Loving food and losing weight

I constantly struggle with the fact that I LOVE preparing and eating good food, yet want to lose weight and tone up my body. And I love trying new restaurants as well.  But it is so hard to actually have this passion for food, and still remain in-shape.  At my age (nearing the title of a cougar), it becomes much harder to keep a perfect body....yes, I said perfect, cuz I am a perfectionist (I can't help it).  I am my worst critic, of course.  But, as I was saying, to love food and keep a great body, I have to work out almost three times harder than the other youngin's out there.  It's so frustrating.  There are days I just want to eat everything that sounds good, and there are those that I prefer to keep it minimal and healthy, but those are more rare.  So it has been my quest now to finish the P90X workout challenge (I have 2 month left to go), and eat as healthy as I can for that time, with one day a week to splurge a little.

My girlfriend and I have decided to make a pact - at the end of April, 2011, we have to post a picture of ourselves in a bikini on Facebook.  Scary!!  But it's definitely a motivator.  So if you too are having trouble keeping motivated to either lose weight, tone up or just maintain, then find a friend you can make a pact or create a challenge with for a designated period of time, and I guarantee you will hit your goal.

Stay posted to hear about and see the results.  You can also follow me on Twitter or find me on Facebook.

Vegan vs Vegetarian....what's the difference?

Recently I found an interest in finding some vegan restaurants around town.  But then I started thinking, what the heck is the difference between vegan and vegetarian. Well, here it is for those who pondered this as much as I did....

Vegetarian - This is a blanket term that describes those that do not consume meat, poultry or seafood. There are several sub-catergories to this as well. But a Vegetarian typically has less dietary restrictions (i.e. they will eat eggs, cheese, dairy). Some of the sub-catergories refer to a vegetarian who might just consume eggs, but nothing else, or those that might consume milk, but nothing else, etc.  I think you get the picture without me throwing out a bunch of crazy terms you probably won't remember.

Vegan - describes those that do not consume ANY animal-products or by-products. This is the strictest of all the categories.

Some great restaurants to check out in Arizona include Pita Jungle, Fresh Mint, and Nourish.