I have been
having the best weekend though I have no idea why. All weekend I have been in the most
incredible, upbeat and happy mood for no reason at all. If I could bottle this
and send it to you I would. Who knew
that a few snowflakes could have such a profound impact on my mood? ;-)
Actually I don’t know that the snow had anything to do with my mood but
it was a change and I do love snow so maybe that was the reason. ;-) I
hope your weekend has been equally good or better than mine.
As I am
writing this I noticed that the days are growing noticeably longer now. It is after 5:30pm and the sun is just
setting. Mother Nature is putting on an
interesting show this evening. The sky is cloudy but with the prettiest red/purple
popping up between the clouds. Sorry that my photos didn’t do it justice. It was fascinating to watch as the fast
moving clouds were changing the sky quickly.
I get the biggest kick out of watching the sky change colors. It
fascinates me that the older I get the more easily pleased I am with the little
things in life.
What have
you thought of the posts so far this month? Do you have any favorites yet? The
reason I am asking is so that I know what topics you would like me to write
about in future posts. If you have something that you would like me to write
about don’t be shy. For those of you who
are just joining us here is the recap of what we have accomplished so far to
remind us all of how much we have covered during the first 21 days of January:
Day 1 –
Defined Success and What is/was Holding Us Back
Day 2 –
Determined our Purpose and Looked at Passion
Day 3 –
Listed Our Goals for January
Day 4 –
Listed the Things We Have Needed to Work on for a While
Day 5 – Looked
at Optimism vs. Pessimism and Fear vs. Intuition
Day 6 – Practiced
Conscious Eating
Day 7 – Hara
Hachi Bu
Day 8 –
Taking the Stress Out of Meal Time
Day 9 –
Acknowledgments
Day 10 – No
Excuses, Do it Anyway
Day 11 – Is
it True?
Day 12 –
Have You Really Connected With Someone Today?
Day 13 –
Motivation is a Decision
Day 14 -
Successfully Navigating Dinner at an Unfamiliar Restaurant
Day 15 -
What Do You Want, Have You Asked?
Day 16 –
Treating Others as You Wish to be Treated
Day 17 –
Food as a Budget
Day 18 –
Silence Your Inner Critic
Day 19 –
Replace I Have to With I Want to
Day 20 –
Identifying Your Rituals
Day 21 –
Face Your Fears
What did you
think of yesterday’s post about facing your fears? I hope seeing my fears caused you to reflect
on your own and to make a plan to tackle at least one of yours. Please try to remember that we all need to
continue to learn and grow or we will start to wither inside. If any of us continue to do what you have
always done then we really shouldn’t expect anything in our lives to
change. I have tried many diets during my life,
probably more than I can count. It took me years to figure out what works and more
importantly what doesn’t work. Once I
gave up dieting then my health dramatically improved and I want the same thing
for any of you who are looking for change.
I realize
that many of the things that I have written about recently may be too close to
home for some of you. My reason for writing these posts is to shake you out of
your comfort zone because I know from personal experience that this is
necessary to get results. Everything I
have been writing this month comes from a place of love and wanting to help and
I hope that you all know that.
Give Up the
Diet Mentality:
Today’s
topic was inspired by a conversation that I had with a friend. That interchange has been rolling around in
my head for the last 48 hours and I think it is very important which is why I
wanted to write about it in this post.
There is definitely something that all of us can learn from this
concept, me included.
January is
the time when almost everyone tries to make changes to improve their
health. We are all conditioned to make
resolutions on January 1st. I
imagine many of you are either looking to lose weight or to improve your
health, this is what we do each January.
Most of us start off the month with a new diet or heading to the gym
every day. However as gung ho as we are
all early in the year most people fall off the bandwagon by the end of the
month. Why does this happen? I have spent a lot of time pondering this and
I think I know part of the reason why.
I am sure
that each of us has a friend who struggles with their weight or we have or
continue to struggle with our own weight. If you listen to people who are
struggling with their weight you will find that they have a few things in
common.
·
They are always going on or off a diet.
·
Each new attempt at dieting starts with a bang
and somehow fizzles out.
·
We seem to believe that the current quick fix
(diet) will solve our problem right up until it stops working. This is driven in large part by the diet book
industry IMO.
·
Diets are seen as something that we do until we
get the result that we want.
When you
read this list do you see the problem? I
think that it is always easier to see a problem when it isn’t ours (when you
are on the outside) but much tougher to see when you are inside. When any of us pin our hopes on the latest
diet we have set up a temporary situation that may work in the short term but
won’t work in the long term. In order to
achieve long term results you have to willing to make long term change. No one
wants to hear that but it a fact of life.
The problem with any diet (it doesn’t matter which one) is that most
people view them as a short term solution, I will eat this way until: I lose
20 pounds, after the wedding, after my class reunion, etc. We plan to go back to our old habits once we
have lost the weight. In order achieve
lasting success you need to be willing to make long term changes. The specific changes are not what it is
important, what matters is your commitment to long term change.
The first
thing to reflect on is what is the result that you are trying to achieve? Do you want to be a healthy weight for life
or do you want to lose weight for an event or situation? Many people think they can lose weight on a
diet and then go back to eating the way that they used to and yet they expect
to keep the weight off. I refer to this
as having their cake and eating it too. However how many of us has either been on that
diet roller coaster or know people who have and we all know it doesn’t work
long term. This is the reason that the
statistics are so horrible for people losing weight and keeping it off. Here is the bottom line; if we aren’t willing
to make permanent changes we won’t see permanent results. This is not difficult
to see in other people or with other situations however for some reason most of
us want to believe that diets are exempt from this law of cause and
effect. Diets don’t work specifically because we see
them as a “short term” solution. However
no other long term problem has ever been solved by a short term solution and why
would weight be any different?
Let’s look
at some of the specifics to help this make more sense. This time of year diets are everywhere.
Almost every magazine that arrived in my mailbox this month has had a diet in
it. Grab one of those magazines and flip
to the diet. What do you notice? The plan tells you what to eat for breakfast,
lunch and dinner. What is wrong with
that? None of us can live our lives
eating what and when someone else tells us to.
Life doesn’t work that way. What
if you are not home and don’t have access to tuna and whole wheat pita for
lunch and that is what you are “supposed to eat”? There is also the obvious problem of what if
you don’t eat tuna, or if you just don’t feel like tuna that day for
lunch? Do you see how this isn’t
sustainable for the long term? No matter
how disciplined any of us are we will grow tired of eating what someone else
prescribes for us.
In order for
any of us to improve our health we need to be able to make decisions for
ourselves in the moment. We need to learn which foods are good for us and which
ones are harmful. The idea is to eat
more of what is good for us and less (or preferably none) of what is bad for
us. The goal is to learn to consistently
make good decisions when it comes to fueling your body. This sounds complicated to anyone who
struggles with their weight/health but it is actually very simple. I have very few “rules” around what I eat
which probably surprises many of you who think the way we eat is very
restrictive (I hear that from many of you by email BTW). Here is the only thing that I keep in mind
when deciding what to eat:
What is the
healthiest thing that I want to eat right now?
That doesn’t
seem very complicated does it? At some
meals the healthiest thing that appeals to me may be a big salad, savory
oatmeal or a green smoothie. Other times the healthiest thing that appeals to
me is veggie sushi, whole wheat pasta with red sauce or tofu chocolate
mousse. I recognize that my mood changes
and that some meals are healthier than other meals and that is okay. Overall I am happy with my choices and feel
like they generally serve me well.
However this
is not to say that I don’t reevaluate my choices often because I do. I monitor my results and make adjustments all
the time, but these adjustments aren’t big so you would not necessarily notice
them. I will give you an example. When Dan was in the hospital my food choices
were not as healthy as usual (veggie subs) and as a consequence I put on a few
pounds. Once we were both home I made a
few adjustments so that those extra pounds came back off. This is the reason that I find it helpful to
get on the scale every morning. It isn’t the absolute number that matters; it
is the trend of the numbers. Example if the scale is rising I know that I need
to make changes immediately. Other
people may need to make changes if the scale is not falling or if it is falling
depending on your baseline and goal.
While I am
not a fan or diets I am also not a fan of the concept of moderation. One of the reasons that I always rail against
moderation is that the concept is incredibly vague. No one actually knows what moderation means
yet everyone claims that the practice it even Paul Deen. Really?
*scratches head* This just doesn’t make any sense to me. If we all think that we practice moderation
and over 65% of this country is overweight or obese how any of us can actually
think that moderation works? Is it just
me or do you see the same problem that I do?
Moderation
is all about having your cake and eating it too. Another way to look at
moderation is that we are giving ourselves permission to eat food that we know
isn’t good for us, because we are eating it moderation and we want to believe
that somehow makes it better. Would you
eat arsenic in moderation? Would you use heroine in moderation? Would you give
your children alcohol in moderation? Do you see the inherent problem with
moderation? Can you tell that I really
don’t think much of moderation?
I hope that
what I wrote about the diet mentality and moderation causes you to ponder these
concepts. I used to believe in both
diets and moderation too. However giving
up on both these has improved my health and happiness and I think that it will
do the same thing for you.
I am sure a
few of you are thinking, okay so diets don’t work and neither does moderation
but what should I be doing? Easy! The next time it is meal time just ask
yourself what is the healthiest thing you want to eat now. Continue to make
each meal decision with that thought in mind and you will improve your health.
Something
tells me that some of you still want more suggestions. Here are things that you might want to keep
in mind.
·
Fresh (raw) produce (vegetables and fruit) are
always good. Any time that you can add
fresh produce to your meals you should.
Raw produce is low in calories, high in fiber and high in
micronutrients. Go produce!
·
Increase the amount of protein that you get from
plant sources. The beauty of plant
protein is that it comes without saturated fat and with fiber. Whenever you can
add beans to a meal instead of animal products you are doing your health a
favor. I try to eat beans in some form
each day.
·
Concentrate on eating whole unprocessed
plant-based food. Try to eat at least
50% of each meal as whole unprocessed plant-based food. Once 50% is easy to achieve increase the
percentage. I try to eat 95% of my food
as whole food but I didn’t get here overnight.
Examples of processed foods for me include: anything made with flour, sugar, oil, as well
as things that come in packages. When
you eat mostly whole unprocessed plant-based foods everything about your health
starts to improve.
·
Drink more water. Our bodies are predominantly water and they
need water to function properly. Most
Americans are chronically dehydrated.
Instead of reaching for a diet soda or a cup of coffee drink water. If you don’t like water make it green tea, or
you can add cucumber, fresh herbs or citrus slices to your water for flavor.
When you put
these ideas into practice you will naturally crowd out the unhealthy
foods. If you don’t think you can make
all these changes at one time pick one and concentrate on that. Once that
change becomes a habit add another change.
Today’s
exercises are:
1. Record what you eat today in your journal. At
the end of the day review the list and reflect on your choices. Are you happy
with your choices? If you are happy with
them wonderful! If not identify the
choices that you would like to change in the future and think about healthy
substitutions so that you are prepared the next time. Write those new choices
down too. Here is an example to give you
an idea:
Veggie subs from Subway could become fresh
fruit and nuts from home or hummus and crudités (both of which I did after a
while at the hospital but not initially).
2. Select one of the items above to add to your
diet. Most people find it easier to add
things that to take things away. However
by adding more nutritious items you are less room for the unhealthy stuff. Look carefully at your diet and start with
the change that will have the biggest impact for you. For example if you eat a
lot of pasta substituting quinoa might be the right choice and would definitely
be a great way to reduce your processed food impact.
I know that I need to eat more mushrooms. We
got out of the habit of having them when Dan was in the hospital. In order to make this easier to incorporate I
am going to get back into the habit of preparing flavored mushrooms a few times
a week to have on hand for salads.
Sorry that I couldn’t come up with a better example here but I have been
working on my food choices for a while so there isn’t much left for me to
change in our dietary habits. ;-)
What did you
think of this section on ditching the diet mentality? Did I explain it in a way that makes
sense? I hope that I did. Like always if anything that I wrote is
unclear or you think that it requires clarification please don’t hesitate to
let me know either by commenting or sending me an email.
Progress on
my goals:
1.
Newsletters – Saturday was another productive
day for me which feels great. I love
being able to see the progress that I am making. *woo hoo*
2.
Body Bugg – I continue to wear my bugg and I
have gotten back into using the way I had intended when I purchased it. Go me!
J
3.
Date with Dan – The hubby and I have spent a lot
of time together this week. With the
weather we have stayed fairly close to home but we can have fun anywhere home
or out. ;-)
4.
Measuring
calorie dense food – I am making a little progress on this but I really need to
focus on it with every veggie meal to help my body absorb the fat soluble
vitamins.
5.
Working on my business – Saturday I took the day
off from working on the business. The
January posts are taking me many more hours to write than usual. As much as I
love these posts I will be happy to see February arrive since I really need a
little time back to work on other things, the business being one of them.
How are you
feeling about your progress so far? I
hope you feel like you have made a few lasting changes this month. J
Random
Thoughts:
When did
people stop cooking in this country? I
was looking at a recipe on Real Simple today for samosas and it called for
refrigerated or frozen mashed potatoes.
What? People buy prepared mashed
potatoes. My first thought was this was
a joke but no they really exist. When I
looked up the ingredients I was surprised that I couldn’t find it
detailed. Hmmm, I wonder what is in
there that they don’t want us to know about. Is it any wonder that people in this country
struggle with their health? *sigh*
One of the
toughest things in life for any of us to do is to be true to ourselves. Human nature means that we all want to
conform, to be included in the group, basically to be accepted. However when you have beliefs that are
counter to what the rest of the world believes it is difficult to “fit
in”. This was one of the scariest things
about changing our diet initially. I
knew that on some level everything about life would change. Many of our social activities would change
(cooking class for example), and friends would not understand why they saw us
less. However we both knew that we had a
choice to make, do what we believed was in our own personal best interest health
wise or compromise ourselves for others.
I think you know us well enough by now to know what we decided to
do.
If you are worried about how eating more like us will impact your life I won’t mislead you it is difficult at first. People will not understand your choices and
they will try to convince you that “a little bit of ……” won’t hurt you. My question is where do you plan to draw the
line? Is one unhealthy meal a week
okay? What is the point at which you
have gone too far? Dan and I follow a
diet that most people consider extremely restrictive. The funny thing is that
neither of us perceives it that way. We both think of food and fuel and most
people don’t. When your focus is on your
health making the best choice is very simple.
Acknowledgements:
Have you
made any progress writing acknowledgements?
I hope are working on this exercise. I find that it helps me stay
positive and recognize the things that I do every day. Here are my acknowledgements:
·
We have had a very good weekend. We got out of the house for exercise even
though it was icy. I took this picture
to try to give you an idea. Sorry it doesn’t really do it justice. I was
pleased with us for getting out despite the weather, that is when you know you
are committed, is should that be you should be committed? LOL
·
The split pea and barley soup that I made on
Friday was a bit hit this weekend. Is
there anything better than a thick bean soup when it is cold and snowy
outside? *pats self on back* ;-) I
describe the soup in more detail below in case you want to make something similar
at your house.
·
We finally took all the Christmas decorations
down. We had planned to take them down the evening that Dan ended up in the
hospital. While the decorations were up
much longer than usual, and longer than they should have been, at least we were
able to enjoy them more this year which was nice. I can almost always find a bright side to
everything you know. LOL
·
Other than to check the weather we haven’t had
the TV on in days. I love that we are
able to talk, read and enjoy the other persons company without the distraction
of a TV set. J I am one lucky woman to have married my best
friend. I guess this proves that good
things are worth waiting for.
·
My hubby is such a sweetie. He walked to the
store on Sunday, just to get out and move around, and called to see if I needed
anything. He came home with a beautiful bunch of kale (better than flowers) and
bananas. J
Saturday:
Breakfast for Dan was wild blueberry oats with goji
berries, a few cranberries, cinnamon, powdered ginger, nutmeg, stevia, raw
pumpkin seeds, raw sunflower seeds and hempseeds. Can sweet oatmeal get much healthier than
this? Probably not much healthier LOL. ;-)
You will not be surprised to hear that I had savory
oatmeal. This time I flavored it with
nutritional yeast (to make it cheesy), cumin, paprika and no-salt
seasoning. I add in frozen organic
veggies (corn, peas, carrots and green beans) and stirred in some fresh organic
spinach right at the end of cooking. I topped it with a little of the leftover
red sauce with mushrooms and finished it with a few of the smoked mushrooms that
I made for the split pea soup. Delicious
if I do have to be the one to say so.
;-) I never get tired of savory oatmeal in case you hadn’t noticed.
There are so many different flavor combinations yet to explore. LOL
We took our time getting breakfast so I ended up skipping
lunch. Dan polished off the remainder of the healthy tofu chocolate mousse
experiment so that I could work on the next batch and get the recipe “right”. Dan is just a giver isn’t he? LOL
Dinner was a bowl of the split pea and barley soup topped
with the smoked mushrooms. It was the
perfect cold weather meal. J For those of you who are curious I pressure
cooked a pound of beans, then added the ½ cup barley and cooked that normally
until the barley was soft. I seasoned the
soup with bay leaves, a touch of Dijon mustard, dill, caraway, onion, garlic and
no-salt seasoning. The smoked mushrooms were even easier. Take dried mushrooms
and rehydrate them in water, then squeeze out the excess liquid and move them
to a sheet pan. Add a little liquid
smoke (maybe ¼ - ½ teaspoon, some no-salt seasoning and toss to combine. Bake the flavored ‘shrooms on 350 degrees
until they are just starting to get chewy.
The exact time will depend on your oven and how dry the ‘shrooms were
when you started to bake them. Mine were in about 30 minutes.
Happy
thoughts:
Have you
gotten into the habit of writing your happy thoughts? I find it helpful to remind myself how often
things go well and that I shouldn’t take these things for granted. As always there are so many things to be
thankful for that I almost don’t know where to start. Here are my happy
thoughts:
·
The mystery fever has been gone for almost a
week now. We are both convinced that whatever caused it is now gone. Good riddance I say. J
·
The ice covered tree branches were beautiful
last night when we were out. I am sorry
that I couldn’t get a good picture of it with me phone. The trees seemed to be covered in diamonds
when the street lights shined on them. It
was definitely a gorgeous sight, but one that I was happy to walking in rather
than driving in.
·
Saturday our friend Jackie (Walid’s wife)
stopped for lunch and saw Ian. I am not sure how it came up but she mentioned
the trip to the hospital and not long after that I had an email from Ian. Are you starting to see what a small group we
all are? It is sweet that everyone at
the restaurant worries about us but I wish that they wouldn’t. *ugh*
While it is nice to have so many people care about you but it also comes
with responsibility. I hate to cause
people to worry. Looks like I need to go
out to lunch one day this week and fill the gang in.
·
Sunday morning I received a nice email from
Lauren (the very sweet nearly vegan nurse we met at Hopkins). We hadn’t run into each other on the street
and she wanted to let me know that she was definitely interested in getting
together for lunch. It is always nice to
make new friends isn’t it? Who could
have imagined that I would find a new friend from literally around the corner
while at the hospital? Life does seem to
work in mysterious ways sometimes.
·
Have I said recently how nice it is to be eating
my own food again? I feel so much better
then I eat things that I had made from scratch.
The weight I picked up while Dan was in the hospital is almost gone (it should
be completely gone by tomorrow), and I feel fabulous.
·
Next week we are expecting temperatures in the low
50s all week. *woo hoo* You know I will
be spending as much time outside as possible right? I love getting outside to breathe the fresh
air. *happy dance*
·
Binky was adorable today as we were taking down
the end of the Christmas stuff. He had to get into every box and investigate
each item we were putting away. I love that our cats still act like kittens though
they will all be 11 years old this year.
Our three fur children certainly bring a lot of love and laughter into
our house.
Signing Out:
I haven’t
even thought about dinner yet. It needs
to get off the computer and get my behind into the kitchen soon otherwise we
will starve! Okay we would never really actually starve because we both like
food too much, but I tend to have a flair for the dramatic. ;-) Since Dan brought home a big bunch of
kale that may make its way into dinner tonight.
Then again I am fickle so I am sure another dozen ideas will flow
through my head before I actually make dinner.
Who knows what we will end up eating.
See why I don’t bother to pretend that I am going to write a menu for
the week? There would be no point since I would never stick to it. LOL
I have been
shocked by the flood of emails that I have gotten about IIN. I had no idea so
many of you were interested in this. If
you are interested and you yet sent me an email at veganepicurean@gmail.com please don’t
be shy I promise that I don’t mind answering any questions that you have. It would probably be easier for us to talk by
phone so that you can get all your questions answered if that works for you.
Send me an email so that we can exchange phone numbers and set up a time to
chat. However if you are shy and would
rather communicate by email that is fine too, whatever works for you is okay
with me.
Enjoy the
rest of your Sunday. I hope you had a
fabulous weekend and are rested and ready to start your week, assuming you do
the 9-5 thing like my hubby that is. ;-) Talk with you again soon!
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to let you know I stopped by! :) I'm glad you are doing well and that you were in a good mood today. The chocolate mousse looked super yummy, as did the rest of the food! And your kitty is certainly cute. :)
Hi Alycia,
DeleteJust wanted to let you know, I'm almost vegan for one week. Thirst, I wanted to loose weight (29 pounds for 3,28 feets = too much) , I realized I slept better and woke up earlier naturally. But my all body is hitchy, perhaps because of the toxins to eliminate.
I've tried a lot a your recipes. The lasagnas were a bit hit at my house this week end ! I also made variations of soups with a bean base (red lentil, garbanzo, split peas...) .
Thanks a lot , you gave me the energy to start all this .
Eliza,
DeleteYay for being vegan for a week. I think that is very exciting. :-) We definitely sleep better now too. I agree with you that the itching is probably your body removing the toxins. It should go away soon.
Dan had the lasagna tonight too he loves that. I am glad it was a hit at your place too.
If there is anything that I can do to help don't hesitate to ask.
congratulations again,
Ali
I love the suggestion to ask myself, "What is the healthiest thing I can eat right now?" I'm going to start putting that into practice. Thank you, Dan, for taste testing for us! Lucky you!
ReplyDeleteI married my best friend too, Ali. We'll be celebrating 25 years together this year.
Christy,
DeleteIf you liked that suggestion I think you will enjoy today's post. I had an epiphany that I think might apply. Please let me know.
Dan is a giver LOL. He was taste testing lasagna tonight. He suffers a lot for others.
Awww, that is nice that you are married to your best friend too. So few married couples really seem to like each other, I am happy to know there are more than just us. ;-) We will also be celebrating 25 years together this year. 1987 must have been a good year.
enjoy the rest of your evening,
Ali
Hi Angel,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. I have no idea where my mood came from but I am not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Binky is cute, it is a shame he isn't well behaved. ;-)
Ali