Day 18

Tried a new salad dressing concoction today.  Didn’t have any avocados on hand so used a tablespoon of peanut butter and mixed it with about ¼ cup of vinegar… that was the dress.

Breakfast:

• Sprouted grain toast, peanut butter, jelly

Lunch:

• Pumpkin seed granola with soy milk

Snack:

• Salad of romaine, cucumber, bell pepper, tomato, vinegar, peanut butter

Dinner:

• Salad of green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, oil, vinegar
• Broccolette with lemon
• Brown rice with tomato and onion

Day 17

Changing the color of my raw foods so I can pay more attention to them.

Pre-Breakfast:

• Juice of two tangelos, one grapefruit

Breakfast:

• Sprouted grain toast, peanut butter, jelly

Lunch (out):

• Pizza crust with tomato sauce (scraped off cheese and pepperoni)

Snack:

• Tuna Salad: Tuna, romaine, cucumber, bell pepper, tomato, vinegar, dill relish

Dinner:

• Tuna Salad: Tuna, romaine, cucumber, bell pepper, tomato, vinegar, dill relish

Day 16

At least I ate some fresh, raw foods today.

Breakfast:

• Sprouted grain toast with peanut butter and banana

Snack:

• Walnuts with raisins
• Saltines

Lunch :

• Salad of romaine, bell pepper, cucumber, celery, avocado, lemon juice, pepper, vinegar, kalamata olives

Snack:

• Salad of romaine, bell pepper, cucumber, celery, avocado, lemon juice, pepper, vinegar, kalamata olives

Snack:

• Smoothie: soy milk, raspberries, almond yogurt, TJ's green drink powder

Dinner:

• Corn tortillas with soy cheese and salsa

Dessert (brother’s b’day):

• Chocolate cake

Day 15

Yeah, not the most brilliant of days, eating-wise.

Breakfast:

• Sprouted grain toast with peanut butter and jelly

Snack:

• Edemame

Lunch (out with friends):

• Rice, curried eggplant with vegetables

Dinner:

• Sprouted grain toast with peanut butter and jelly

Day 14

I did have something today that I normally don’t have (an ice cream cone)… but I was over at a friend’s house and don’t mind a treat once in a while.  It’s been two weeks of fairly healthy eating. 

Breakfast:

• Sprouted whole grain toast with peanut butter and jelly
• Roasted chicory drink with soy milk

Snack:

• Carrot, celery juice

Lunch:

• Black bean soup with vegetables and wild rice

Snack:

• Ice cream cone

Dinner:

• Salad of quinoa, bell pepper, tomato, kalamata olives, oil, vinegar, pepper
• Corn tortillas with soy cheese

Day 13

Down nine pounds.  Haven't check pulse or BP lately.

Pre-Breakfast:

• Juice of 2 tangelos and 2 grapefruits

Breakfast:

• Pumpkin seed granola with soy milk

Lunch:

• Sprouted whole grain toast with peanut butter and jelly

Snack:

• Edemame

Dinner:

• Salad of romaine, bell peppers, tomato, pine nuts, kalamata olives with dressing of avocado, lemon, vinegar and pepper
• Rice noodles with Pad Thai sauce

Day 12

Pre-Breakfast:

• Juice of 2 tangelos and 2 grapefruits

Breakfast:

• Raspberries
• Sprouted toast with peanut butter and jelly

Lunch:

• Salad of romaine, bell pepper, celery, tomatoes with dressing of avocado, lemon juice, vinegar, pepper
• Roasted potatoes with sautéed onions

Snack:

• Sprouted toast with peanut butter and banana

Dinner:

• Quinoa with kalamata olives, vinegar and pine nuts

Dessert:

• Pumpkin seed granola with soy milk

Day 11

Breakfast:

• Oats, soy milk, walnuts, maple syrup

Snack:

• Juice: carrot, kale, ginger

Lunch:

• Crookneck squash, marinara, soy mozzarella, pine nuts

Snack:

• ¼ spelt toast, peanut butter, jam
• Chicory drink with sweetened creamer

Dinner:

• Potatoes, soy bacon, soy cheese, onion

Day 10

Breakfast was not entirely healthy, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't that unhealthy either. 

I’m relying too much on PB&J sandwiches.  Need to find some new tricks.  I’ll probably go shopping tomorrow… which means I need to think ahead.  I think I need to pick up some avocados… start using those in my salads in place of oil.

Breakfast:

Shrimp wonton soup

Lunch:

Peanut butter and jelly on sprouted grain bread

Chicory drink with sweetened creamer

Dinner:

Smoothie: soy milk, soy yogurt, TJ’s green powder, flax seed oil, blueberries, raspberries

Snack:

Almonds

Day 9

I was out for most of the day so although I didn't have as much raw food as I’d like, I did okay.  And I was good with my water intake, too.

Breakfast:

Oat cereal with almond milk

Snack:

Peanut butter and jelly on sprouted bread

Lunch (out with friends):

Fish, corn tortillas, guacamole

Snack:

Apple

Dinner:

Whole wheat pasta with marinara and soy mozzarella

Yams

Black beans with cucumber, onion, celery, bell pepper, and oil/vinegar

Day 8

Weighed myself again.  Five pounds down (but it’s easy for a few pounds to come off right away on any new diet change).  And that's five pounds total... not five pounds AND three pounds as mentioned the other day.

I need to kick up the "raw foods" a notch.  

Breakfast:

• Oat cereal with soy milk

Lunch:

• ½ veggie patty with yams

Snack:

• Smoothie: soy yogurt, soy milk, TJ’s green powder, flax seed oil, raspberries

Snack:

• Walnuts and raisins

Dinner:

• Whole grain pasta with marinara and soy mozzarella
• Salad: black beans, onion, cucumber, celery, bell pepper, oil, vinegar, pepper

Day 7

Sorry for the post and run... lots to do today!

Breakfast:

• Whole grain cereal
• Soy milk

Lunch:

• Sandwich: Sprouted grain bread, hummus, olives, cucumber, bell pepper

Snack:

• Banana
• Triscuit
• Peanut butter and jelly on whole grain muffin

Snack:

• Apple with peanut butter

Dinner:

• Vegetable patty

Dessert:

• Yams

Day 6

So today I’m trying soy milk rather than almond milk.  So far, I think the taste is milder, which works for me.

I’d like to thank the people who are leaving comments.  It’s kind of odd because no one knows about this blog (as in, I didn’t tell anyone), and yet some of you have found it and are being so helpful and encouraging.

Elisa, you’re right… I need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.  I’ll work on that tomorrow for sure.

I’m going to start high-lighting the fresh foods I eat so it’s more noticeable to me.  I want 50% of what I eat to be raw.

Cortney, congrats on your month of plant-based eating!  I'm going to look into those books.

Today I did drink a lot of water.  Thank goodness.

Oh, and I went to the gym today and I’m down three pounds.  Not going to get excited yet, though… not until I see a consistent, steady downward trend.

Leaving the gym was interesting... on my way out is a Wendy's, a Taco Bell, and a Panda Express.  And yes, I love all three of those.  Yeah, I know... bad, bad, bad.  But at least I'm honest.  

No, not slipping off the wagon.  Yay me!  But when I say I'm feeling a little deprived, it's in relation to things I used to eat.  I mean, I'd put an entire tablespoon (or more!) of butter on a piece of toast or half an English muffin.  Seriously, I should weigh about 400 pounds.  Three taco supremes?  No problem.  Mmmm...  But that's my former self, hopefully.

Today's food:

Breakfast:

• Whole grain cereal with soy milk

Snack:

• Raw walnuts, raisins

Lunch:

• ½  lentil/cabbage wrap
• Popcorn with olive oil

Snack:

• ½  lentil/cabbage wrap

Dinner:

• Black beans, rice, salsa, soy cheese
• Salad: romaine, tomato, cucumber, olives, oil, vinegar

Dessert:

• ½ spelt muffin with peanut butter and jam

Day 5

I don't feel thinner, but I'm comparing this to any of those countless times where I did crazy kind of diets and probably just lost a bunch of water the first week... along with 5 pounds.  I need to be patient.  At least I don't feel hungry all the time.

Breakfast:

• Granola with almond milk

Snack:

• Banana with peanut butter and a drizzle of maple syrup

Then I went out shopping with my mom and we stopped at a Chinese restaurant, which was GOING to be a Thai restaurant, but my mom gets confused about these things.  See, I know of some good vegan Thai dishes, so it wasn’t going to be a problem.

And as I’m looking at this Chinese menu, I started remembering that in the documentary (which PROMTED my diet change), it wasn’t about veganism, it was… well, hold on, wiki put it better than I could: “Plant-based diet is a general term that refers to an eating pattern dominated by fresh or minimally processed plant foods and decreased consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products”.

Then I recalled some of the interviews and how they were talking about like, yeah sure there would be meat at the dinner table, but it wasn’t the main course.  It wasn’t like “meat… with some vegetables and rice”.  It was rice and vegetables with a little bit of meat.

I also recall they were saying certain fish were less desirable, but if you’re going to eat fish, here are some better choices.

And I realized, I’m not doing this diet because I want to be vegan; I’m doing this diet because I want to get healthy… by way of restricting/reducing  my processed food and animal product intake.

So my apologies to any vegans out there that I may be offending now, but I think if I have the occasional piece of fish (and that’s really the only animal product I can think of that I can foresee as a small, occasional portion of my diet), that I’m not going to consider it “falling off the wagon”.

I’ve never been a big fan of poultry and I pretty much only liked beef if it was disguised (like in a taco).  I’d eat eggs in a pinch, but they’re certainly nothing I crave.  And that only leaves milk and butter.  Not a huge milk drinker, so it’s easy to find non-animal substitutes for my tea, smoothies, and cereal. 

As for butter, I *know* I’m better off without it.  And I’m even cutting way down on my olive oil consumption.

So back to lunch:

• Five small shrimps, two cups of zucchini, rice, and soup

I ate half there and ate the other half a few hours later at home.

Late snack:

• Smoothie (see earlier entries for my recipe that includes blueberies) and spelt muffin with peanut butter

Now I’m going to bed and visualize the plaque leaving my arteries as my body thanks me for treating it nicely for a change.

Day 4

Pre-breakfast, squeezed juice:

• 2 grapefruits
• 2 tangelos

Breakfast:

• Sprouted grain slice
• Peanut butter
• Jam

Snack:

• Oat cereal
• Almond milk

Lunch:

• Black beads
• Brown rice
• Salsa
• Corn chips

Okay, today I finally started feeling deprived.  :-(

I treated myself to a:

• Barley coffee substitute with
• Flavored sweetener

Dinner:

• Sprouted bread sandwich of hummus, cucumber, kalamata olives

I have to make sure I keep healthy choices available.  

I don't even know yet what I'll have for tomorrow.  But we are going out, so maybe I'll think of something fun to pick up.

Day 3

Started things off right today.  Juiced:

• 2 grapefruits
• 2 tangelos

Decided I’m going to quit putting “organic” in front of everything this blog.  Just assume that 95% of everything I eat is organic.

Breakfast was:

• Sprouted grain bread
• Peanut butter
• Jam

Lunch was:

• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Grape tomatoes
• Hummus
• Corn chips

Afternoon snack was:

• Oat cereal
• Almond milk

For dinner, I ate leftovers, but this time added:

• Kalamata olives
• Marinara
• Eggplant
• Tofu
• Onion
• Brown rice

Then for dessert:

• Roasted yams
• Maple syrup

And that’s the end of my day.  I’m kind of surprised that I’m not feeling horribly deprived.  Maybe it’s because I’m still having pretty big portions.  When I had the veggies, it was a whole big cucumber, two large carrots and about a cup of tomatoes.  That’s a lot!

No liquids today other than the almond milk with my cereal and the squeezed juice upon waking.  I’ll have to do better tomorrow.

Day 2

Today I didn’t do what I know I’m supposed to do… what’s best for my body.

Instead of getting up and having breakfast or even something to drink, I started working right away.

Then, I had to run an errand and suddenly realized it was 10am and there’s no way I could go until noon without eating, so I grabbed the only thing that was convenient enough to eat in the car, which turned out to be some leftover fish.

It was about:

• 3oz of grilled Ahi

When I got home, I made a salad:

• Organic romaine
• Organic cucumber
• Organic tomatoes
• Feta
• Kalamata olives
• Organic pine nuts
• Organic onion
• Pepper
• Organic olive oil
• Organic rice vinegar

I’m a saltaholic so cutting way down on my salt consumption will probably be a healthy thing for me to do. So no added table salt on my salad, but the feta and olives have enough to satisfy my craving.

And as expected, I got “full” of my salad, but 30 minutes later was hungry.

So I ate a snack:

• A few rice crackers with
• Organic peanut butter

Then while I was making dinner, I had another small snack:

• Small bowl of organic oats cereal
• Organic almond milk

For dinner, I actually cooked something. It was an eggplant and tofu casserole:

• Eggplant
• Organic tofu
• Organic marinara
• Organic onions/garlic
• Half a piece of sprouted bread (made into breadcrumbs)

It was okay, but I served it over:

• Organic quinoa

Then finished the rest of my salad from earlier.

Its 6:30pm now and I can feel that my body thinks I’m hungry. I’m actually not hungry, but the urge to eat is pretty strong.

Seeing as how I didn’t have much fresh anything today, I should munch on some fruits or veggies. But instead I have a (bigger this time) bowl of:

• Organic whole grain cereal
• Organic almond milk

I don’t really like the taste of almond milk, but it’s the only substitute at the moment for cow’s milk.

And now I’m going to bed and although I didn’t eat as many fresh things as I wanted and I totally didn’t hydrate properly, I did stick to plan so I’m okay for now.

Day 1

Why do I want to chronicle my attempt to eat healthier? Maybe so I’m held accountable in some way. Dunno.

Anyway, I watched Forks over Knives and what can I say… the stuff they said made sense.

Trust me, I never in all my 50 years considered being a vegan. Vegetarian… maybe… but vegan?

But I’m going to give the idea of a plant-based diet a shot. It’s almost completely the opposite of a diet others in my family have embraced… the Paleo diet (meats, veggies, fruits, no grains or legumes, I believe).

The plant-based diet is veggies, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts/seeds. Both diets (the plant-based and the Paleo) do have some things in common, though… no refined products and no processed sugar.

Well, this blog isn’t supposed to be informational… it’s just me writing down what I do and how I feel about it.

So… Day 1… for breakfast (before I watched the movie) I had:

• Organic granola with
• Organic raw milk

Then I watched the movie, made a grocery list, and drove to Trader Joe’s.

Our Trader Joe’s doesn’t have as many organic items as places like Whole Foods, but the prices are about half of what I’d pay at Whole Foods, so I tried to get what I could at TJ’s.

The last thing I grabbed was their pre-made:

• “Spicy Lentil Wrap” (Trader Joe’s: lentils/cabbage/tortilla)

… which, although it’s on a white flour tortilla, I still felt good enough about the rest of the ingredients (lentils and cabbage mostly) to be okay with it.

I ate half the wrap there in the parking lot and the other half several hours later.

One thing that works for me when I think of it, is portion control. I was thoroughly sated after eating half the wrap, but I’ve been known to eat twice the amount that satisfies me for various stupid reasons (I like the taste of something, I don’t want to deal with leftovers, etc).

Small frequent meals are better for me anyway because I’m hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) so having a constant release of glucose into my system is better than a huge dump of glucose every 8 hours with nothing in between.

For dinner, I was surprisingly not starving, but like I said, I don’t like to go too long without eating, so around 7pm I made a smoothie:

• Frozen organic blueberries
• 6 oz strawberry soy yogurt (TJ’s didn’t have any plain yogurt, but it was sweetened with cane sugar, not corn sweetener)
• Organic almond milk (lightly sweetened)
• Organic flax seed oil
• Trader Joe’s Green Protein powder

Next to that, I had:

• Organic saltine crackers (TJ’s didn’t have any organic crackers so I just used what we already had in the house)
• Organic peanut butter

In case you can’t tell, organic is important to me. I don’t want GMO foods or pesticides.

So here are my goals:

1. Lose 50 pounds
2. Low resting heart-rate (maybe 50 or so)
3. Good blood pressure (maybe 110/70)
4. Have more energy
5. Have great mental health