Week 4: Vegan

Today marks four weeks of being vegan.

Something really strange happened to me last night. I was working at the massage studio and one of the therapists offered me a Snickers.

Me: "I can't have that."

Him: "Why not?"

Me: "Because I'm vegan."

Him: "Really?"

Right from that moment a feeling came over me that is hard to describe. It was almost like an out of body experience. I know that sounds crazy, but this feeling was really great. It felt really good to tell him that I was vegan. I'm really excited to spread the word now.

Oh, I got on the scale again this morning. It's hard to tell since this $7 scale has really tiny numbers, but I think my grand total might be 4 pounds!!

This morning I made the Daikon Weight Loss Tea from The Kind Diet. It was surprisingly delicious and the shredded carrots and daikon were yummy! I also made scrambled tofu with leftover veggies that I had in the fridge and a side of avacado. This recipe is also from The Kind Life.

Last week's dishes were 80% delicious. I wasn't a fan of the French Fruity Lentils. Too many lentils in one bowl! I did, however, really enjoy the Roasted Vegetables and Couscous. That was my favorite of the week.

This week I'm making:

-Brown Rice and Carmelized Onions

-Polenta Casserole

...and I'll have to get back to you on the third.

I haven't been doing a very good job of taking pictures, but I'll do my best!

Side note: I'm doing a cleanse this weekend. It's started yesterday and am trying to drink 2-4 liters of water each day. That's a TON of water!! The cleanse will start on Friday, where I will be holding a Juice Feast through Sunday. The Juice Feast can be found here. This is something I should have done before going vegan, but it's better late than never! Am I right, or am I right?

Starting April 1, I will be giving monthly updates instead of weekly, but hopefully I can still add pictures and give updates on the meals I'm eating, maybe some reviews on them as well!

Quick Update

I finally bought a new scale. The official poundage that I've lost... drum roll ........ 3 pounds. I feel like I'm Monica on that Friends episode, The One With the Flashback, when Rachel asks her if she lost weight, but super sarcastically because she didn't have anything else to ask her. Then Monica says, "You're so sweet to notice! Yes! I lost 3 1/2 pounds!" Four week update tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Week 3: Vegan

Today marks three weeks of being vegan

I would like to point out that my boss brought in homemade peanut butter cookies and set the whole bag on my desk. I let them sit there without touching them for two days. They looked really delicious, but I knew they would probably have eggs and milk in them. I said no!

On Sunday I made Pecan Encrusted Seitan from The Kind Diet. I really misread the directions and didn't make it right at all, but it was still delicious anyway. I put it on top of some whole wheat pasta with veggie sauce.

I can't remember the rest of the dinners I'll be making this week because I literally wrote my list in the grocery store parking lot. Which reminds me...I tried out this new grocery store in Salt Lake. It's called Sunflower Farmer's Market. Really cool store!

Tomorrow night I will be remaking the Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew for my mother's company. This wasn't in the original plans.

Today for lunch I went to Whole Foods and tried out the Tofu Spring Rolls. Very good! However, I wish I had a snack right now because I'm starting to get hungry. It's only 3:15.

I really wish I could tell you if I lost weight. My scale battery died and I've literally tried all the batteries in my house. All of them must be dead or my scale is done for. I'm going to the store on my way home to buy a battery to try out. If that doesn't work we'll have our answer. Anyway, I don't feel like I've lost any weight. Actually two weeks ago I felt as if I'd gained weight. That's not good. I've been doing all of this research and the weight should be "melting off" by now. It's not.

Overall, I'm really happy with my eating and I really do feel good (It helps that I got a hair cut too). I feel healthier than I've ever felt, even though I don't think I'm losing weight. I've never had so many vegetables in one day....and I've definitely never had so many beans in one day. Invite me over, I can prove it (hehe). No, seriously though, I've had really bad gas, so I read up on it. Apparently that's the toxins exiting the body. I wish the toxins would exit the body in other ways.

So, starting next Monday, March 28, I will be doing my first detox and cleanse. I haven't figured out which one I want to do so if you have any suggestions, I'm open to them! Right now I'm thinking of doing this one:

Monday-Thursday: Raw food diet plus 2-4 liters of water each day
Friday-Sunday: Juice feast

Doesn't sound too bad, eh? I found this one on Happy Little Vegans.

Hopefully I'll have an update on weight loss tomorrow. In the mean time, I'll be sticking to my delicious meals of veggies, whole grains, and legumes!

Here's what happened...

I think I figured out the lack of weight loss. I've been doing some more research and it seems like I'm not the only one has the problem from the beginning. I've been so excited about all of these delicious meals that I can make that are similar to the things that I was eating when I wasn't vegan that I didn't take nutrition into consideration. I knew I was eating a lot of vegetable, but I was also eating a lot of sugar and processed foods.

For breakfast I was eating Shredded Wheat and this week it's Chex cereal. From now on I will eat oatmeal, whole wheat bagels, or something else.

For lunch I was eating my leftover dinners.

For dinner I was making lasagna, thick soups with lots of carbs from sweet potatoes, and bread.

All of it was delicious, don't get me wrong, but since things weren't changing, I finally did the research, looked at what I was eating, and now know that I need to eat more natural foods. This week's dinners are being made from the Superhero section of The Kind Diet. Lunches haven't been that great and I'm still trying to figure out breakfast.

That meal plan that's in Alicia's book is really going to be useful when I go shopping this weekend!

Goodbye sugar, goodbye processed foods!

Week 2: Vegan

Today marks two weeks since I started my vegan adventure. I decided to go to our local Chinese restaurant called Szechwan. After looking at their menu and finding a vegetarian section, I didn't think it would be an issue.

All of the lunch options come with your choice of rice and a soup. Obviously egg drop soup has eggs in it, but I didn't think the hot and sour would have anything questionable, so ordered that. As soon as it arrived I noticed something in there that looked a lot like what the egg drops looked like. I specifically asked if the hot and sour soup was vegan and the damn waiter couldn't understand what I was saying. That's something that upsets me. You're going to have people asking questions and if you can't answer them appropriately, then how can you do your job? Here's how my conversation went:

ME: Is the hot and sour soup vegan?

WAITER: Hot and sour soup? Ok! (writes down order)

Come on!

So, I started eating this soup, not knowing what was in it. I eventually put something in my mouth that felt a lot like meat, so I spit it out. I ate less than half of this cup of soup before deciding not to finish it. I'm trying to be a full vegan here, not partial vegan. I have been doing really well, and today of all days, I had to mess that up. I'm pretty upset with myself. I shouldn't have ordered a soup. I had been warned, too. Everything that I've read says "Be careful when you go to a restaurant". You never know what could be added to your meal that you wouldn't normally expect.

All in all, I'm pretty sure I ate some egg today. And even worse, I was eating soup that had meat in eat. At least I spit out the meat.

Enough of that.

Last week's meals were really delicious, but I'm having a difficult time losing weight. I don't think I've lost any at all. But it's hard to tell seeing as my scale's battery died last week. I usually have a pretty good idea if I'm losing weight. I don't feel it right now. It's upsetting because one of Oprah's staff members said he lost 11 pounds in that one week of being vegan for the show. I suppose last week's meals weren't all that healthy. I had lasagna, enchiladas, and breakfast burritos.

My body didn't feel the best after that week, so this week's meals are all coming straight from the Superhero section of The Kind Diet.

-Traditional English Breakfast: I had this on Sunday. It was super easy and quick to make and was delicious. Broiled tomatoes, baked beans, steamed kale, sauteed mushrooms, then you add it all to a piece of french baguette. Yum!

-Nori Burritos (I think that's the title): I'll be making these tonight. It's basically tons of vegetables wrapped in a sheet of nori. Should be good!

-Green Beans with something...I can't remember, but they looked great. I'll be having this as a side to tonight Nori Burritos and tomorrow night's meal...

-Quinoa with something...again, I can't remember. I don't think I've ever had quinoa, so I really wanted to try it.

I guess the most disappointing thing so far is the lack of weight loss. I was really expecting to have lost 10 pounds by now. I guess I really do need to watch my white sugar and flour intake.

Week 1: Vegan

As of today, I have been a vegan for one week. I have been trying really really hard, but I'm honestly not entirely sure that every single thing that I've had is 100% vegan. For example, I had a bento box at Shoyu Sushi House which had teryaki sauce in it. What's in teryaki sauce? Anything non-vegan? I don't know! But I was really good about asking about what their tempura batter is made out of: flour and corn starch. I ordered the vegetable tempura bento box.

I was really close to eating some dry roasted peanuts the other day, but thought I'd look at the ingredients...just in case! Good thing I did. I found out that gelatin is in these dry roasted peanuts. Who would thunk! And I wouldn't have known that gelatin wasn't vegan without finding this list last week:

• Casein – a class of milk proteins often found in items marked ‘non-dairy’
• Ghee – a common milk derivative
• Albumen – protein found in egg whites
• Cochineal/Carmine – a coloring agent made from ground up beetles
• Oleic acid – fat from sheep or cattle
• Rennin/Rennet – enzymes from a calf’s stomach
• Calcium Stearate – a mineral usually derived from hogs and cattle
• Gelatin – protein from animal bones, cartilage, tendons, and skin
• Glycerides (mono/di/tri) – glycerol from animal fats
• Stearic acid – animal fats and oils
• Lecithin – phospholipids often from animal tissues and eggs
• Pepsin – enzymes gathered from pigs stomachs

I recently gave up my smartphone (because it sucked) and decided to go back to the ol' flip phone until the iPhone 5 comes out this summer. I'm saving $40 each month, but I'm also giving up a lot of advantages that would have been useful during this beginning vegan phase. This specific list would have been useful when I went out to IHOP the other day. Don't worry, I got the fruit bowl and the garden salad with balsamic vinegarette, sans crutons.

Tonight, I will be grocery shopping at Whole Foods instead of the regular grocery store. I will be making the following this week:

1) Whole Wheat Lasagna with Italian "Sausage" and Peppers

2) Tempeh Enchiladas

3) Breakfast Burrito with Potatoes, Veggies, "Bacon" and Scrambled "Eggs"

Every one of these recipes can be found at this new blog that I discovered, Little House of Veggies.

Pictures to come!

Food

So far, the food I have been making has been delicious! Last night I made Risotto with Oyster Mushrooms, Leeks, and Peas. This recipe came from The Kind Diet and it was super good!


I also made one of the most talked about desserts in vegan history, Alicia's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups. I didn't have the actual cups to put them in, so instead I resorted to my Swedish history and used my Dala Horse pan that I picked up at Ikea.



Yes, his leg is missing because my mother wanted to dig in right away.

I also made the Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew recipt over the weekend, but didn't get a picture of it. Shoot! I do have some leftovers for lunch today, so hopefully I can grab a quick pic of it later on.

So far so good! Tomorrow marks one week of being vegan!

I'm Vegan!

Today is the first day that I begin my journey as a vegan. Last night was the first time it really hit me. No more milk, no more cheese, two of my favorite things in the world. I don't think I'll have a difficult time without meat but the milk and cheese are going to be tough. Good thing I had a ton of cheese and crackers at my Oscar party (and by party, I mean me and my parents sitting in the living room watching the Academy Awards together eating snacks and drinking wine/beer).

I have even decided to not buy any clothes until I have lost the appropriate amount of weight...which I expect will happen in the next month or so. I have already lost 2-3 pounds just by adding a few vegan meals into my week.

I think the hardest thing for me will be finding all of these foods. I went shopping on Sunday for my meals for the rest of the week and ended up spending quite a bit of money (and time), so I'm nervous about the overall cost. I hope that I can find brands that are reasonable, and honestly, I don't know if I'll be able to use Alicia's cookbook for most of my meals. She has a lot of ingredients that I found to be quite expensive. For example, she calls for non-dairy chocolate chips. The only non-dairy chocolate chips I could find at my local grocery store were vegan and $10 for the bag. I might need to check out Whole Foods, but that might be even more expensive...at least they'll have more options.

One of the things I had a hard time finding was maple syrup sugar. I have decided to cut out white sugar and white flour as a part of my going vegan, so Alicia uses this maple syrup as a substitute for sugar...but I couldn't find the granulated form.

So I have a few meals planned for this week:

1) Spaghetti with meat sauce. This meat sauce is made with Smart Meat, which is basically vegetables. I looked for tofurkey, but my local grocery didn't have it. I also noticed that this Smart Meat had egg white powder, so I'm not sure what that means, but I can't imagine it's vegan. I'll have to look for a different brand.

2) Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew: This recipe comes from Alicia's book and sounds DELICIOUS! She adds a lot of spices to her meals, which I happen to have already.

3) Risotto with Oyster Mushrooms, Peas, and something else that I can't remember: Another recipe from Alicia's book.

I will also be making the peanut butter cup dessert that Alicia has in her book, and I've heard that they are amazing! I'll be making those tonight!

For breakfast, I've been having my usual Shredded Wheat with soy milk. Lunch will be Thai Kitchen (not Simply Asian like I thought) rice noodle bowls. They're only $1.65 for each bowl and super tasty! They keep me full until dinner, which is rare.

I do need to keep an eye on my soy intake. With all the new studies, they've found that soy has been linked to thyroid issues.

Ok. Day 1 being vegan, action!