Day 11!

Now more than half way through week 2. This has been a tougher week than last due to work stress. Today wasn't too bad, but I left my lunch at home and missed a shot at the cafeteria due to meetings, so no food all during the work day. I was curious how that would go, so I didn't raid the vending machines. :)

All in all, not too bad. I did not feel hungry during the day (drank lots of water), and did not feel ravenous at dinner at all. I ran out of soy milk after breakfast and tried Rice Dream Rice Drink. Very tasty! I think, if you're looking for a milk substitute, this might be your choice. And, there's no soy content (although it is manufactured in a facility that uses soy)! So, if you want a milk substitute with very little soy, this one works!

Breakfast was my usual cereal/banana/OJ mix. However, I just ran out of one of the cereals, Nature's Path Organic Millet Rice. I thought this cereal was good, especially since it's made from all natural, organic ingredients, and it does not include wheat gluten or HFCS. It is not fortified, so don't expect a lot of vitamins or minerals, but it does have 4g of fiber per serving. Mixed with you favorite morning fruit, this cereal is a great choice alone or mixed with another.

Weigh-in time! As you may recall, I noted that I thought work stress might cause weight gain, and that it was something I was concerned about. Well, it happened. I gained 0.8 pounds! And, that's despite no significant change in diet. This really shows me how stress can dramatically lower metabolism. That gain brings my loss over 10 days to 6.8 pounds. Still a great per-day loss, so I'm not worried. I just need to find better ways to deal with stress at work and I should be fine.

Days 9 & 10!

Well, after two challenging days at work, I've gotten around to posting. :)  I've wondered if a stressful work environment might make it more difficult to be vegan and to lose weight. I did notice, yesterday, that I was very hungry sometime around lunch. It was the first time I felt that since starting back on the 4th. I think stress had a lot to do with that. Today was very busy, but not as stressful. Only felt hungry after my 3-5pm meeting ran WAY long past 6:30pm. I have to think, that stress eating is probably a significant cause of weight gain. Managing stress should help alleviate the urge to blow the diet and grab poor food choices. I did pass up the last Hershey's Kiss that someone left out for us today. :)

Since I've been quite busy at work, with long hours, I've kept pretty much to by standard vegan diet for both of the past two days. The cereal/banana/OJ breakfast, snacks of nuts and an apple during the work day, followed by a dinner salad with spinich, kale, tomatoes, carrots, hummus, and walnuts. I did try a packaged product for dinner yesterday, Road's End Organics Mac & Chreese. Maybe I cooked it wrong, but it tasted like cardboard (at least what I imagine cardboard to taste like). Not recommended if you're looking for a classic macaroni and cheese alternative. I tried adding some flavor by adding Earth Balance buttery spread and some almond milk, which only helped a little. Perhaps their cheddar style is better.

Weigh-in time! This morning, I thought for sure I would gain after yesterday's stressful day, but, for the 8th straight day, I lost weight! Amazing! As of this morning, I'm down 7.6 pounds in 9 days! A testament to the power of a vegan diet that focuses on the awesome foods, like spinach, tomatoes, citrus fruits and walnuts (among others)!

Day 8!

Ooops! Forgot my lunch today. :(  Thank goodness the cafeteria at my workplace has some vegan alternatives. I had a nice small salad for lunch. Other than that, a day not much unlike the previous 7 days, except fruitless. I'm thinking that grapefruit is making me a bit gassy, so I'm trying an experiment for a few days to see what happens. Today was a bit stressful at work, so we'll see how that impacts the weigh-in tomorrow. When I get some free time, I'll post more on my Earth Fare trip. Have a great day everyone!

Lost another 0.2lbs yesterday to bring my week 1 total to 6.2 pounds!

Fun song for my beef-loving friends -> Cormac McCarthy's "Cows"! Enjoy!

Day 7!

Another fantastic day on the vegan diet. Once I weigh in tomorrow morning, I will have completed my first full week vegan and gluten free. Already, I have more energy, and I'm definitely not hungry. I hope week 2 will be as east as this one. Sometime on Monday, I'll post a summary of how my first week as a vegan has gone.

As far as food goes, I kept fairly close to my food choices for much of the week. A cereal/banana/OJ breakfast, and a big salad with spinach and kale as my greens. I did try Kalamata Olives on my salad today, which added a bit of a different flavor to the dish. I'm a little worried that the olives may not be vegan because lactic acid is listed as the final ingredient, but no mention is made of its origins (which would be typical for a vegan food product). The Vegan Forum has a discussion about Olives and Lactic Acid. I saw this recipe on the Vegan Everyday Blog that suggests that the lactic acid used in olives is not animal based. I'll go on that assumption for now since it's not a significant part of my diet. In addition to breakfast and dinner, I snacked on mixed nuts (about 2 oz.) and a grapefruit.

Went grocery shopping today and made a stop by our local Earth Fare. Between Whole Foods, which I visited last week, and Earth Fare, Earth Fare wins hands down for shopping experience and support for this Hesitant Vegan! I've stocked up on a lot of great vegan cooking options. Soon, I'll be whipping up some lasanga and chocolate chip cookies, among other things! Watch this space.

I was stunned by my weight loss this morning. I lost 2 more pounds to bring my total to 6 pounds in 6 days! I've never lost this much weight this quickly without feeling ravenous from hunger or exhausted from serious exercise, or both.

Day 6!

Real quick post for day 6. Had a fantastic day! Lots of energy, more than I've had in a long time. Is it the vegan diet???  Good question. We'll just have to see how this plays out.

Ran out of salad greens yesterday, but I really wasn't all that hungry today. Had the regular cereal/banana breakfast with orange juice. Essentially snacked the rest of the day with a grapefruit, some mixed nuts (about 2 oz), and part of a baked potato topped with Tofutti "Better than Sour Cream". The Tofutti "sour cream" was great! I added a little garlic powder and black pepper for taste, but, all-in-all, very good. On a side note - my son, who is not trying the vegan diet, had grilled salmon, which he prepared. It smelled delicious, but, to be honest, I had no desire to eat any of it.

Morning weigh-in was a good one once again! Lost another 0.2lbs to bring my 5 day total loss to 4lbs! I haven't gotten as much exercise as I had hoped this week, so, if I step it up a bit, perhaps the weight loss would be even more. Still really surprised at my energy level. I've always heard that people, who've made the transition, saw a substantial improvement in energy, but I don't think I ever really believed it. I'm becoming a believer!

Day 5!

Happy Friday, everyone! Well, at least what's left of it.  Had another great day today. Again, essentially the same meals and snacks that I had Monday through Thursday. Now, I'm out of my salad greens, so I think we'll have a grocery/farmers market run tomorrow. By the way, 6 days of heaping salad greens - spinach and kale - cost me just $2.50 at the farmers market! What a deal! Who says healthy is expensive???

Watching The Simpson's episode, "Lisa The Vegatarian"! We find out the Apu is a vegan! While visiting Apu's secret garden on the roof of his store, Lisa learns, from Paul and Linda McCartney, that while it's important to stick to your convictions about vegetarianism, you must also tolerate the beliefs of others. Pretty cool!

Today, I had a great conversation, with a friend, about fasting. I had asked her if she had heard of the "Daniel Fast", something a few of my friends are participating in with their church. Of course, the Daniel Fast is more than just a food fast, as it is more of a spiritual journey, but the food diet part of this fast is very similar to veganism, but their are subtle differences. I may post a comparison in a later blog. Fascinating stuff! I guess what interested me most at first was this - would a vegan really be able to participate in the Daniel Fast and get the same benefit, or are they already living the life that others are only experiencing for 3 weeks. Interesting!

Weight continues to fall off! Lost another 0.4lbs yesterday, bringing my vegan total to 3.8lbs in just 4 full days!

Well, it's time for the weekend! Hope everyone has a great one! I'll be shopping at Earth Fare tomorrow! :)

Awesome Foods - Spinach

You know, Popeye knew what he was doing! Spinach rules! It's a must for any salad. In fact, I make it the bulk of the greens in mine. When I make a salad, I include a cup to a cup and a half of spinach leaves. Total calories - 7 to 10! But those aren't empty calories. Spinach is a great source of vitamins A, C, K, and Folate (Folic Acid), and a good source of the minerals manganese, magnesium, iron and potassium. And, despite its green color, it's a fairly good source of beta-Carotene!


One cup serving (about 30g):

• Vitamin A - 2813 IU - 56% of your RDA
• Vitamin K - 145mcg - 181%!
• Vitamin C - 8.4mg - 14%
• Folate (Folic Acid or Vitamin B9) - 58.2mcg - 15%
• Manganese - 0.3g - 13%
• Magnesium - 23.7mg - 6%
• Iron - 0.8mg - 5%
• Potassium - 167mg - 5%
• beta-Carotene - 1688uq - 16%

I'm definitely going to have to find other recipes for this stuff. Thinking about a spinach lasagna! If you have any great spinach ideas, let me know!

Day 4!

Had another great day today! Breakfast and snacks during the workday were essentially the same as Monday through Wednesday. I'm getting boring, aren't I? Dinner was a big spinach/kale salad topped with quinoa, hummus, grape tomatoes and walnuts. Had an orange and a few cashews for a snack. Yumm!

Felt pretty good today. Not sleepy at all, but that may be because I did actually get over 6 hours of sleep. It would help if I weren't such a night owl.

Weight is down again! This morning, I had lost another 0.8lbs for a total of 3.6lbs in just 3 days! And, I'm not hungry!

Got a couple of cool recipes from my friend, Jean. They were not entirely vegan (but close), so I'm going to make some substitutes and I may try one out this weekend. I'll post the altered recipe and results. Wish me luck! Thanks Jean!  Also, I want to try and create a vegan lasagna. Might try that in a few weeks.

Day 3!

Another great day as come and gone! Meals were essentially the same as Monday and Tuesday, except I cooked up a batch of Ancient Harvest Quinoa for dinner. Quinoa, pronounced "keen-wa", is a tasty alternative to rice or couscous. For vegetarians and vegans, it's a great source of protein. There's a detailed report from NASA on the properties of quinoa that make it an excellent choice for a space-based food source. If it's good for astronauts, it must be good for the rest of us, right?

Never felt hungry today, so that's a good sign. I did start the day a bit sleepy, but that could be from the early morning run that got me up at 4:45 in the morning. Zzzzzzz!

Scale was my friend as I lost 2 pounds yesterday! Total lost for 2 days is now 2.6 pounds! Woohoo!!!

Diet Coke, is it Vegan?

I've been asked, is Diet Coke vegan? Well. that's a great question, and it depends on who you ask.

Ask the authors of the NY Times bestseller, Skinny Bitch, and they will tell you that Diet Coke is "Liquid Satan"! Intense! Apparently, if you read the book, you'll never drink Diet Coke again. They think its very harmful to you. Hey, my old neighbor, Amy, was in her 80s and apparently lived on Diet Coke! Then again, should could barely remember anything that happened yesterday - perhaps the Diet Coke had something to do with that. Isn't ironic that the mixed drink, "Skinny Bitch", is made from Vodka and Diet Coke???

Other say it's perfectly fine. There are no ingredients derived from animal products, as far as we know. Perhaps if it had bacon??? In any case, if you're strictly looking for foods that do not include animal derived ingredients, then Diet Coke is perfectly vegan. If you're concerned about how the Coca Cola corporation treats animals and uses them for food testing, then you might consider otherwise (although, I have no idea if Coke uses animals for testing, but some folks on the web seem to think so).

So, for me, I don't particularly like Diet Coke, with or without bacon, so I won't be drinking any during the next 8 weeks. My weak spot might be Diet Mountain Dew or a good beer. Now, how long before I get a beer craving???

Day 2!

Day 2 is done, and I think it went very well. Ate essentially the same foods today, but felt much fuller after dinner. I did add a 1.5 oz of Meijer brand raisins - all natural. Maybe that did it. No cravings yet, but I still felt sleepy mid-afternoon.

A couple of minor issues. I'm still not getting enough water. I need to step that up for sure. Also having trouble really settling on a lunch. I need to plan that better - perhaps cook up something over the weekend and freeze it for later.

Weight loss since day 1 - 0.6 lbs. Off to a great start!

Day 1!

In a nutshell (and I did eat some nuts), not a bad day! Now, let's give a little history and background. Over the past 7 weeks, I've been part of a program at my workplace called "Maintain, Don't Gain". The purpose of the program was to help employees keep from gaining weight over the traditional holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. So far, so good! I've lost about 20 pounds, and I've prepared my kitchen and body for an 8 week experiment in veganism,

So, how did day 1 go??? Well, considering I still had a fair amount of bad food left to gobble up yesterday, I wasn't that hungry today. I started off with an organic cereal mix from Nature's Path. Topped it off with sliced banana and about 3/4 cup of unsweetened soy milk from Silk. To drink, about 20 oz of Tropicana Trop 50 with Calcium. For work, I brought a 1.5oz bag of Planters NUTrition Heart Healthy Mix and a honeycrisp apple. Like I said, I wasn't all that hungry today. For dinner, I had a huge salad of spinach leaves, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, chickpeas, hummus, and walnuts. Dressing was a mix of evoo, balsamic vinegar, and red wine vinegar. To drink, an 8-oz cup of piping hot American Classic Tea, the only tea made in America! I also had more Silk to end the evening - needed something for my B vitamin.

Some of my foods were local, or regional. The spinach and kale were locally grown and purchased at the NC State Farmers Market - Raleigh, NC. The tea originated from Charleston, SC.

How did I feel today? A little sleepy mid-afternoon, and a bit thirsty late evening. I don't think I got enough water today.