet-up with www.veganaustin.org. Equal parts social group and support group, I officially joined the last week and attended my first outing tonight. Fortunately, it was at the all-new (and dangerously close to my house) Beets Cafe and I was actually able to ride my bike on over there in less than 10 minutes...Super sweet...

In many ways, we're freakish outcasts and kinda embrace that dorky role. Story of my freaking life...Kinda like being in the drama club in high school. We have "our thing" and it's nerdy and weird, but we kinda dig it. I'm still so new to this that when I tell people, "I'm vegan," I still feel like a total poser. I'm about 95% there after all. (However, I do think I lost my vegan card last week at Whole Foods when I was sporting my "Dairy Free Love" t-shirt while ordering gelato!) Yep--call me a big fat hypocrite. I can't help it. They had peanut butter gelato and I've never tasted anything better. So there--I'm not so hippy-trippy and birkenstocky after all.

The food at Beets was spectacular...Pizzas, burgers, fajitas, chalupas, smoothies, salads...all vegan and all raw living foods. Yeah--I know--it sounds about as yummy as roadkill (ironic) to most people. How can I have a pizza that isn't cooked?! God damn you people are weird...

I'm embracing my new-found weirdness. After all, isn't that what we're supposed to do in Austin? By being "weird," I'm actually trying to fit into the norm in this town.


6 comments:

Richard said...

As they say in the beer ads, "Hooray, weird!"

And beer. Mmm... beer...

Sarah said...

You need to meet my friend Yvonne, 'The Traveling Vegetarian'. She's fab and is very much into the vegan world and culture. She inspires me to give it a try, though I'm not there yet.

Hooray for you!

greyhound said...

You do know, don't you, that it was the act of cooking meat that made us evolve into homo sapiens? Without the calories of meat, our brains would not have grown, and without the benefit of cooking, it took to long to eat and our jaws would not have shrunk.

Vegan. So easy even a cave man could do it.

FunFitandHappy said...

I was just in California and at at 118 degrees - a vegan restaurant - one of the best meals I've ever eaten.

They have a recipe book called The Art of Raw Living Food. YUMMY!!!!

Coach Liz said...

Ok, raw pizza dough??? That is weird. Soy cheese on pizza dough...blech. I have to do it for the no dairy thing but it is so flavorless and does not melt well.

I miss real cheese. Sniff...

Margo Baxter said...

i gave the Engine 2 Diet (vegan) a try for about 5 months and saw great performance improvement at first but then my body composition started heading in a direction i didn't like (i.e. more fat less muscle) so i switched back to being a occasional omnivore. i love love love vegan food but it wasn't working for me with marathon/ironman training. keep us posted on how the vegan diet works for you.