Is This A Diet Or Suffering?

 I have decided to make the best of what I have since I am currently not working, nor am I planning to start looking until the holidays are over, which is in less than a week, really. I am a hoarder. A staple hoarder. I hoard all dry goods which never go bad under the premise that I will eat it one day when I have no food due to the apocalypse coming. I've been trying to eat through my pantry and cut down on the sheer amount of STUFF I have due to the fact I simply keep it because it doesn't expire. It's been going pretty well. It's not the most balanced of diets, but then again most people don't eat a balanced diet to begin with. I've definitely been making progress, and I've even lost some weight which is always a plus, since I've been doing nothing but gaining it due to shut down, inactivity, and the fact that I was always eating out. I've been documenting what I've been eating and it's just been super sad. It's YouTube content. 

Welcome to The First Day

 The first day of the rest of our lives begins tonight. Dec 21, 2020, we enter the age of Aquarius as Jupiter and Saturn line up for the great conjunction. I feel pretty groovy. I'm not a huge astrology person, but I do keep tabs on it because I do believe it does affect us in some way due to the different gravitational pulls we experience whilst we are in certain positions of the universe. I'm curious to see how things pan out from tonight on. 

Holly Jolly Jingle Bell 5K

Well here it is. I did it. In the snow. Definitely could have picked a better day but hey what can you do. It's done, I made 2 vlogs about it, and that's that. I am not as proud of myself as I thought I would be. I joined some virtual marathon communities and people are so please when they are done with a race but I'm a bit "meh" about it to be completely honest. Is it because I know that I could do this on a regular day under regular circumstances? Is it because I am not super fitness oriented? I'll think about it, do some inner digging and see what my apathy is all about. 

In the meanwhile, here's a short little video I made on my unboxing. Cute, right?

Motivation

 Motivation, or lack thereof- 

I have signed up for 2 virtual marathons due to the fact that my holiday gig isn't happening this year thanks for COVID. I'm not too upset about it as it's COVID and that's the precaution you have to take when an attraction has hundreds of thousands of visitors per year from all over the world. I felt lazy and unproductive. I saw a Facebook ad for this really beautiful medal from a virtual marathon, so I bought into it. In my excitement, I found a Santa themed marathon and bought that too. This happened on Black Friday, by the way, so sales were aplenty. 

I started one virtual marathon because it had an app associated with it which connects to just about every fitness tracker on the market so it was super easy to set up because I always wear a Fitbit and who's phone ISN'T a pedometer nowadays? The app tracks the participant's progress and once the challenge is finished, the company ships out the medal. The other marathon has been sitting on my dining room chair since I received it. They sent me the bib, an energy bar, a hat, and the medal straight away so I am in possession of a prize that I didn't even win/work for. I think the fact that it is already in my hands is making me drag on actually doing it. It's not exactly time sensitive, but it's a Santa medal so I would ideally like to get it done before Christmas passes. I've about 2 more weeks so that's plenty of time I SUPPOSE. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day I will attempt to get this marathon in. it's 5k, so 3.1 miles. It's not far, but it is far for me because I can't do much physical activity due to my injuries. I can do it. It's just a matter of bucking up and doing it and not being lazy. With my health as it is and the fact it is cold out, I am lazy. I won't be able to award myself a medal if I don't do it though, so drat on that. I have to do it. Gogogogogogo

Splitting Blogs?

I wanted to make a youtube channel dedicated to mental health and dream journaling. Does that mean I should also split blogs as well? Make a separate blog for those two things? Keep this blog for random word/ thought vomit? Logically, that would be the more efficient thing to do, however laziness is keeping me from doing it as usual. Even now, I have so many posts I want to write but don't even know where to start/ cant bring myself to write them. Actually, I can't even call it laziness- I have the blog set up already like how I had my dream/mental health channel set up already. They're just empty because I never got around to using them consistently or at all for that matter. It's a personal flaw I have. I try to be better at it but you know how that story goes. Maybe this will be the time I actually start doing and stick to it. Who knows? For now, the link to my other blog, Everlasting Ray Of Sunshine. 

Another Obligatory Introductory Post:

And here we are back again. I am so awful at keeping up with things, but I guess that's society as a whole nowadays. microblogging, blurbs, tweets. Anything more than a few sentences and people lose interest. Sometimes I have thoughts that are longer than 160 characters and have nowhere to put them. Therefore I have decided to start a blog up again. I have so many blogs scattered all over the internet but this one was the one I logged into correctly first, so this one wins the prize. Not to mention it's my most recent internet moniker, so it's more relevant I suppose. I've deleted all but 2 old posts, which are pretty important to me. What? Chipotle coming up with a vegan option is SUPER important! Not to mention it tastes much better nowadays than it did on release day. I highly recommend trying the tofu if you haven't yet #notsponsored

For now, I'm crossing my fingers that I can use this blog as a place to blab about anything and everything on my mind, whether anyone reads it or not. I find that a blog is much more appropriate for word vomit than Facebook statuses, where it tends to be a nuisance to others. Hopefully I won't drop off of it too quickly again, not being able to find time to sit down and write. Only time will tell. If anything, I'll try again in the future and write yet another Obligatory Introductory Post. 

Chipotbae- Sofritas First Impressions

I like food. I like all food. I like Chipotle. Not all the time, mind you. Just most of the time- About 98%. 

When I was a fatty chan, I used to be able to eat TWO burritos. Now that I've calmed down on the overeating a bit, I can only eat a single one. Omnomnom. 

My favorite thing was the vegetarian option until I tried the steak. I never looked back since then. However, Chipotle has this cool little event coming up to try to introduce the omnivorous populous to something more plant based and animal friendly (finally). 

On Monday (tomorrow), Chipotle is having an event featuring their new SOFRITAS- a vegan tofu option! WOOWOO. Order it tomorrow and bring your receipt back in the next 2 days for another burrito of your choice! I'm no longer vegan or vegetarian, but when I found out about this, I ran to my nearest Chipotle to give it a try, not even waiting until the event. 

I was so excited as I walked in, eagerly scanning the pans of yummy goodness until i found the Sofritas. I was a little taken aback when I saw it. Granted I'm not the pickiest person, but seeing the pile of crumbly tofu sloop was a bit akin to when Allen Carr tried to feed Russell Brand a Christmas dinner. He declined not because he was a Vegan, but because he had eyes and the dinner looked not so good even though Allen had some Tofurky especially for him. Is this what you're using to entice the meat eaters, Chipotle?? YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS. 

'Fuck it' I thought, and ordered it anyway since I've eaten way stranger looking things than that in my lifetime and I REALLY wanted to give it a go because this was a Chipotle milestone of sorts. They've been around for how many years? Finally some tofu up in here.

A scoop placed on top of my rice and beans bowl, it looked like a poor excuse of a fauxlonaise (faux bolognaise) sauce to me. Mostly watery sauce which eventually was absorbed by the rice, and a disappointingly small pile of microfine orange-ish tofu crumbles. I got my usual on top of that- some tomatoes, corn, cheese, sour cream, guac, and a dressing. Paid for it, walked across the street back to work, sat down, and opened it up. It looked exactly like my veggie bowls had always looked. Tasted pretty much the same too with a slight flavor of the Sofritas. Quite honestly, if someone had ordered this for me and not told me, I would have assumed they got me the veggie option unless I was really paying attention with every chew, looking for that extra flavor. I had even specifically dug out a piece of the tofu to try it out on its own. 

As I was chewing on the tiny crumble, I was thinking to myself about how this might have been prepared and how it could be improved. Maybe this consistency was just at this location in particular? Thoughts ran through my mind on how maybe the tofu wasn't drained completely before it was used, so that's why it was so watery. Maybe the tofu wasn't frozen before being cut up, so maybe that's why it was so crumbly. Maybe both of these things happened. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe. But really, who knows. At the end of the day, I bought it, I ate it, and it was Chipotle. And Chipotle is awesome. 

Was I amazed and astounded? No. Was I disappointed? Not really, because this is a BIG THING. Will I partake in the event tomorrow? YOU BET YOUR BUTT I AM. Am I happy that Chipotle offers this now? Hell yeah!

I wish the tofu wasn't so microfine and that the entire mix was more of a chili consistency than a watery mess. Also maybe a little bit more boost on the flavor so you feel like you didn't skip a whole step in your burrito making process. Meatless eaters, you know what I'm talking about. Mmmhmmmmmm.  I'm not asking for a meaty textured substitute, but I WOULD like to feel like I ordered something other than the previous no-meat just rice, beans and veggies option. 

This all said, let's not think about how even though chipotle has 2 vegan options now (Sofritas or none), Chipotle still isn't the most vegan friendly place due to many factors, one being the employees don't change their gloves when making a vegan their burrito, and sometimes when asked, are huffy about it or ignore the customer. But hey, I'm no vegan, so it's not really my concern. Should it be Chipotle's? Maybe. 

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Linkin Park, anyone? I'll still be standing in that line tomorrow, getting my tofu bowl on so the day after I can get myself a steak if the 2nd experience is the same as the first.