Vegan Challenge: The Workout

On Wednesday I talked about my husband's foray into veganism for the next 30 days.  So here is the second half of his vegan challenge.  Not only eating vegan, but lifting and maintaining an active lifestyle as a vegan. 

When my husband and I were living in Hawaii together, we went to the gym together.  A lot.  I was really stressed out during my last student teaching experience, so I cut out the lifting and stuck mainly to yoga.   

Last night was my first night back to some serious lifting, and while it went well, I definitely am noticing that yoga did much more for my upper body than my lower body.  My arms, back, and chest are still fairly strong, but my legs were getting spasmatic after two sets of deadlifts.  

My husband however, was lifting more than ever while he was in Iraq, so I let him choose this workout plan.  I don't necessarily love it, but I definitely missed lifting, so its good to be back at it.  Plus, I get to pick the next program...heheh.  It will probably be something equally as complicated as the 5-7-9 program I made awhile back.  

Since his is simple, it should be much easier to follow.  The idea was to do the exact same workout three times a week.  Well, I got him to change that at least a little bit.  There are going to be two rotating workouts, and while the big lifts will change a little, the smaller lifts will be staying the same:

Workout 1:  

Deadlift 5x5

Barbell Bench Press 5x5

Dumbbell Military Press 5x5

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Pullups 4x8

Dips 4x8

Barbell Curls 4x8

Workout 2:

Back Squats 5x5

Dumbbell Bench Press 5x5

Barbell Seated Shoulder Press 5x5

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Pullups 4x8

Dips 4x8

Crunches 4x8

If you knew my workouts well, you would see my obvious influence on this program.  Since you don't, I will tell you.  First, I refuse to do anything more than 8 reps, I get incredibly bored and antsy.  Second, the way it is split into two parts, with the bigger lifts first, and the smaller lifts second...very "me".  As is the way there are fewer, but longer, sets for the second half.  What can I say, he asked my opinion.  

Post workout last night was dinner.  I let him pick something out of The Vegan Table, and he chose the Pan-Grilled Portobello Mushrooms with Herb Infused Marinade.  What a mouthful.  These were possibly some of the best portobello mushrooms I've ever had.  I know it seems so simple, and to a degree it is, but the marinade was totally delicious, and the way they were cooked made it really soak in and just taste awesome.  

We had the mushrooms with roasted asparagus and mashed cauliflower (hummus is a good addition to this, if you were wondering).  

You'll have to excuse the lighting in our apartment for awhile.  I still need to play with it to find the best place, but I didn't want my food to get cold!   

He's got what I think will be some of his biggest challenges coming up this weekend.  Tomorrow we are having a BBQ at my aunt's house with some family that is in from Italy.  He'll have food to eat, no doubt, but I think it'll be hard for him to watch everyone else eating meat.  On Sunday we're going to visit his family.  It should be fine, they're really open to my being vegan, but I still think its going to be a challenge for him...but that was what he wanted, right??

He Goes Vegan

While my posts have been scattered as of late, if you've been following you know that my husband recently got out of the military, and after two long years, we finally moved back in together again.  

Last we were living together I was a vegetarian.  He's always been open to eating anything, and definitely had tofu and tempeh while we were living there, but he was definitely dismayed when he learned I would no longer be eating cheese or eggs.  

So, imagine my surprise last week when he tells me that, if I cook/pack him food, he will eat vegan during the week.  Okay.  They say that it takes about a month to break a habit, so I saw his challenge, and raised it to 30 days straight.  And so Vegan Challenge 2009 begins.  

Today was the official starting date, although he technically ate vegan yesterday also, so he's already got an edge on the non-existent competition.  

Our kitchen is still kind of in shambles, with pieces of it scattered across the country (our stuff that we had in Hawaii has been in storage since August 2007, and it is now in California waiting to be shipped to us here), but I finally broke out the few tools that we have, and made my first recipe from The Vegan Table.  I mentioned it a week or two ago, and I honestly wasn't planning on buying it...but once I saw it, I had to.  People, it is beautiful.  Plus...TONS of pictures!!  I'm way more likely to make recipes if there are pictures.  

So, for dinner tonight we had the French Onion Pie.  

Sadly, it was about as gloppy a mess as it looks in the picture.  Maybe because I cooked my onions in a wok (again, making do with what I have), they were really wet, and the resulting pie was really wet.  It tasted good, but it was not very pretty.  And I think it goes without saying that I couldn't get the onions to caramelize...I can't even do that with the proper equipment.

The salad is nothing special but I just wanted to say "Oh my gosh the strawberries here are amazing" one more time.   

If you're anything like me, you may be wondering why he agreed to do this.  The impression that I get from him is that...he wants the challenge.  It also may give him some insight into something that is important to me, but for the most part he wants to see if he can do it.  He wants to see if he can eat vegan for 30 days, and more importantly, he wants to see if he can maintain or gain muscle on a vegan diet.  I, obviously, know that it is possible, but he wants to see for himself, and why would I deter him?!?  So here goes.  We're also going to start lifting together again, so I'll post our workout tomorrow.  

Also, I am behind on everyone's blog, we just got our internet hooked up today (and its not even wireless yet, I feel so lame).  I'm also REALLY sorry if you sent me an email and it took me awhile to get back to you.   You can expect me to be around with some regularity now though!!