Urban life of Downtown Los Angeles - from the eye of an amateur street photographer

Carlo and I ventured to Little Tokyo recently for a great night of fun, food & laughter with family!  Since I was going to be down there anyway, I thought I would indulge in my new found past time of street photography.

I have come to love street scenes, the mood, capturing a moment and a feeling.  All these photos are unedited and exactly what I saw and felt at the time.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves and let the reader imagine what was going on at the time!  More to come soon!

Vegan?? Me a vegan??

It's no big secret that I have a weight problem...  Although it's no excuse, it didn't help that I surrounded myself with people who embraced my size...  In fact, they did more than embrace it, they celebrated it - had parties about it, formed clubs because of it and have websites devoted to it.  I guess I never identified with those groups, not because I thought I was not heavy, but just because I didn't understand it.  Everyone wants to be wanted, but I certainly didn't want to be wanted because I was fat - that makes no sense.  I wasn't always huge, but I certainly had gotten out of control.

I have blogged before about depression, and why I started to loose weight, however after a certain period of time I started to remember what it was like to be healthy and feel healthy, and it started to feel good!  Although I had lost a good deal of weight (100 plus pounds) I still was not as healthy as I could be.  During an annual physical, I got a clean bill of health aside from my blood pressure which routinely ran around 200/110 - much too high.  The doctor surmised that it was a combination of stress, weight, food choices and genetics which were contributing to my blood pressure issue.  At that point, I made a decision that although I had lost a good deal of weight, I was still not living a healthy life - I drank too much coffee, too much soda, and ate all the wrong things.  

I started slowly at first, no soda, cutting back on the coffee, trying to not take stress so seriously...  and from there it just snowballed out of control - and that was a great thing!  I stopped eating read meat, and then stopped eating meat all together...  I cut back on cheese, and finally stopped that all together too.  And it was not easy but I do have to give credit where credit is due as my partner Carlo was the single biggest encouragement anyone could have asked for.  He is a vegan now as well, starting a bit before I did - and there was no one who was as supportive in this journey as he was.  

So now, its all about eating healthy, staying active, and not sweating the small (and big) stuff!  Life is just too short to be unhealthy and unhappy and certain too short to let specific people bother me.  Carlo and myself make it a point to search out the best options for us, and you would be very surprised at how easy it is to eat  like this.  This weekend, we went to a new place for us, Native Foods, and the food was amazing.  Who would have thought vegan food could taste so delicious and for those who may think they need animal protein to be healthy, do a little research and watch Forks Over Knives - it was a transforming experience.

So, today my blood pressure is more controlled and I feel better than ever!  I am going to start doing blog posts about the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and I welcome you to join my in my journey!

Here is a sample of the delicious food at Native Foods - it's the "Chic'kan Run Ranch Burger" with Sweet Potato fries.  We ate at the Costa Mesa location, but there are several around Southern California.  Try it once, and I promise you won't be disappointed!