Monday, January 31, 2011

One Week Report

OK, it's a little bit more than a week but since I haven't posted about that yet, I figure I better do it now :)

Today is Day 9.

Everything is still going well. I finally cooked some food that I am not very fond of. It turns out that I don't like sweet potatoes when they are cooked within a dish. Also there were several odd spices that I added to the "curry" (did not contain curry by the way!). Oh well, I'll be eating it without enjoying it then :( After all that work I put into it, I am not going to throw it away. I've got one more serving left and then I will eat my Lentil Ragout which is as yummy as ever.

Today was my weight in day. I managed to drop 1.6 lbs and though I was a little disappointed - had hoped for at least 2 lbs - I still think it is a great result and definitely the healthy way to go.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Getting Anxious But Feeling Good

Today is Day 6 and I am starting to get anxious to see if my healthy eating habits have had any effect on my weight. I won't find out until Monday but I am still very, very curious.

So far I've been lucky that the food has been delicious. My new favorite is the vegetable paella that turned out extremely well and was good for six servings that allowed me to freeze a few portions for next week.

This weekend I am going to make a recipe that I haven't made in ages. It is a vegetarian lentil ragout and I'll only have to omit the canola oil for vegetable broth to sauté the onions in.

That should also make at least four portions of which I can freeze a few.

I have managed to exercise every morning of this week and have found it easier to walk faster and longer.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Healthy Eating Takes Time!

Half Way Through The First Week

Today is Day 4 of my tentative goal of 21 days. The book suggested to give this new vegan diet a three week test run before making any decisions, so that is what I am working on. Hopefully, I will feel better and drop some pounds when the three weeks are up, so I can continue.

The cooking is the toughest part as it takes up a lot of time. That of course is part of the reason that ended up eating rather poorly to begin with. Last night I meant to quickly prepare lunch for Thursday and Friday. That, however, turned into a long and painful project. There were so many different ingredients that needed to be chopped and ground, all which took a very long time that I would have rather spent with my little girl. The final result was very tasty but making dinners from scratch is very time consuming.

Yesterday morning I felt somewhat lightheaded and got worried that the diet was to blame. Now I am thinking that it may have from exercising on an empty stomach, since I don't eat breakfast until I get to work. I ate an apple after my 2.9 mile walk and it tied me over.

Tonight I will be having the last bit of my "smelly food" which means that I'll have to cook some more tonight for the next few days. I am really hoping that the other recipes that I bought ingredients for are easier to make.

There's got to be a more efficient way of cooking!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Healthy Food = Smelly Food

After "stinking" up the house last night with my delicious dinner, my husband is still rather annoyed by the fact that the smell made him sick; so I am not sure how I will ever cook this dish again. I brought the left-overs to work, so he won't have to deal with the stench tonight.

Lunch was good tasting as well, but the onion aftertaste may not be kind to everyone entering my office.

Day 2 is still going strong (and smelly)

Sunday, January 23, 2011

It has been almost one year ...

For nearly one year now, I have been following a so called lacto/ovo vegetarian diet. Giving up the meat has been rather easy and I wonder now why I haven't been able to do that much earlier, since I felt for a while rather like a hypocrite by eating meat.

We have come to the decision of no longer consuming animals independently. I am partly (or mostly) crediting Seashepherd and Captain Paul Watson and his wonderful crew for our final turn-around.

I have been fond of whales ever since I can remember and was very much interested in protecting them as a teenager. I cannot remember exactly what lead me to believe that whaling was done and over with or if I just simply grew up to worry about other things in my life. After all, leaving my home country and moving to the United States, working full time and going to school was time-consuming but I feel very guilty now that I had pushed the fact that there were still killings going on to the back of my mind. Of course, I wasn't aware what huge production the so called "Research" from the Japanese whalers included. There is a factory ship, several harpoon ships, a spotter ship and a refuel vessel.

After a Seashepherd ship was rammed and sunk by one of the Japanese harpoon ships, we heard about it on the news and found out what was going on in the Southern Arctic Ocean.

After purchasing seasons one and two of whale wars, we were enticed and after much research both of us came independently to the conclusion that we no longer wanted to eat animals. After my Sunday grocery shopping trip, my husband told me that he didn't think he could eat meat again to which I responded "good, because I didn't by any; I got some tofu instead."

My vegetarian diet went well but not really healthy. Cutting out meat didn't bother me but most of my dishes were heavy on dairy.

I am now at a point - finally - that I cannot watch myself get bigger and bigger due to an unhealthy life style including candy and snacking through out the day.

When I came across the book "the get healthy, go vegan cookbook" on one of my amazon.com suggestion lists, I was hooked. I ordered it, read as much as I had time to and planned the day I was going to make the change. At first I thought it wouldn't be too hard to do but once I realized that it would affect my entire day staring with the creamer in my coffee in the morning that I so cherish, our weekly family outing at Moe's to the cheese pizza on Friday evenings.

Today is DAY 1!
My first day going completely vegan. It went well but I didn't eat enough since I was missing some key ingredients for my lunch; instead I ate two apples throughout the afternoon.

Dinner tasted great! I made Italian Fulilli with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts

I'll have three more dinners/lunches, so that will be nice as I have only limited time during the work nights.

Yay for vegan! Yay for healty eating! Yay for me sticking with it (hopefully!)!