Doing great!

I have been lax this week about updating, but I am doing great! Even on Easter at my sister's. I didnt eat any chicken or ham, bit I really couldnt avoid butter. There was butter on every veggie, lol.

I,ve kind of settled into a routine. I eat my breakfast, then make myself a big juice to take to work with me. I sip on that all morning with maybe a few almonds, and that keeps me perfectly satisfied. My favorite juice is 5 carrots, 2 apples, one stalk of celery, a radish, about 1/3 of a cucumber, and an orange and a few strawberries. Tried some ground flaxsees on the top, but I didnt really care for the taste.

Lunch is either lentil or bean soup with some fruit for dessert, then dinner is some veggies plus whatever main dish Ive cooked. I like to make something early in the week that I can have for several days, because some of the recipes are hard to make (lots of steps and ingredients make a messy kitchen)

Friday

Still feeling the energy! What a great thing after two years of feeling lethargic! Got up early and made two batches of the vegan muffins for our "thank God the FCAT is over breakfast.". Not hard at all to resist all that stuff on the tables...I did not find it appealing at all. Just stuck with my juice and my lentil soup. It is becoming easier and easier. I feel like my body has been cleansed.

Who knows, I may stick with this for a while longer.

Catching up

On Thursday, I started feeling the enrgy that everone on Oprah was talking about. I came home from work and started cookinf right away. I made Mike a macaroni tuna salad, cooked a big pot of brown rice and made three bean chili for myself. Now that was a good recipe!

I had gone to a workshop about hydroponic garden at lunchtime with my friend Linda. ALl it ended up veing was a big advertisement to buy their system but it was still interesting. I do want to start growing some of my own food. They gave us free lunch but I brought a cashew butter and cuke sandwich just in case.....good thing, because they served a pasta salad with ranch dressing (a nono)and a quinea salad that tasted like dirt to me.

Anotherngood day...

Ooops, made a mistake yesterday

Starte out pretty good yesterday. Had a couple of Liz's cran apple muffins for breakfast, snacked on grapes and melon all morning, then had some black bean soup for lunch. I think I have not been getting enough protein, so I needed to up it a little with the beans. Then gene beans for a snack. Went home and was cooking the spaghetti arrabiata and enjoying a glass of Pinot noir, when I thought I should have something to much on. Grabbed the bag of Cheez Doodles without even thinking and ate quite a few (and sharing with my dog). Suddenly I thought "cheez doodles!!! cheese!! Oh no, that is not vegan!". Then, "well it is spelled cheez, so it probably does not have real cheese in them, right?". No such luck, looked at the ingredients and thy had whole milk solids, whey and cheese. I was so bummed out because I have been doing so well. Guess it teaches me to be more aware and read everything.

And the spaghetti sauce recipe was horrible, the wine gave me a headache and I ate too much garlic bread!

Muffins

Liz made some vegan cranberry apple muffins last night.  They were so good!!!!  No eggs or milk.  That is what I'm going to bring to the FCAT breakfast on Friday.  With that and some fruit I should be ok and not be tempted by someone's egg and sausage casserole or cheesy hashbrowns, lol.

If you haven't, you should watch "The Future of Food" and "Food Inc."  They are available on netflix and hulu.  They have really changed the way I think about food, and brought me to where I am right now.  Another good one is "Tapped."  I gave up drinking from water bottles after watching that one.  Lots of information out there that the big corporations and the government don't want us to know.

I';ve been watching "Treme" on HOB and decided I want a second line for my funeral lol.  Hopefully that will be a long time away.

Karen

Extremes

I seem to go from extreme hunger to extreme fullness. I kept a bowl of grapes and cantalouope on my desk all morning and picked at it...by lunchtime I didn't really feel hungry.  But I ate anyway, couscous, green beans and cukes.  Then I was so full I was uncomfortable.  3 hours later I was starving again so I had 4 ritz and a small applesauce. 
Dinner was lentil loaf, sweet potato and green beans and a tomato.    Hope that's it for the day...it feels like I ate a ton of food, even though most of it was fruits and veggies.

Feel good, not too sleepy even though I did have a glass of pinot noir.  I think I'll go have a cup of smooth move tea, *sigh*

Karen

Day 2

Ok, on Oprah, she said that her staff was running to the bathroom the whole week that they were eating the vegan diet.....I guess I have not yet realized that benefit!

Breakfast was easy, coffee, hot oat bran cereal with almond milk, and a side of grapes and cantaloupe. For lunch I brought some of the leftover couscous salad and green beens and a bowl full of chopped cucumbers and radishes. I still have two cartons of really good yogurt in the fridge here, so I guess I better give them away. I have an apple and some almonds for my afternoon snack, instead of my usual yogurt.

Told my office what I was doing, so now theres no cheating!

Karen

Shopping

It was a challenge shopping at Publix this morning........they didn't have a few of the things that I needed, and they kept the rest of them hidden, lol.  Finally had to ask a store manager where the tahini was.  Publix does not carry oat flour, kelp powder, Ener-G Egg Replacer, or nutritional yeast.  Luckily, my sweet and lovely daughter, Liz, offered to go pick up those things at Whole Foods for me.  WF had everything but the kelp powder.  (Guess my recipe will just have to do without the kelp.)

I can tell this project is going to take a lot of grocery shopping!  I went to the Clemmons produce yesterday, Publix and Whole Foods today.  After shopping, I washed, trimmed and cooked some fresh green beans, and made the Golden Couscous Salad.  OMG, what a job!  My kitchen looked like a bomb went off in it.  The salad was delicious, but very labor intensive. 

So here is what I had today.....

Breakfast:  Coffee, a whole wheat English muffin with cashew butter and jelly.  Orange juice with fresh strawberries.
Snack:  banana
Lunch:  Garden salad with homemade dressing, and some whole wheat Ritz with cashew butter
Snack:  Tortilla chips
Dinner:  Golden Couscous Salad, green beans, a tomato, some radishes and cucumber slices and a cup of coffee.

Not hard at all, but there IS a piece of my chocolate birthday cake left that keeps staring at me.  It has eggs, so I can't have it.....I'll have to look into those vegan desserts in case I have a sweet attack. 

Karen

checking

Just checking to see if the email forwarding works

Getting started

I have a new cookbook "1000 Vegan Recipes."  I looked through it tonight for some things I could make this week that wouldn't take a ton of ingredients that I'd have to buy.  In my freezer I already have black bean soup, lentil soup, onion soup (but it's made with chicken broth, so that's out), lentil loaf, vegetable curry, vegetarian sloppy joe mix (made with mashed lentils) turkey chili------can't have that so I should make some vegetable chili.

Here are the new recipes I decided to make :

Brown Rice Salad with Black Eyed Peas
Queso Dip
Golden Couscous Salad
Macaroni Salad
Golden Potato Soup
Pasta Arrabbiata

Oops, just remembered that we are having a breakfast at work Friday...I need to bring something for that, and Easter is next Sunday.  We are having dinner at my sister's house.  No Easter ham for me this year...(that's ok; ham always makes me feel so bloated after I eat it).  Maybe I'll volunteer to bring the dessert and the salad.  OK, off to hunt for more recipes.

Karen

Why?

I watched Oprah's Vegan Challenge last week and was intrigued.  I already eat a mostly vegetarian diet, so I wondered, "Can I give up the cheese, eggs and milk too?"  Most of the Harpo employees said how physically good they felt after only a week of a plant based diet.  I want to try it for a week.  Not to lose weight, (although dropping 5 pounds would be great), and not because I feel that ethically I shouldn't eat dairy....I am doing it for the health benefits.  Most of everything I've been reading lately has convinced me that a plant based diet is best for our health and energy level.

I am a 3 year breast cancer survivor, and I'm still taking tamoxifen.  It makes me so tired and unfocused...my energy level is very low, and I have sleep problems.  I'd like to get back to the gym, (I used to be a 5 times a weeker) but just thinking about it seems overwhelming.  On weekends, it's all I can do to get the laundry and the grocery shopping done.  On weeknights, I just lay on the couch and play computer games and watch movies.  I've gained some weight, and I just feel unhealthy.  I recently went on a new medication to counteract the effects of the tamoxifen, but I still don't have the energy and enthusiasm that I used to.

I don't think it will be that big of a change from how I'm eating, but it will still be a challenge.  I'll see how I feel after a week, and decide whether I want to continue.  Or maybe it takes more than a week to feel the effects? 

Karen