So, you mean NO processed foods?

This week has gone pretty well, minus the lack of fast food convenience. In reading the book, I learned that pretty much everything has some kind of wheat or corn flour or processed sugary something in it. Gone are the days of Oreos... But, hello 136.5 lbs! down 2.5lbs in one week! No exercise done except folding 2 weeks worth of laundry!
Someone asked me to give them the basics of the diet. Here are the key points:
Flour and whole grains used to be good for us, but around 50-60 years ago geneticists began modifying grains to be resistant to mold, fungus, bugs, drought and other things while at the same time giving a higher yield and shorter growing period. The result was a grain unrecognizable to our bodies. No more 6' tall amber waves of grain. Instead it is short, stubby stalks of yellow. Instead of nourishing our bodies, the author, a cardiologist, claims it raises our insulin levels and is stored as fat in our bellies. This all rings pretty true to me after reviewing what knowledge I retained from college nutrition classes. The shocker is that wheat is in almost everything processed! The author claims that wheat is addicting- which I can't really argue with seeing as how at 4:30pm my body is now requesting its daily packaged snack- and that is why manufacturers sneak it in everywhere. I was curious and started looking at labels. Sure enough, there it was. In gum, low carb frozen meals, seasonings, hamburger, just about everything.
My take away from this was no more fast food, boxed foods, and very little beans, sugar and other foods that are high on the glycemic index (a chart made to show you which foods raise your blood sugar the most). Dang!The first day of wheat belly I pretty much just ate eggs, but then I started flipping through recipes and have tried a few things. Most are on line, so I will link them. The first was just my recipe for tortilla soup minus the rice and corn chips- both high on the glycemic index. It was actually really good, and I didn't miss the rice and chips. Neither did the kids or the hubby.
I also tried the homemade flat bread with meat, cheese and veggies. Not my favorite because of the coconut oil, but I plan on trying it again with olive oil.

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1900264

For breakfast or a midnight snack I have been eating this:

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1868173

I add more cinnamon and use berries and vanilla almond milk. Pretty tasty if you like gooey hot cereal, which I do.

One brand I could not live without is

http://www.bobsredmill.com/

His brand has ground flax seed, coconut flour and chia seeds among many others that are allowed on Wheat Belly. LOVE him (you should read that as if I am singing it, because I am). AND, he's from Oregon. best place ever. Support Bob. He needs money for more blue hats and glasses.

I have eaten so many eggs and cheese, so I am interested to see how I weight in at the end of this diet. Then again, I am eating more like my Grandma did growing up, and she was 94lbs when she got married.

Some of the perks mentioned in the book are deeper sleep, requiring less sleep, and less hunger because processed grains are a hunger stimulant. I have to say, I have been feeling all three of these benefits in the past week. So far, so good.

Vegan Down, Wheat Belly Up

The vegan diet is done! HOOOORAY!! I have to say, it was possible to follow, but not my idea of a great weight loss plan. Mostly because I gained 2 lbs on it. My problem was that when I needed a snack instead of having string cheese or yogurt, I would eat an Oreo. If I fed my family meat for dinner, I would have an Oreo. You see where this is going... A lot of trips to Costco for that huge box of Oreos. Almost weekly. Yup. I know this is my own flaw, and if I would have grabbed some veggies or fruit I would have lost weight, but if a diet allowed Oreos, what would you do? I ate mine with dark chocolate almond milk. Precisely my problem.

I debated a lot about what to and what not to include in this post. My main debate centered around my weight. Do I reveal my real poundage or not? Will it offend people if I view my weight as high for me, but others see it as low? Will it open up the door to jokes by my much skinner sister who probably weighs less than me and is due to have a baby in a week? I decided to tell everyone what my number is, but mostly to use it as a reference point and a place of accountability for my next diet- The Wheat Belly. My number was 139.1 this morning. In all fairness, yesterday was Easter and binge doesn't even begin to describe my day. So, whether my number is a high one or a low one to others out there, just know that for me my body feels uncomfortable where it is. When I walk I feel that jiggle, when I go to sit on the floor it is harder for me to get down. I have a major tire around my jeans. When I got married I weighed 115lbs, so a 25 lb gain in 8 years is quite a jump for me. I have got to get some of this weight off, both for my mental and physical health. I know a lot of other people feel the same way about their bodies, and if you are wanting to join me on this next diet, feel free! I have read the first part of the book, and it is pretty convincing. There are some great recipes to go along with the restrictions!

Please join me! Add any comments below about advice and recipes- please no exercise advice, my body rejects that... okay, maybe a little exercise could help...

Post, post, post!

Apparently I stink at blogging regularly. I could never make a fortune off of this. I am too irresponsible! Two more weeks done, and two weeks closer to the Wheat Belly Diet. I am feeling like the Vegan Diet is not as restricting as the Wheat Belly, so hopefully I will be shedding more lbs in the near future. I am still up two pounds from my lowest vegan weight. Thank you North Carolina and your amazing fried food!

I still haven't made the fried pickles, but I have the ingredients and recipe in hand and will be making them as soon as the stars align and I can bring myself to heat up oil and deep fry those dill babies. This past week I tried two new recipes, and of course they are sugary and sweet. The first was an adapted recipe from ourbestbites.com. They have amazing recipes! I had some black bananas and used them in the Carmelized Banana Bread recipe. amazing! Here's what I did to make it vegan:

3 tablespoons vegan butter substitute
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
4 medium ripe bananas
1 cup vanilla almond milk
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
3 TBS corn starch
9 ounces (about 2 cups) all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2-1 cup dark chocolate chips (any that are dairy free)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9×5″ loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
Slice the bananas. Set aside.
Over medium-high heat, melt 3 tablespoons vegan butter. Add the bananas and brown sugar and saute for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.
Pour the banana mixture into a large bowl. Beat on medium speed until kinda smooth, kinda chunky.
Add the almond milk, oil, vanilla extract, and corn starch to the banana mixture. Set aside. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture slowly on low speed until just combined. Add the chocolate chips.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. It will be full! Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown on top and a pick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove the bread from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

I skipped the butter glaze because I needed the chocolate chips that particular day. You could make it with almond milk and vegan butter substitute.

The next chocolate my body needed was no bake cookies, so I found a generic recipe and made it vegan:

1/2 C vegan butter substitute
2 C sugar
1/2 vanilla almond milk
4 TBS cocoa
3/4 C peanut butter
2 tsp vanilla
3 C Quick Oats
3/4 C dark chocolate chips (without any milk product in them)
Melt the first 4 ingredients in a sauce pan continually stirring, and once it hits boiling, let boil for 1 minute without stirring. This makes it carmely! Remove from heat and stir in the PB, vanilla and oats until combined well. Add the chocolate chips after it is cooled enough to touch, but still a bit warm.
Spoon portions onto a wax lined cookie sheet and refrigerate until cool and solid.

My kids devoured these, and if I had flax seed or something healthy to add, I would have! They are amazing, and I would love an excuse like flax seed to make them a health food!

I no longer think that vegan=skinny. I can make almost any dessert into a vegan one now with a few staples like vegan butter, almond milk, veganaise and dark chocolate chips. This diet is great for those who have cholesterol problems, but for those without self control who just want to be thin (i.e. me) this diet has been a no go for weight loss. I do feel "cleaner" on the inside, if you know what I mean, but definitely not leaner!

As an aside, for our cheat day we celebrated my friend Kelsey's birthday and made paninis. AMAZING!!!!! Get some french bread, slice it for sandwiches and butter one side of both. Layer on freshly sliced mozzarella, peperoni, tomato, avocado and salt and pepper and either put in a panini press, or do like I did and squish it in your George Forman grill. Life changing. Why am I still up two pounds? I don't get it...

Traveling Vegans

Man, this week was discouraging. I skipped a week of blogging because we were so busy getting ready for a business trip, and then once we went on the trip, I did HORRIBLE! I almost didn't want to blog because I felt so defeated, but then I decided to do it as an allowance for others who fall off the wagon like I did! I am now back on the wagon, but it all went like this:
Trav and I went to Charlotte, North Carolina for a small business convention (which was amazing!). We flew out on Thursday, Valentines Day. A day that I have lovingly referred to as Venereal Disease Day since nursing school took away my refined ways. I decided this would be my cheat day since we would be eating airplane food. In NC we stayed in an awesome hotel! 

It was cheap, free vegan breakfast, great mattress and pillows, friendly staff! All good things! The reason why I am mentioning this is because that night I listened to our neighbor fake the big "O" 5 times from 1-2am while listening to R&B music. Travis slept through this, of course, but I got about 3 hours of sleep before our first convention. Me being tired=angry=eating! Can we say emotional eater?!?! I ate great for breakfast and lunch, but by dinner time when we went to see my cute brother and sister-in-law, I was ravenous! We met them in a little town called Chapel Hill, and the only place open was a pub. Everyone knows pub food is the greatest, but there is nothing vegan besides celery in a pub. Well, that and alcoholic beverages, which I don't partake of. So I decided to have another cheat day, and made friends with these babies:

Fried pickles and ranch dip! No way these are vegan, but I am now on a quest to make a vegan spicy fried pickle recipe. They are ridiculously good! Then I decided that since it was yet another cheat day, I would eat a cheeseburger- the best one I've ever had, in fact! Then, on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a Walmart and a cute little girl was selling GS Cookies. For the sake of generosity and cheat days, we bought 2 boxes of Samoas. Then we ate a box and had a shake. I fell far from the wagon!!!!

On to Saturday. I ate really healthy and vegan for breakfast and lunch again, but then when it was dinner time and Chiles was right there, I had some chicken with cheese melted on top and a side of mashed potatoes with lots of garlic and butter. Then, since the day was already ruined, we had ice cream and went back to the hotel to eat the other box of Samoas.

Sunday... good breakfast followed by a chicken bagel sandwich from Einstein's Bagels. Then a $10 vegan salad from the airport. $10!!! I feel like paying that should entitle me to an automatic 2 lb loss!  2 out of 3 meals ain't too bad for vacation, but when I cheat, I cheat!

This week is new, I am not weighing myself until next Monday, and we are half way through the Vegan diet. I feel like I did this crummy this weekend as a service to everyone else who has had a bad weekend on a diet! This is for you! And to keep me accountable, expect a vegan fried pickle recipe next week! Hopefully with a ranch dipping sauce!

 

Sickness!

So, I took one week off of blogging (not off of being vegan) because we have been, and still are, sick. I am talking fever on and off for four days for me, and a double ear infection/ ruptured eardrum for my baby. Mother of the year award here I come. Tip: become best friends with a doctor and she will let you bring your baby into her office when there is no one else there to look in her ears and give you a prescription. I love Kelli!

I have to give a shout out to my cousin, The Beckster, who told me she and her hubby read this blog. She and her mom are the greatest writers ever! Becky wrote my Grandpa's obituary and it was perfect. She is my motivation for pumping this post out while I am sitting with a fever and sore throat. Love you, despite the fact that you are tall and skinny and have beautiful hair! Dang.

Before I begin, I have to explain the moral dilemma I had this week. I always weigh myself in the morning, naked, before I eat and after a bowel movement. My kids are going to be screwed up if they read this in 10 years. So my scale showed no weight loss or gain this week. After weighing myself, I picked up my 1 1/2 year old baby who has avian bone syndrome (those who watch 30Rock will get this) and put her on the scale. My scale put her at 15 lbs! After this we went to see Dr. Kelli and weighed the babe on Kelli's office scale. It put her at 19lbs. Not much, but better than 15. Here was the dilemma: Do I hold on to the number I got on my scale for my personal weight, and believe my baby weighs 15lbs, or do I add 4 pounds to my weight and feel like a better mom who's underweight kid is almost 20 pounds? I did what any mom would do. Both. I am still at my weight, and good news! My baby is almost 20 pounds!

So the past two weeks... well, I guess I will start with Seitan. I have no idea how to pronounce this, but I have been calling it satan. My last blog talked about making the Italian seitan sandwiches, which I did. My kids did not eat it, however, because it looked really slimy, and because my brother and his wife and kids saved them by being there for dinner. I warmed up Costco soup for them, and Kelli and I ate Satan's Sandwich. It was actually pretty good. Word to the wise: SEASON. If you are cooking with this product, season the crud out of it and add lots of peppers and onions. We also melted vegan mozzarella cheese on top and that helped a bit. If you can get past the texture that is a little wormy, it is worth the experimentation.

 Kelli blogged about our dessert here:

http://www.4diets365days.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html

I bought these puppies:



Thinking they were chocolate covered cherry vegan ice cream. It was pink with chocolate on it, what else could it be?!?! I gave them to my kids and my brother's family before I tasted it, and they all brought them back to us saying they were done. My bother took a bite and told me, "They taste like Grandma's house." Kelli and I had them later on. After discovering they do taste like my grandma's house, we looked at the package and discovered they were chocolate-covered grandma's house (flower) flavored. Only a vegan would think about covering a flower with chocolate to eat. Dang them for their fancy writing that I couldn't read and their pictures of flowers that I didn't pay attention to! The race was on to find a better dessert.

After my Grandpa's funeral a couple weeks ago we went to Magleby's, a restaurant in Spanish Fork, UT famous for it's chocolate cake. It is fabulous. I found a copycat recipe and made it vegan and covered it in vegan ganache, and it was fantastic. I have not lost weight this week! Here is the recipe, veganized:

Vegan Chocolate Cake

1 Cup vegan butter
1 Cup water --boiling
6 T. heaping cocoa
2 Cups flour
2 1/4 Cups sugar
½ t. salt
4 TBSP cornstarch
3 t. soda -- dissolved in little water
1 TBSP vanilla
½ Cup vegan sour cream or low fat veganaise or applesauce

mix melted butter, water and cocoa together, then add dry ingredients, mix the in soda and vanilla. Gently mix in the sour cream substitute. do not over mix.

bake in greased 9X13" glass pan for about 28-30 minutes at 350 degrees. You may need to re-evaluate this time. I like my cake a little on the moist side- Kelli would say under done in the middle.

OR you could get one of these sweet things that I found at Macey's Grocery Store


and add 1cup apple sauce, 1/2 cup veganaise and about a cup of vanilla almond milk and bake according to directions. One thing I have learned while baking: as long as the store bought cake mix is at the consistency it would be at if you followed directions, it will turn out. Use a can of Coke or Sprite or anything, and it will be great! Experiment!

Ganache:
Melt 1 cup dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate chips with 2 TBSP vegan butter and 1 cup vanilla almond milk over double broiler while stirring (or in the microwave like I did-lazy- for 30 sec at a time, stirring in between). While still hot, add 2 tsp vanilla. My mom said you could never add too much vanilla, so I always eye-ball it.
Pour ganache over the cake and enjoy! I actually walked into the kitchen the next day and my kids were eating it out of the pan with the same fork. Then I joined in with the same fork. And now we are sick.


I also made another batch of vegan lasagna that Kelli posted here:

http://4diets365daysrecipes.blogspot.com/2013/01/vegan-lasagna.html

BUT I added green peppers and artichoke hearts. It was awesome.

And I (well, Kelli) made the CHICKpea Salad (substitute for chicken salad) when my family ordered Papa John's for dinner. I really pizza, but resisted. I can't believe I didn't lose weight on that day. I added pickles to mine and LOVED it. Then my meat loving mother had some and LOVED it. Then my twiggy baby ate some and LOVED it! It is a must try, and here it is:

http://4diets365daysrecipes.blogspot.com/2013/01/chickpea-salad.html

So, a bit more time gone by as a vegan, no more weight loss, sick family, late post. If you read this and can suggest new recipes, please do! I love to try new things that people can recommend! And, if you work for the company of Panda Licorice, I would totally take you as a sponsor!

Licorice, Oh, Licorice!

Clearly I have a problem. I thought that these little Bad Boys had punished me enough, but I came back for more. This time, I only ate one bag in 48 hours, which was better than the 2 bags in that amount of time. I am now being punished. Curse you, delicious cherry licorice. It's the ALL NATURAL label that gets me every time!                                                                  

As for this past week, it has gone great! I am living proof that when you go without for about a week and a half, the cravings for all things animal stop. My longing for cheese has ceased, and I don't crave chocolate anymore. I feel really healthy, too. I am down about a pound and a half this week, which isn't a dramatic amount, but it's a pound and a half gone for good!

So on to my discoveries for this past week. #1- Vegan Bread! I found this brand at Costco.

Thank you, Kelli! Dave is an ex-felon from Oregon who made his way back into society and into his family's bakery making it bigger and better! BTW, I am an Oregonian, and we love ex-felon entrepreneurs! Look at this hottie. You know he is still a bad boy at heart. There is even a pic with him in a dew rag. Nothin' better than a long-haired mustache bicep cartoon in a dew rag. I love it! His bread is good, too! Here is a link to his site with a list of places to get his bread at, and a life-story about him and his family. I love you, Dave!

http://www.daveskillerbread.com/index.html

I also found this website full of vegan recipes that look pretty dang good:

http://vegweb.com/

I am trying this tonight with Kelli, and I am making my kids eat it:
http://vegweb.com/recipes/chicago-style-italian-beef-seitan-sandwiches


My hubby will probably eat it, and then after Kelli leaves he will eat a sleeve of Oreos (which are also vegan) to deffer the healthy effect of the vegan sandwich on his body.
If you're wondering what seitan is, you are in luck! I googled it. It is basically gluten. It is used as a meat substitute like tofu, but this has a more "meaty" texture and is stringy like meat. It is a great source of protein. I will let you know...

This week is full of links because I have been trying to get new ideas for food and am discovering that there are better options for vegan than I originally thought. Here is a link courtesy of Jamie, Kelli's brother.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/13-junk-foods-you-wont-believe-are-vegan

A little disturbing to see what doesn't have dairy in it that you would think should. Hmmmm...
The moral of the story: There is TONS of junk food for vegans to eat, so don't feel bad for them! The trick is to stay away from them so that this way of eating can actually be healthy. Good luck with that, Meghan!

1 Week Down

One week down, two pounds lost, and all I have to say is if you are sitting next to a vegan and it smells, the vegan did it! I am so gassy! Not bloated, just gassy. Gassy.

I do have to say being vegan is not as hard as I thought it would be. There are plenty of unhealthy snacks to satisfy a craving when you are vegan. For me, they aren't as accessible as, say, a chocolate chip cookie from Kneaders or a glass of chocolate milk with a sleeve of soggy Oreos... mmm...soggy Oreos. This lack of accessibility is probably what is saving me from weight gain. Aside from the chocolate almond milk, my new favorite snack is the all natural Panda licorice. I personally love the blueberry and strawberry flavors. They were 2 for $5 at Macey's last week. BTW, if you eat two bags of that, you get crazy diarrhea for 24 hours. Not that I did, I would never talk about such a personal thing online, but if you do eat tons... diarrhea.

Kelli made an awesome vegan lasagna this last weekend. Here is the link to the recipe:
http://www.4diets365daysrecipes.blogspot.com/

So, let me just say that the creator of this recipe was crazy, but in a good way. This recipe combines tofu, broccoli, sweet potatoes and the like with whole wheat noodles. I did not think I would like the whole sweet potato thing in a savory dish, but I ate about half of a pan over the course of two days. Did I mention I was gassy? Anyways, with a little salt and pepper, this was one dish I feel totally comfortable passing on to friends. I just have to add that artichoke hearts would taste amazing in this.

We also tried another recipe that was simply chopped kale, smashed avocado and the juice of half a lemon. WAY TOO MUCH LEMON, but it was edible and really healthy. I think that is the reputation for a lot of vegan dishes, so my goal between now and the next post will be to experiment with another vegan recipe and make it taste good, not just edible.

For dessert we did an Cheerybrook Kitchen Arthur chocolate chip cookie mix made with vegan butter, and instead of adding water we did vanilla almond milk. They were good and borderline great after a week without serious junk food. My kids devoured them and my husband was totally satisfied with them. I'm not sure which of those is a bigger miracle. They were gluten free as well, FYI. I don't know why, but as I ate them I kept thinking that because they were vegan and gluten free, they must be a health food. I ate three of them.
http://www.cherrybrookkitchen.com/products/cccookie.php

After dinner, Kelli and I went to see Les Mis. Amazing! How does Hugh Jackman look good in a beard pulling a boat? It defies all laws. So, I'm not mentioning this to talk about Hugh, but to tell you all that I actually went to see a movie without any concession purchases or, hold your breath, any candy shoved into my purse! I left the theater without gaining 5 pounds. Doing vegan and blogging about it is actually holding me accountable to a healthier lifestyle. AND, it is keeping my money in the bank! Cha Ching! Well, actually I will probably just go spend it on more diarrhea licorice. Blueberry.

So, the point of this blog entry was to tell the world that I am still vegan, 2 pounds lighter, and licorice=diarrhea. Happy first week in 2013, world!