Friday's are always busy for us so we pretty much had a leftover day yesterday. Today was shopping day. Lunch was leftovers, but dinner was so very yummy.
I lightly steamed broccoli (tossing the stems into the freezer to use for broth later--see my note on recipe page) I drained the water and did a stir fry in olive oil adding fresh garlic, onions, roma tomatoes and mushrooms. Just before serving I added chopped, fresh basil (LOVE that stuff) some oregano, salt and fresh ground pepper. I poured this over whole wheat spaghetti. A wonderful, tasty, fresh pasta dish in very little time.
Thinking ahead to breakfast, I made Chocolate-Zucchini Muffins for breakfast. Ok, I will admit they made a pretty good dessert tonight as well.
While shopping today, I picked up some beautiful raspberries so I can't wait for breakfast.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Today's Menu
I made a trip to Sunflower Market yesterday. I just LOVE their double ad Wednesdays. My refrigerator is full of fresh fruits and veggies...including blackberries at 6 ounce boxes for 88 cents each :) Can't wait to start adding those to my smoothies, but for today they were a wonderful cereal topper for breakfast.
Lunch was It's Easy Being Green Smoothies and tortilla chips with pineapple salsa! The Smoothie recipe comes from my Vitamix Whole Foods Recipes book (as does the pineapple salsa) and contains grapes, orange, pineapple, banana, carrot, spinach and apple. For dessert I made Strawberry Lime Sorbet, also from my Whole Foods Recipes book.
Dinner will be roasted veggie pizza on multigrain crust (see my recipe page) and a nice big greens salad. Mercedes has requested cheese pizza which will be on the multigrain crust. After breakfast this morning, as the girls cleaned the kitchen, I put the pizza crust together and it is rising in the refrigerator and the veggies are marinading on the counter. Tonight's pizza will have roma tomatoes, onion, mushrooms and green and yellow bell pepper.
My mind is already racing ahead to tomorrow. I'm thinking Frosty Basil Lemonade and a pasta with roasted veggies/tomatoes. We'll see how inspired I am in the morning.
Lunch was It's Easy Being Green Smoothies and tortilla chips with pineapple salsa! The Smoothie recipe comes from my Vitamix Whole Foods Recipes book (as does the pineapple salsa) and contains grapes, orange, pineapple, banana, carrot, spinach and apple. For dessert I made Strawberry Lime Sorbet, also from my Whole Foods Recipes book.
Dinner will be roasted veggie pizza on multigrain crust (see my recipe page) and a nice big greens salad. Mercedes has requested cheese pizza which will be on the multigrain crust. After breakfast this morning, as the girls cleaned the kitchen, I put the pizza crust together and it is rising in the refrigerator and the veggies are marinading on the counter. Tonight's pizza will have roma tomatoes, onion, mushrooms and green and yellow bell pepper.
My mind is already racing ahead to tomorrow. I'm thinking Frosty Basil Lemonade and a pasta with roasted veggies/tomatoes. We'll see how inspired I am in the morning.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Initial Test Results
Fast forward to December 6 and my doctor's appointment for test results... The doctor came in just sort of shaking his head, "You are healthy, very healthy, not diabetic and you have lost nearly 30 pounds. Did you cut out starch? Unless you are starving yourself, just keep doing what you are doing...and have some FUN!" My A1c level has dropped to 5.5 which is solidly in the normal range. Cholesterol won't be checked for another 3 months but I can't wait to see those numbers.
As of January 2, 2011 (one week short of 4 months) I have lost a full 30 pounds. While weight loss was not my initial goal, it is a very nice side effect of my healthier lifestyle. It is also the most obvious, outward measure of how I am doing and the only thing I can measure at home. For that reason, I will continue to journal that along with and between tests for cholesterol and A1c.
So many people have said "I could never do that" when I tell them of my lifestyle change. But, here's the key...attitude! I don't feel cheated or deprived (well maybe just a little when I walk down the specialty cheese isle in Costco) and I am enjoying the wonderful flavors and new tastes of vegetables and fruit like never before. As I share my menus you will see that I don't eat just carrot sticks, celery and raw broccoli. I think that is what some people think of a vegan diet. I love to cook so I am having fun experimenting with new recipes and creating my own new treats.
Can't wait to share some of my cooking adventures with you.
As of January 2, 2011 (one week short of 4 months) I have lost a full 30 pounds. While weight loss was not my initial goal, it is a very nice side effect of my healthier lifestyle. It is also the most obvious, outward measure of how I am doing and the only thing I can measure at home. For that reason, I will continue to journal that along with and between tests for cholesterol and A1c.
So many people have said "I could never do that" when I tell them of my lifestyle change. But, here's the key...attitude! I don't feel cheated or deprived (well maybe just a little when I walk down the specialty cheese isle in Costco) and I am enjoying the wonderful flavors and new tastes of vegetables and fruit like never before. As I share my menus you will see that I don't eat just carrot sticks, celery and raw broccoli. I think that is what some people think of a vegan diet. I love to cook so I am having fun experimenting with new recipes and creating my own new treats.
Can't wait to share some of my cooking adventures with you.
Monday, January 2, 2012
First Steps
How did I get to this journey...
Sometime last fall a friend loaned our family the movie Forks over Knives. Always interested in how to provide better nutrition for my family, I was anxious to see the movie. My eyes were opened to the benefits of a plant based diet. The movie featured a doctor by the name of Caldwell Esselstyn (among others) and I immediately checked his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, from the library. That was the beginning of my education.
A bit of background, I had been working several years to convert my family from the SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating to more healthy and natural options. I LOVE to cook and I really enjoyed experimenting with new and different as well as "healthier" dishes for my family. Something they didn't always appreciate. For the most part, I thought of myself as a fairly healthy eater.
When the truth came out about trans fats I carefully read labels refusing to purchase any products with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated "anything" on the list of ingredients.
My research showed me that real foods, the way God designed them, was better than anything man could do to "improve" something and so I only ate "real" foods. While I knew that organic was better than non-organic, severe financial constraints didn't allow for that move in our food budget. I made every attempt to as as many fruit and vegetables as I could to our meals. I cut out "red" meat, for the most part, and ate very little pork...just boneless, skinless chicken breast and turkey. Advertisers told me that low-fat dairy was good for me so I ate yogurt (none with artificial sweeteners of course) and keifer and used butter somewhat sparingly. I used butter because it was natural and did not contain trans fats. Olive oil was good for my heart so I used it generously. I fought the hardest battles trying to convert my family to only whole grains.
I was on the right track, or so I thought. Ok, I needed to loose some weight. A 20 pound weight loss would put my BMI back in the normal range. I tried to diet, I really did, but it was just too overwhelming to measure proportions and track calories...I homeschool a middle school student and a high school student -- I'm really busy!!!
In August I had my first complete physical in two years. I told my daughters, even before my blood work came back that I was going to adapt a vegetarian lifestyle and that I would not eliminate dairy unless my cholesterol came back high. You must understand how much of a prophetic statement this was. I have NEVER had high cholesterol in fact, until 2009 my total cholesterol was always in the 150 range and in 2009 it was still very "normal" at 173.
When I received my test results my total cholesterol was 200, the "bad" cholesterol was 104 and my A1c (something I had never even heard of) was 5.9. As for the A1c, 6.0 means you are diabetic. My doctor immediately pronounced me "pre-diabetic" told me to cut back on starch and have the blood work repeated in 3 months.
I came home from the doctor's office every bit as alarmed at the cholesterol levels as I was the A1c levels. In his research (and the research of his contemporaries), Dr. Esselstyn showed that when total cholesterol is below 150 and LDL (the "bad" stuff) is below 80 there is virtually no heart disease. I did not want to be a diabetic with heart disease. While I am 55 years old, I didn't have my children until later in life and with them having just turned 12 and 16 I have a lot of life to be around for!
On September 9, 2011 I began a complete colon cleanse in preparation for my baseline, screening colonoscopy. I also began a completely vegan, low fat, plant based diet.
More on the results, so far next time...
Sometime last fall a friend loaned our family the movie Forks over Knives. Always interested in how to provide better nutrition for my family, I was anxious to see the movie. My eyes were opened to the benefits of a plant based diet. The movie featured a doctor by the name of Caldwell Esselstyn (among others) and I immediately checked his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, from the library. That was the beginning of my education.
A bit of background, I had been working several years to convert my family from the SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating to more healthy and natural options. I LOVE to cook and I really enjoyed experimenting with new and different as well as "healthier" dishes for my family. Something they didn't always appreciate. For the most part, I thought of myself as a fairly healthy eater.
When the truth came out about trans fats I carefully read labels refusing to purchase any products with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated "anything" on the list of ingredients.
My research showed me that real foods, the way God designed them, was better than anything man could do to "improve" something and so I only ate "real" foods. While I knew that organic was better than non-organic, severe financial constraints didn't allow for that move in our food budget. I made every attempt to as as many fruit and vegetables as I could to our meals. I cut out "red" meat, for the most part, and ate very little pork...just boneless, skinless chicken breast and turkey. Advertisers told me that low-fat dairy was good for me so I ate yogurt (none with artificial sweeteners of course) and keifer and used butter somewhat sparingly. I used butter because it was natural and did not contain trans fats. Olive oil was good for my heart so I used it generously. I fought the hardest battles trying to convert my family to only whole grains.
I was on the right track, or so I thought. Ok, I needed to loose some weight. A 20 pound weight loss would put my BMI back in the normal range. I tried to diet, I really did, but it was just too overwhelming to measure proportions and track calories...I homeschool a middle school student and a high school student -- I'm really busy!!!
In August I had my first complete physical in two years. I told my daughters, even before my blood work came back that I was going to adapt a vegetarian lifestyle and that I would not eliminate dairy unless my cholesterol came back high. You must understand how much of a prophetic statement this was. I have NEVER had high cholesterol in fact, until 2009 my total cholesterol was always in the 150 range and in 2009 it was still very "normal" at 173.
When I received my test results my total cholesterol was 200, the "bad" cholesterol was 104 and my A1c (something I had never even heard of) was 5.9. As for the A1c, 6.0 means you are diabetic. My doctor immediately pronounced me "pre-diabetic" told me to cut back on starch and have the blood work repeated in 3 months.
I came home from the doctor's office every bit as alarmed at the cholesterol levels as I was the A1c levels. In his research (and the research of his contemporaries), Dr. Esselstyn showed that when total cholesterol is below 150 and LDL (the "bad" stuff) is below 80 there is virtually no heart disease. I did not want to be a diabetic with heart disease. While I am 55 years old, I didn't have my children until later in life and with them having just turned 12 and 16 I have a lot of life to be around for!
On September 9, 2011 I began a complete colon cleanse in preparation for my baseline, screening colonoscopy. I also began a completely vegan, low fat, plant based diet.
More on the results, so far next time...
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