Amish paradise

Well, slap a bonnet on me and call me Amish. In honour of my new favourite show Breaking Amish on TLC, Oktoberfest and Thanksgiving, this week on the Carnivore’s Conundrum the challenge was three-fold and Amish-themed.

For those that don’t know, Amish people are a sect of Christianity that believes in being humble. Their religion ties into the refusal of not conforming to present-day things.

This means that they don’t use modern technology, they work with the land and use horse and buggies. Mennonites have a similar set of beliefs and there is a huge population here in the K-W area.

To start this week off, I continued with the usual challenge of changing my eating, so I tried to eat food from an Amish cookbook I found called The Best of Amish Cooking by Phillis Pellman Good.

For once, I got to eat big hearty meals and you can check the blog for a delicious corn bread recipe. The ham dinner I shared with friends was very well received.

The thing is, Amish people eat about 6,000 calories a day because they are hard at work, building barns and plowing fields. It’s safe to say that Amish people are very active during their days.

For myself, in order for the diet to fit my schedule and activity I had to be a bit of an adapted Amish person. Getting the groceries was a trial; my second challenge of the week was trying to make my activity more Amish-related.

On Monday night at 11:30 p.m., I decided to make the trek out to the Sobey’s on Bridgeport and Weber. Like a good Amish boy, I decided to walk.

I knew that if I went after midnight it would be student discount day. Brilliant right? Apparently, as a very sullen Sobey’s employee reminded me, you have to have your club Sobey’s card with you to get any discount.

So after being cheated out of my ten per cent off I began the walk home, only to realize that $90 of groceries weighs about 90 pounds. The walk became significantly longer. The use of my cell to call a cab was out of the question because my third challenge for this week was to not use any electronics.

Well, throw papa down the stairs his pants (an old Amish saying for “that was difficult!”). Not having a phone was both rewarding and frustrating.

I was on time for things, and I made more eye contact with people, but if someone forgot to meet me or I was running late, there wouldn’t be any text notifications.

I took a ride in a car and one bus ride, but I think that the four days without Twitter counteracted that “devilish” act.

All in all Amish week was pretty successful and while I’m glad to be back in the world of technology, it was a nice break.

On a final note, I weighed myself over the weekend and it appears I have lost 12 pounds. I’m sure I ate all that weight back in Turkey, but those are some pretty tremendous strides.

Next week, class is in session as I take to the Athletic Complex fitness rooms. See you then on the fats of life.