Hello From Texas!

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orcsanddragons
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Hello From Texas!

Post by orcsanddragons »

Hi there! I have just recently joined the forum. I came to it via unnatural vegan' s youtube channel. My journey is still on going. I went vegan overnight about 2 years ago. I actually started for health reasons after seeing a lot of Freelee's videos. I am so glad I looked beyond her and that's when I found better logical and trustworthy content like unnatural vegan. If I wouldn't have found channels like hers I would have dove into that dreadful raw till 4 diet so I'm glad I was spared from that nonsense. I started to learn about the the ethical reasons to go vegan and this became my driving force. Sadly the longest I have been completely vegan is a few months. I seem to hit a plateau after a couple months and I think the overnight approach doesn't work for me. I have started reducing my consumption of animal products for the last month. I consume 2 vegan meals a day along with vegan or vegetarian snacks and then have a non vegan dinner. My goal is to eventually eat a completely vegan diet.

I have good support from my partner who agrees that there is no necessary reason to consume animals and their by products so that's a plus and he also is cutting back on his consumption of such products as well. I thought joining this forum might be another opportunity to engage and discuss ethics of veganism while also learning more.

Glad to be part of the gang here :mrgreen:
Dream Sphere
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Location: Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada

Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by Dream Sphere »

Great intro! Good to hear that you strayed away from the raw vegan side of things and are trying to achieve a sustainable normal vegan diet. It sounds like you have some good support already, but I'm sure the very knowledgable people here can help you that much more wherever they can with your goals. I imagine you'll get to where you want to be as long as you keep trying to make steady progress by changing little things here and there, like having one fully vegan day once a week and working from there at whatever pace is sustainable. There are a lot of different ways to cut back on animal product consumption, what I suggested may not be perfect, so just find what works for you, I'm sure others here will have better suggestions.

Also, here're some questions.

What inspired you to choose your username? I imagine you're a fan of fantasy media, but anything in particular? Books, games, music, movies, etc?
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brimstoneSalad
neither stone nor salad
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Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
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Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Welcome! It sounds like you're starting off well.

One thing I'd say is that breakfast and dinner are usually easier to do vegan because you're at home (or, most people are), while lunch tends to be the most difficult so I'd usually recommend veganizing lunch last. But everybody's situation is different, and if lunch is easier to veganize for you than dinner that makes sense. :)

It's amazing that you have support from your partner who is joining you in this, sounds like you found a good one!

Have you found some good high-protein vegan staples that you like? That tends to be the greatest challenge.
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PsYcHo
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Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by PsYcHo »

Hello!

What part of Texas are you from? I've spent a lot of time there, and it amazes me how different East and West Texas are. I prefer (just for beauty) West Texas. I grew up on the east coast, so desert just seems "exotic" and beautiful to me.

Nice to meet you!
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
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orcsanddragons
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Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by orcsanddragons »

PsYcHo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:03 am Hello!

What part of Texas are you from?
I am from central Texas. I like traveling to Austin a lot so many vegan options! Nice to meet you too!
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orcsanddragons
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Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by orcsanddragons »

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:18 pm
Have you found some good high-protein vegan staples that you like? That tends to be the greatest challenge.
Yes, I drink soylent (the cacao version is the best) twice a day. It has high protein so I get 40 grams of protein from that and then make up the rest with my non vegan dinner. I mostly use for breakfast and lunch. Sometimes I will use the soylent for dinner instead of lunch depending on the circumstance I like the convenience because I actually really enjoy cooking vegan meals a lot but i 'm a college student so I usually don't have a lot of time to plan out something that would give me most of the nutrients I need and on top of that I am trying to lose about 40 pounds of weight. I am currently in the overweight/obese territory of BMI. So I like something that is easy to count the calories instead of having to figure it out through individual ingredients if I cook.
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orcsanddragons
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Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by orcsanddragons »

Dream Sphere wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:59 am

What inspired you to choose your username? I imagine you're a fan of fantasy media, but anything in particular? Books, games, music, movies, etc?
It's kind of a funny story. When I was in high school my best friend's younger brother had it as his xbox live account username and because I really enjoy fantasy media like lord of the rings and elder scrolls games, I thought it was a fitting name to use for most of my online accounts. :lol:
Dream Sphere
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Location: Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada

Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by Dream Sphere »

I've only read The Hobbit in full out of Tolkien's different books, but I've been meaning to read The Silmarillion and LotR. Have you read The Silmarillion? A lot of bands I like take lyrical inspiration from The Silmarillion. I love the LotR movies, though, I also liked the The Hobbit movies, but not as much as LotR.

My first TES game was Skyrim which I'm a big fan of, but I'm also currently watching Let's Plays of Oblivion, and Morrowind which are both interesting too. Do you have a favourite TES game? Also, do you tend to roleplay a certain way in these games? Between the TES and recent Fallout games I usually start off with a morally good character who is either a jack of all trades, or specialized as a general warrior/gunslinger (in Fallout) but on subsequent plays I try to make as many unique specializations and different kinds of characters as possible.

Have you tried the recent Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor/War video games? I've played a bit of Mordor and liked it a lot, good Arkham style melee combat with lots of Middle-earth flair to the setting and characters.

Kind of random question, but what music are you into? There's a lot of good fantasy themed metal out there, but of course metal isn't everyone's cup of tea.
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orcsanddragons
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Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by orcsanddragons »

Dream Sphere wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:14 am Have you read the Silmarillion? A lot of bands I like take lyrical inspiration from The Silmarillion. I love the LotR movies, though, I also liked the The Hobbit movies, but not as much as LotR.

Do you have a favourite TES game?
Have you tried the recent Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor/War video games?

There's a lot of good fantasy themed metal out there, but of course metal isn't everyone's cup of tea.
I have not read the Silmarillion but I want to eventually. I watch a lot of lore videos on LOTR that talk about it and I find it really interesting. I totally agree LOTR trilogy is more enjoyable for me then the Hobbit trilogy. The LOTR has this real grittiness to it that makes the fantasy world feel grounded and familiar to our own in slight ways. I don't hate the Hobbit series but I'd watch LOTR over it.

My fav elder scroll game is the one that got me into them which would be Morrowind. My older brother had it when I was 10 and I got hooked on it. I actually have barely played Oblivion and I love Skyrim. One thing I like more about Morrowind is the variety of environments (ice, sand, green fields) and that there is no markers to tell you where to go so it's more immersive to me. Although I know it's hard for some to get into because it does look so dated, specifically if you didn't play it when it came out.

I haven't played ether Shadow of Mordor or War. My boyfriend played some of the first one and I watched. I thought the nemesis system was cool. I might pick it up soon. I cannot support Shadow of War personally because of it's pay to win loot box system. I am opposed to loot boxes being in premium priced games so I chose not to financially support those products. Just a personal choice. I feel like the industry needs a wake up call and I think the Star Wars battlefield II fiasco has started that.

I am not a huge metal fan actually, but I have exceptions. The closest would be Type O Negative. Big fan of a lot of their stuff. I have checked out pirate metal for the hell of it and ended up actually liking some of it. I have to be in a pretty silly mood though. :lol:
Dream Sphere
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Location: Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada

Re: Hello From Texas!

Post by Dream Sphere »

I agree about LotR being more grounded in harsh reality in terms of tone and not just being so happy and adventurous only, although The Hobbit wasn't only that either it definitely felt much more "fantastical" and lighthearted than LotR in terms of tone.

I've heard that the graphical Overhaul mods on PC do wonders for Morrowind's graphics, but I could understand wanting to play the vanilla game over that for the sake of seeing what the official developers intended.

I haven't gotten far in watching Morrowind, but the environment is quite striking and interesting, for sure! I personally don't find Skyrim lacking because its environment is just done so well for what's intended, but having more variety in environment is a different kind of quality which is also very interesting to me. One funny thing I prefer of Skyrim to previous TES games is the lockpicking minigame, since I'm quite skilled at that one in Skyrim/modern Fallout games, the older methods just don't seem fun to me, and for some odd reason lockipicking feels so rewarding to me in Skyrim, haha.

I'm a sucker for not having to do much work to find out where I need to go, so I have to say that's one thing I'd find difficult about Morrowind. πŸ˜… But I can see the appeal of picking up more on dialogue cues to find out where you need to go and how that would be immersive.

I didn't know that about Shadow of War. Are the loot boxes just for online play? I can fully understand not wanting to support a pay to win system, but personally I'm more interested in the single player, so as long as the game isn't super difficult in single player without loot boxes I'll personally be okay. It's good that you're boycotting this bad system of microtransactions though, the consumers do need to speak up against these anti-consumer practices. I think I might wait on buying the game until it's really cheap tbh, just so I don't give them as much, but I am planning on buying the game eventually because it looked like a good sequel to the first one which I liked playing a lot.

I've heard of Type O Negative, they play a style of gothic rock/doom metal right? Haven't checked them out besides a few songs though. Do you have a few favourites from them which you could recommend to me?

As for pirate metal, I think of it as just a specific type of power metal, and there's a lot of less (but still) cheesy power metal out there. I'm a big fan of Running Wild's mid era, is it them who you checked out, or maybe Alestorm? I don't know Alestorm very well.

If you don't know Running Wild, I would recommend checking out their album Death or Glory.

As for non-pirate power metal. My favourite band is Blind Guardian, they have a lot of Tolkien inspired lyrics, but also lyrics based on other fantasy works like ASoIaF, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and various other fantasy literature. I would recommend checking out these songs, "The Quest for Tanelorn", one of the live versions of "Lost in the Twilight Hall", "Mordred's Song", one of the live versions of "Time Stands Still (At the Iron Hill)", and "Wheel of Time" though I really like their whole discography.

I'll try to condense my next reply to you so this conversation doesn't become too sprawling, btw πŸ˜…
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