Vegetarianism, Food Diaries, and All the Other Food Things My Family Teases Me About

"Look, LB! I'm eating meat! Does it bother you?"
"Do you want some of this delicious lamb, LB?"
"Why won't you eat the steak I made?"

Of all the things that my family, and some of my friends, don't understand, it's my eating habits. I'm a bit of an odd eater. It's not that I'm not adventurous – oh no, I mean, look at my visit to Thailand. I had no idea what I was eating 75% of the time (or more likely more, if you think about translation issues). No, it's more that I have dietary restrictions due to my body.
For example:
I'm lactose intolerant. Have been since I was really little. I can eat cheese and stuff in moderation, but straight up ice cream leaves me in pain.
I can't eat popcorn, which is a total bummer because I really love the stuff.
Meat and I just don't get along. My tummy gets upset when I do eat it, and I feel slow and generally icky for a full day. Not fun
And then there's the whole food diary thing. I used to use CalorieCount.About.com, and it worked great to lose weight, but I found myself unconsciously obsessing about the number of calories in things which lead to two things: I didn't want to eat the foods I loved, and I didn't want to log what I ate.
Logging my food and vegetarianism go hand in hand here. Yes, it's proven that people who log their food eat less, eat better, and are more conscious about what goes in their mouths (I can't tell you how much I cut down on my chocolate intake in a day). But it also helps me (and my trainer/nutritionist) make sure I'm getting the protein and vitamins I need.
What this leads to though, is me hauling around this gigantic pad of paper. Sure, could've opted for something smaller, but I'd lose it going back and forth to everything I do every day. And when it's really inconvenient, sometimes I leave it at home. The food journal still does it's job: I think about logging something before I eat it, and it often (sometimes) makes me think twice about eating that extra piece of cake.
We'll see how long I can keep it up, but I've logged four days in a row now! Whoo hoo!