After my life changing experience with the one and only Ted Grand I was ready to really take on this LYM challenge once and for all! I was healthy and accessible (to a degree) but now it was time to Live Green. Bring it on. I live a pretty green lifestyle as is, and I was ready to breeze through this week with my eyes closed. But living green (and I mean full on) can be a lot harder then one may think. Sure recycling is easy and composting is too, but it’s so much more then that. There are so many deeper ways to live green. That’s what I learned anyway.

The focus for this week’s pillar was to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet AND/or only buy locally produced food. Since I’m a vegetarian already I didn’t give that much thought. I’m living green all the time according to LYM standards!

Now that I look back, I suppose I could have pushed myself to eat more vegan and stop pretending I’m a vegan (I really like to think I’m a vegan). May be I need to reassess my intentions for this challenge? Part of me didn’t want to strict up my diet. Again, I did just finish cleansing and we all know how well that went. I know, I’ve been using this excuse for a long time. But, you should be proud of me, I decided to obey the pillar and be green my life in other ways.

The even harder part was really thinking about my actions each day and make the greener choice. Was I throwing things away that I could reuse? Was the food I bought locally grown? Thank goodness with the warm weather comes farmers markets and local produce! Farmers markets would have made this week lot easier. But you can source locally goodness in places like Kensington Market and St. Lawrence Market you just have to make the effort to seek it out. Because what are you supposed when the foods you need are not available locally? Have you ever stopped to read and look at where the food you buy comes from? I struggled with this too. Yes, buying local or organic when and where it’s possible is best, but it can get really pricey. And if you’re like me, you can’t afford to spend lots and lots on groceries all the time. The idea is do what you can and modify products you purchase and eat where possible. One money saver (and green saver!) is packing your lunch in reusable containers. I did this this whole week. More green points for me!

As the week went on I had more time to reflect on WWTGD (What would Ted Grand do?) around my daily decisions. I want to think in many ways Ted would have been very proud of my green successes. Like I said I packed my lunches for work, didn’t buy anything with take out containers or wrapped in plastic. I even saved my unused napkins after dinning out with my cleaning colleague at work for lunch. Oops, I forgot I did eat out once. My bad. I did actually convince one person at work to do the cleanse with me, this was our victory lunch together. I was very shocked I convinced someone too. But I stayed true to the super challenge and used zero disposable containers and I really tried to reduce my waste to zero for the whole week. Having zero waste is tough. We throw away a lot of stuff. It helped I was still living alone at this point. Jenn was away traveling with basketball Olympians while I was trying to be garbage free. There is even a challenge to do this. I like me a challenge!

So what else do I have to add to my green tasks (I tallied up a few more once I thought even harder about WWTGD). My apartment is Bullfrog Powered remember Moksha is bullfrogpowered too. I rode my bike everywhere (I do all the time) and I even practiced yoga everyday! I really did this week.

I was so good!