Weekend Inspiration :: Check this out!

http://ohsheglows.com/

This is the blog I was talking about in my earlier post.  I am addicted to this blog and think I will probably not stop reading it until I have read every single post it has to offer.  The recipes look fabulous and the posts are amazing.  Go on, check it out, you know you want to!

Peace and Veggies,
Betsie

Why do I do that???

I can totally relate to this song.  I never fit in when I was younger, heck, I'm not even sure I fit in now!  I had a hard time making friends, I had a really hard time figuring out who I was and I had a hard time conjuring up any kind of confidence.  I made decisions that I look back on now and find unbelievable.

The part of the song where she says, "Why do I do that?" in a bewildered and exasperated whisper (at 2:47) is the part that resonates the loudest with me.  I have said this exact same thing in that exact tone of voice a million zillion times over the years.  Why do I do that???

So, now I am asking myself the hard questions.  Why do I eat that?  Why do I read that?  Why do I wear that?  Why do I act like that?  Why do I sit there like that?  Why do I sabotage myself like that?

I was reading another blog (you'll get to see later on in the week) today and I have been having an ongoing conversation with my cousin lately and it just hit me that I have had an eating disorder for about 13+ years now.  No, not the kind you usually read about like anorexia or bulimia.  I have a compulsive eating disorder.  I eat for all the reasons except the right one.  I eat because I'm bored.  I eat because I'm stressed.  I eat because I'm unhappy.  I eat because I'm tired.  You name it, I eat because of it.

I have definitely been on the right track the last couple of months in changing my habits or at least making them have less of an impact.  But I still need to work on some things.  I think the biggest and most important question above is this. Why do I sabotage myself?

I'd like to premise this next part by saying, I am not a huge fan of Dr. Phil.  I don't like most of what he says, but there are a few tidbits that struck a chord with me.  The one pertinent to this subject is, "What's the payback?"  In other words, what do I get out of being overweight and unhealthy?  Obviously there is something keeping me in this place, but what is it?  Am I afraid of something if I change?  Am I hiding behind something?  What do I get out of this?

Well folks, this is something I have been asking myself for a long time and I am no closer to the answer now than I was years ago.  I have a strong desire to be healthy and a strong desire to bring the sexy back, so what is holding me at bay?  What so I stand to lose if I lose the weight?

I think what I have to do while I am searching for the answer to these questions is push through and make it happen in spite of myself.  I have to start believing that I am worth it and start acting that way too.  What I think of myself is none of my business, right???  I can get on that treadmill and spend a half an hour everyday physically feeling my heart get stronger and my thighs get smaller, whether I want to or not.  I can open that refrigerator and then close right back up whether I want to or not.  I can be a more active participant in my life whether I want to or not.  And that, my friends is what I'm going to do.  Whether I want to or not.  Yeah.  I can do it.

Peace and Veggies,
Betsie

Extreme Vegan!

I think I will have to stop watching food documentaries!  Yet another movie has turned my head and changed my mind.  No, I'm not backing out of the vegan thing.  I'm going even deeper into it, kinda scary!

A couple of weeks ago I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix.  The title was intriguing to me, so I gave in to my curiosity.  It features two men working to restore their health and manage an unusual medical condition without medicine.  They did this by going on a juice fast for 60 days, each at separate times.  Their results were amazing and inspiring.  I highly recommend it, even with the goofy cartoon intervals.

Considering my significant need for weight loss and health regained, and the fruits and veggie only component, I began to contemplate a juice fast option.  Could I actually pull it off?  How long should I fast?  Won't I be cranky, miserable and anti-social, nursing a weird, green cocktail whilst my family enjoys solid food?  Do I even own a juicier?

I do think I can pull it off, I'll have to dig deep into my bag of mental tricks, but it's doable.  I have picked a goal of 30 days.  I want to go up to 45 days, but I'm going to keep it at a month to start.  Miserable, maybe.  I plan on starting my fast August 8th, when all three kiddos are at camp for a week.  I should be over the worst of the detoxing by the time they come home.  Hopefully, I can get into a groove to carry me through the rest of the summer.  The garden will be in full swing, and I can juice fresh, ripe tomatoes, watermelons, and carrots, yippie!  I don't own a juicer, but I have two on loan to get me started, thanks Mom and Miss Crafty!

I do like the idea of pumping huge amounts of nutrients into my badly nourished body.  As a nice bonus, all the veggie/fruit pulp will help nourish the soil as well, via my compost heap. Win-win.  I am not looking forward to cleaning the monster mashers, but really, a small price to pay.  My biggest fear is blowing the whole deal on some random craving or eating absentmindedly while cooking for others.  It will take a lot of concentration to keep my eating habits in check.  Focus is sooo not my strong suit..... look something shiny!  I am counting on the pressure of announcing my fast to all and sundry to give me a laser like intensity.  Oh, and did I mention the weekly weigh in updates and daily photos? ( Photos will not be shown till the end when I can do my Incredible Shrinking Woman montage, yay!  ) That should keep me reasonably attentive, probably. 

I am beginning to taste test different juice combos for the big fast.  I don't want to find out the hard way that I just can't stomach the beet-spinach-kale smoothie I was counting on for lunch all week.  I believe I will prevail, with the support of my family and fellow Divas, and give my new veggie life a gigantic kick start! 

They are not ripe now, but I will be juicing them by and by! 

Viva la Veggie!
Jenni

Why Vegan? Why can't you eat a little cheese?

Today I'd like to share an article on dairy. Throughout all this thought and planning to convert my diet to veganism, I've always balked at the dairy. Not milk, I'm not a fan of milk. Not even ice cream. I could live without ice cream. But cheese! And greek yogurt! Mmmmm....good stuff.

Right? Well, right. It does taste good. Then I read this article:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/mar/dairy.htm

The only reason dairy tastes good is because of additives? Like sugar and salt? Well....I guess that makes sense, actaully. Cheese without salt is disgusting. And ice cream without sugar would be just a blob of frozen milk, and we know all know how disgusting it is when the milk freezes. So when I enjoy that cheese, what I'm actually enjoying is the salt. And along with that salt comes a whole host of health problems my body doesn't appreciate, such as cholesterol, animal proteins and chemicals.

So where does that leave me? Honestly, I don't know. I'm struggling this week, my first week of eating 100% vegan. I don't know what to put in my coffee, because I've always liked just a splash of cream and nothing else seems to do the trick. I ate a lot of salads but quite often caved and allowed myself a little feta cheese sprinkled on top. I purchased a vegan cookbook (Everything Vegan by Vegetarian Times Magazine, highlighted in last week's post) which gives instructions for vegan cheese substitutes. And honestly? They look pretty good. I mean, if all I'm enjoying in the cheese is salt, perhaps I wouldn't mind if the salt was carried along with a nut spread rather than dairy. This week I'm going to make one. I'll let you know how it works out.

So all  in all, the veganism hasn't been going perfect. I don't miss meat. But the dairy I'm going to have to work on. The attached article will give me something to think about this week. I wonder if I can find a convincing article about eggs?

Plans and goals

Hi, Kathleen again. The hippie diva, remember? Today I’m going to fill you in on my plans to turn my family’s diet into a primarily plant-based diet.

This is not going to be easy. For starters, our food choices over the past ten years have revolved around the SAD (Standard American Diet), albeit a bit on the healthier end. We’ve never eaten meat on a daily basis, for instance, and we’ve always liked vegetables. But as much as I like veggies, they don’t get on the table as often as I want because I’m not always willing to cook them. I want something quick and easy. We also tend to keep away from junk food, except as an occasional snack. Our biggest food problem is eating out. I’d do it all the time if I could, just to avoid cooking. I'm positively addicted, as a matter of fact, a topic for another post.

But one month of disciplined cooking? I can do that. I don’t want to do it, but I can. Following the vegan-only month, our plan is to continue with the vegan diet on weekdays and allow a little more flexibility on weekends. I’m hoping this transition will allow my family to eat a healthier diet without having to completely give up some of the animal based foods they enjoy. Our Vegan Challenge month will go from July 18^th to August 18^th and I will primarily follow recipes from two cookbooks:

The Supermarket Vegan by Donna Klein. This is for my easier days. Plenty of familiar ingrediants, nothing too complicated or new.

Vegetarian Times Everything Vegan by The Vegetarian Times Magazine. This book has recipes that are a little more complex, but not overwhelmingly so. For example, there are recipes to make cheese substitutes out of nuts. Now, I KNOW cheese will be my weak spot (right after real cream in my coffee!), so I want to have a plan laid out to make sure I'm able to have something ready to substitute on occassion.

Next week I will post a recap of my weekly cooking adventures and let you know how everything went, whether my five pre-teen children approved, which recipes worked and which didn’t.

As for exercise, I have been walking with a neighbor most mornings. We started with simple 2 mile walks and have expanded our daily walks into 3 ½ - 5 mile walks, with a little stair climbing thrown in for good measure. I know the exercise is making me stronger because I’ve been practically ravenous, especially on days we walk 4+ miles. The Vegan Challenge might be tricky to coordinate with these hungry days, so I’ll let you know what types of snacks I choose.

The month of August will be an exercise challenge month for me. Some ideas for this are to walk at least a 5k every day or to walk every day but insert at least a one mile run. If anyone has any other ideas for an exercise challenge, let me know. By the time August roles around I’ll be well-entrenched into the Vegan Challenge and hopefully have a good grasp of how much I need to eat and what keeps my energy levels high.

Wish me luck! Hopefully next Monday I’ll have some positive updates on the Vegan cooking front!

The good, the bad and the getting better

So, for the last 6 weeks or so, I have been really focusing on my food intake.  I decided that I just had to bite the bullet and go vegan.  I have cheated, I have had moment of weakness, but for the most part, I have been quite diligent in this endeavor.  I still have a lot of fine tuning to do and some more adjustments to make before I will really feel like I've got the hang of this.

I find now that I am not even interested in eating meat.  The thought of a nice, juicy, Crispy Chicken Sandwich from Wendy's used to totally consume me, but now it just makes me feel vaguely nauseous.  Hamburgers hold no sway over me and spaghetti with meat sauce is no longer appetizing.  Bacon, now that's a different story.  But really, bacon's not meat, right???  For the most part, I have conquered the animal flesh demon and I'm not even tempted to look back.

You might then ask, "Betsie, what is it that you need to fine tune?  What are your vices here?"  Well, that's a good question and I have a very good answer for it.  Cheese and white bread.  Yup, those are my Achilles' Heel.  In fact, just last night I went out for a drink with my niece and we consumed a staggering amount of yummy white bread.  I did bypass the cheese, so I guess I won that particular battle that time.  But over the past 2 weeks, I've had pizza 4 different times.  I'm awful.  I know it.  Don't even try to make me feel better.

See, the perfect combination of white bread and cheese...  Remember, this is BAD!!!

 

The good news is that this is not a competition or a race.  I have all the time in the world to make the changes I need to make.  I have time to make mistakes and be forgiving.  Which is good, because I'm making a lot of mistakes. 

I know that I need to eat more whole grains and more greens.  I know I need to eat less of the chips and salsa and more quinoa.  I know that while Oreos are in fact, vegan, they are neither plant based or a whole food.  I know that I need to spend less time in front of this computer and more time on the treadmill.  Those are a lot of changes to make and I know that I need to give myself time to change my paradigm.

I have figured out that the more I eat at home, the better I am going to eat.  Restaurants are not even offering vegetarian salads anymore, they all come with meat!  Our families and friends, except the other Divas, are not going to change for us (Which is fine, by the way.  This is our choice, not theirs), so it's not even safe to eat there.  So for now, our social options are limited.  Thankfully the Divas and their families are awesome to hang out with! 

For the next few weeks, I'm going to work on including more whole grains into my diet with will hopefully mean that I exclude the simple carbs more and more.  I'm also going to work on getting 30 minutes of exercise in at least 5 days a week.

Peace and Veggies,
Betsie

I Almost Didn't Go!

Can a movie change your life?  Should it?  It seemed like a simple and straightforward thing to do.  Go see a movie with friends, a girls night out that I badly needed.  I wasn't thinking I would change my mind, let alone my life.  In fact, I had almost backed out of the whole deal, but I'll touch on that in a minute.

I have been a meat and potatoes kinda gal.  Maybe some sad, canned veggies would grace my plate occasionally, but not often and not in large quantities.  I viewed salads as a waste of time, bring me some cheesy fries!  I was proud of my pop swilling habit, and chocolate was my best friend, barring ice cream, of course.  Food was my safe haven, sometimes my only haven, and I sought out it's supposed security often.

I have spent years fighting with my fat, loathing myself and what I had become.  I felt powerless against food and it's siren song, wrecked on the rocks without hope of recovery.  I have considered  grastric bypass surgery, gone to fat camp, tried shake diets and numerous workouts, nothing stuck except the fat and the feeling of failure.  "What should I do?" was my weary and worn cry that didn't seem to have an answer.  Well, a good answer anyway.  Less calories, more exercise, bottom line.  But I had already failed at that, repeatedly.

I decided to take a look at my failures, what was the common denominator, how and why did I fail.  That was fun!  I have taken the last two years to work on my state of mind, more than my state of body.  Gradually, I have rebuilt my mind and how I process my experiences.  This has been the breakthrough I was looking for.  I couldn't fix a broken body with a broken mind.  Once I addressed my mindset, changing my habits has become soooo much easier.

I was already focused on changing many of the family paradigms, from homeschooling the two youngest kids, to planting our first garden, and cutting off the cable tv.  I was interested in learning more about healthy eating, reading recommended books and trolling through blogs day and night. Forks Over Knives seemed like a great opportunity to get more info and get out of the house.  Then I remembered my little social difficulty.  I have had problems squeezing into seats since I gained so much weight.  Booth seats, theater seats, and pretty much any seat with arms can cause me to break out in a cold sweat.  It was a struggle to force myself to go anyway and deal with being uncomfortably, embarrassingly squished for two hours. 

I am so glad I did, it was worth the squish.  I walked out of the theater knowing that I had found a good answer, finally!  Not for just my weight issues and all the underlying hazards that go with fat, but for long term sustainable health for me and my family.  I knew it would be a huge undertaking and tax all my new found mind bending skills.  I am up for the challenge, ready to leave the old, bad habits behind, becoming a happier, healthier me.

Can a movie change your life?  Yep.  Should it?  Depends on the movie! 

Viva la Veggie!

Jenni

I’m in deep trouble, really deep. I have had high cholesterol since I was twenty, danced
around with diabetes for two of my three pregnancies, and just recently developed high
blood pressure. Did I mention I am also 125 pounds overweight? Yeah, that doesn’t help
things much either.

So how did I get in such rough shape? I didn’t struggle with childhood obesity, a little
chubby during adolescence but nothing that didn’t resolve naturally. Some weight snuck
up on me my senior year, about 20 pounds, but I thought some serious bike riding would
do the trick. Not so! I got stronger, but no weight loss. I got married right out of high
school, and added another 20 pounds, for no good reason. By my first anniversary, I was
another 25 pounds heavier and pregnant.

I gained and lost and regained fifty pounds over the next two years, riding a roller coaster
of postpartum depression, bankruptcy, determined exercising and then more depression.
By the time I had found out I was expecting again, I was steady at 235, yikes! Again I
gained some and lost some and regained some more weight over the next years. Long
story short, I’m 36 years old, 5’1” tall and 260 pounds. Like I said, deep trouble.

The good news for me is I have made some head way on improving my health. Just
two and half months ago, I quit drinking pop. It was a huge, major big deal for me. I
was a 2-liter a day Coke-a-Cola gal. Now I am ready to up the ante, diving into a vegan
lifestyle. Well, maybe I’m more wading in to test the waters, but it’s still a big change
for the better.

Jenni