I started this blog because I wanted a way to hold myself accountable as I work on embracing a whole-food plant-based lifestyle. Originally I was planning to record my efforts with DDP yoga as well, but I've set that aside for now and I'm focusing on getting my eating habits right. I began this journey on January 1st, 2017.
Love that quote and it is so true. I am 3 weeks into this new way of eating. Gosh! It feels like it has been forever, but I'm feeling really happy about eating this way! I lost 2 more pounds for a total of 9 pounds. The week wasn't without its challenges (what week is?), so I'm feeling really happy that the choices I made were enough to shed 2 more pounds. I don't have much time to write, but I have been asked where I get recipes, so I thought I would share a few of the websites I like to get recipes from. I also have some vegan cookbooks I use.
Quick pizza: Pita with sauce, veggies, and vegan pepperoni (saw this at Whole Foods and wanted to try it; I would leave it off next time as it's processed and the veggies were the best part!)
Hooray, another week of plant-based eating under my belt! I lost another pound and a half bringing me to 7 pounds total lost. I'll take it and be grateful! More importantly, I feel so much better mentally and physically. More energy, more inner calmness, more control over my choices. It really feels fabulous!
In the video, I talked about some of the challenges I faced this past week. In some ways, this way of eating feels easy. As long as I live in my own little world with only my own delicious plant-based food surrounding me, I'm content. However, I have to go out in the world, smell tempting foods, cook them for my children (no, not trying to make them live this way...yet), deal with stress, disappointment, busy schedules, etc. There is a reason I've given up on this lifestyle in the past! However, I'm determined to make this time different. I've learned from the past and I will use that knowledge to make better choices. I'm going to process what's fueling my urges to eat mindlessly. When I feel the urge, I'll think about WHY I'm feeling that way, I'll analyze it, talk about it, go on a walk, take a bath, do whatever it takes. I will find other ways to work through the problem other than eating. If I fall down, I'll get back up and assess the situation. Why did I fall? How can I do things differently next time? I won't give in to the discouragement/failure beast!
Apparently, January 16th is the day people usually give up on their New Year's resolutions. It's January 17th and I'm still excited about making changes. Hooray! I have to give a big shout out to the Engine 2, 7-day Rescue facebook group for helping me stay excited and motivated. I joined the 7-day challenge (learn more HERE) and the videos and posts shared on that group have been so influential. They have carried me through many hard moments when I wanted to bail out. I visit that page while I walk on the treadmill and it makes me excited to walk on the treadmill! :)
In today's video, I mentioned making a 7-day loose dinner meal plan. It's more of a theme for the day to make my choices easier and organize the recipes I want to try. Breakfast is usually oatmeal with fruit. Lunch is usually left-overs and salad. I planned the dinner theme around my piano-teaching schedule and how much time I would have to cook on certain days. You will see that I am allowing some processed vegan foods on some days (Gardein products). It's not ideal, but it makes this lifestyle more liveable for me. I consider myself in transition. Maybe down the road I will be ready to completely eliminate the faux meat stuff.
Sunday
Mashed Potatoes (love the recipe from The Vegan 8 and have time to make them this day)
Gardein Meatless loaf, Faux Turkey Cutlets, or homemade lentil loaf
Broccoli or Green Beans
Sunday is also my day to make ahead stew/soup/chilli for weekly lunches and salad dressings.
Monday
Rice night
Top with stir-fry, Indian Cuisine, or do a Mexican themed rice bowl
Tuesday
Make ahead baked-dish (I teach until 7 so I want something that I can make in the morning, and throw in the oven an hour before I finish teaching).
Ideas: Enchiladas, Cabbage Rolls, Casseroles, Lentil loafs (I have several websites I visit with recipes I can't wait to try)
Wednesday
Veggie Burger Night wth fries made in the Air Fryer or oven baked
(Could also do wraps, lentil sloppy-joes, vegan veggie quesadillas)
Thursday
Crock-pot meal
Friday
Pizza or Pasta (no cheese of course)
Saturday
Date night--Eat out at a place with plant-based friendly options
or make some easy frozen food or left-overs at home if date night doesn't work out.
Well, I have one successful week of plant-based eating under my belt and I'm feeling happy about that. As you'll see in the video, I wasn't perfect and I fell short on some of my behavior goals, but I was thrilled with the 5 pounds I lost. I don't expect to lose that much every week, but it was really nice to have that happen the first week and know that all my efforts to change brought results.
In the video, I talked a little about the things that "went right," but I thought I would share a little more here about what made the week successful. I know, it was only one week, but it felt REALLY long because the changes were massive! Every successful day was cause for celebration! I think these were the keys to a successful week one:
1)Thinking ahead for meals and having the right food ready to eat.
2) Watching videos and/or reading posts daily from the plant-based community that provided continual motivation.
3) Finding a like-minded plant-based buddy to talk to/report to/share the experience with.
4) Forgiving myself when I wasn't perfect/fell short of my goals.
I'll talk more about each one:
1)Thinking ahead for meals and having the right food ready to eat.
This one is huge! My hubby is trying to do this with me, but we did not de-junk our home of all the off-plan foods because we are tackling our own need to change first instead of trying to make the whole family get on board (we have four kids). Thus, our home is full of convenience foods that are easy to grab when you are hungry. I had to counter that with making sure there was a lot of plant-based food that was ready to go the moment we were hungry. I had to cook much more than I normally do. We ate a lot of left-overs. I felt like I spent way more time in the kitchen than I had to spend, but I knew it was important. These are a few of the things I cooked last week:
--Vegetarian Chilli (from Lindsay Nixon): we ate it on baked potatoes and put it on taco salads
--Tofu Ranch dressing: I'm trying to eat oil-free so I made it without oil and it was fine.
--Quesadillas (no cheese of course): Sweet potato/black bean quesadillas, Hummus and roasted veggie quesadillas
--Beefless Stew, find the recipe HERE. It is a salt-free recipe, but it didn't taste delicious to me until I added salt and soy sauce. I also used veggie broth instead of water. I am trying to use less salt, but I need my food to taste delicious so I'm going to save that change for later. This was probably my favorite new recipe of the week.
--Thai Veggie Curry (From Engine 2 7-day rescue book)
--Baked sweet potatoes, plain. Thank goodness there is one thing I can eat without salt or seasoning. I love these warm and cold.
--Homemade fries made in our new Air-fryer (these do work better with a little oil).
--Spinach Artichoke dip from Forks over Knives Recipe App
--Mashed Potatoes from The Vegan 8, recipe HERE (really liked these)
I didn't love every recipe, but we ate all of them. Nothing was a total bomb and I haven't always had that much luck with new recipes! :) I also ate fruit, veggies, and tried to get leafy greens in every day. I had oatmeal for breakfast every morning with fruit, walnuts, chia seeds, and a decent amount of maple syrup. :) Almost every night, or sometime during the day, I had a bowl of cereal with almond milk (Engine 2 mix of Rip's big bowl and the Engine 2 granolas because they are oil-free). I was craving something sweet and comforting and that was the closest I could get.
Yesterday, I made a pot of chilli again and a big pan of vegan Augratin potatoes (yes, it's a thing and they are delicious and don't have processed vegan foods either!) so we would have some food ready to go for this coming week. I know I'll have to cook more meals, and make more salad dressing soon, but there is food in the fridge and I'm not worried about starving. At night or in the morning, I have been trying to think ahead about what I'm going to eat that day so I won't be tempted to eat the food my kids are eating. Knowing what you are going to eat is a huge help when there are tempting foods around.
2) Watching videos and/or reading posts daily from the plant-based community.
I joined two different plant-based challenges. One was Rip Esselstyn's Engine 2 Seven-day rescue challenge and one was a 10-day plant-based challenge started by Jane Birch from "Discovering the Word of Wisdom." The Engine 2 facebook group has been amazing with awesome success stories posted regularly and fantastic facebook live videos from plant-based doctors, athletes, and other gurus. They have been extremely motivational and encouraging and they helped me to keep my excitement for the lifestyle change. I did not eat as strictly as the challenge directed, but I enjoyed all the great motivation from the group. I talked about one of the e-mails Jane sent out in my video blog that helped me to get over feelings of failure.
3) Finding a like-minded plant-based buddy to talk to/report to/share the experience with.
I posted my concerns about making lasting changes on the Engine2 group page and another gal messaged me saying she had similar concerns. We decided to become penpals and report/discuss our journeys with each other by e-mail. It has been really helpful and enjoyable to have that this extra support this past week and now I have a new friend. :)
4) Forgiving myself when I wasn't perfect/fell short of my goals.
This one is also huge and I already talked about it a bit in the video. My all-or-nothing thinking can be like Kryptonite sometimes. If I fall short of my goals, my natural tendency is to say, "Well, I failed, the end, I'm done, there is no hope for me." I sort of had those discouraging feelings Wednesday night as I was falling asleep without having reached my goals for the day and feeling too tired to do anything about it. But I didn't give up, I kept trying. Yes, I ate chips a few times last week which wasn't part of the plan (and a good reason not to have that stuff in the house), but I made so many positive, healthy changes and I'm going to celebrate those!
I am determined to achieve my best health and fitness in 2017. To start, I'm committing to 30 days of eating a whole food plant-based diet along with doing DDP yoga 3 times a week. I have a long line of failed attempts behind me, but all I can do is look forward. I've been trying to figure out how I can make THIS effort different than others in the past. I've decided it might help me to keep a blog about my journey. The plan is to record my progress by video every week and give an update of my efforts. I also want this to be a place where I can talk about the emotional stuff that drives me to overeat and choose foods that I know are not healthy. Knowledge wise, I feel like I am an absolute expert on how to live healthy, but my choices don't line up with my knowledge. I hope blogging about my experience will change that.
