It's Working

Why is it that it is always on the second day after strenuous exercise that you hurt the most? I know it is totally normal with experts calling it delayed onset muscle soreness. Apparently, it is because of inflammation and tiny tears in the muscle. It is normal, and it is a terrific sign your muscles are working, and you will continue to burn fat. Also, when you are sore you should not stop working-out. As the age old saying goes, you have to know what is an injury, and what is just pain. Pain is good.

So today I can barely walk my muscles are so sore, especially my legs - it is a terrific feeling to struggle to get out of my chair and walk like an old man. I know that sounds weird.

Yesterday, I had to grab a late lunch of edamame, miso and salad. Last night I had dinner with a public relations guru. A very interesting and lovely woman, I was giving her the run down of My Vegan Quest and she liked the story for the same reasons everyone else seems to - I am a regular guy, with regular desires and needs and personal peccadilloes, who struggled to find and succeed with self discipline. Success in the ordinary is something everyone can relate to. She wants me to make this my "brand" and go on a speaking tour, and of course she was pitching the job to be my PR agent!

We went to a really good seafood restaurant called Lure in SoHo. A beautiful place that is designed like the interior of a ship, it also has quite a nice bar (however off limits to me).  I established up front I would not be drinking anything but seltzer water, but encouraged her to feel comfortable to drink. Being the quintessential NYC PR agent she knocked back three goblets of Sauvignon Blanc before the main course. Needless to say I was envious.

There is also a sushi bar so I decided to order the sashimi platter, being careful to stay away from the simple carbs in rice. Being that in one week there are 21 meals,  if I have a non-vegan meal just once that is about 5% and is in line with my current eating goal. My appetizer was an exceptional asparagus and mushroom soup with shrimp and mushrooms. The interesting thing about it is that it looked like a green puree, and tasted amazing! The shrimp was good, but sitting in a hot bowl of soup was a tad over-done, but the mushroom was awful, actually it was inedible! Now, I like mushrooms, and I don't think I ever refused to eat anything on my plate before (except that time at a Hawaiian Luau when I spit out a mouthful of poi -- my brother said it was chocolate pudding) But these mushrooms...it didn't compute, the soup was delicious, but the actual mushrooms tasted like they were marinated in Windex window cleaner, it was awful...wait, I just thought of something else I really cannot physically eat, vegemite, that Aussie sandwich spread, sorry Oz, I just can't stomach of the stuff...back to the mushrooms, they were bad. Anyway, the soup is worth getting regardless of the mushrooms.

Dessert was some tea, and then we walked across to one of my favorite, old time bars Fanelli's Café on Prince St. which looks the same as when it opened in 1922. With no seats at the bar, and me not drinking we decided to leave, but continued the discussion about the importance people in the city put on drinking. The bar really is the village green in the city, and it is done by impulse. However, like Monday showed me - there is so much more to the city - Central Park, and as the Nurse taught me - Art Class, or volunteering, whatever. In fact, stopping into a new bar on 55th Street that looks ridiculous (The PR woman pegged it for vintage Las Vegas tacky), I saw a bunch of drunk Wall Street types acting like a horde of slobbering jackasses. It in impossible for me not to smile. So glad I was not one of them.

Sometimes you just have to peel off that impulsive Velcro that affixes bars and drinks to all things nighttime in the city.