My road to perfect health is apparently paved with oats

On this new health trip I'm on, I'm learning every day about how I feel when I eat certain things. How each decision impacts the next decision. And I've learned that I make significantly better decisions during the day when I start with a large bowl of oatmeal.

I don't know if that's psychosomatic or not, but I don't think it matters. When I eat oatmeal in the morning, I am not craving a huge lunch, which means I make smart decisions for that meal and that translates into a smart, healthy dinner.

Maybe it's really just that easy?

I didn't have oatmeal yesterday for breakfast. I had a full-day training session at work and decided to start my morning with a two pieces of toasted Ezekiel sprouted grain cinnamon raisin bread with some almond butter and a little honey.

The bread is delicious, and will stay in my food plan, so to speak, but not for breakfast. Because I was very hungry for lunch. I had requested a vegan meal for the training session and they provided a great salad (with meaningful veggies - not just a bowl of iceberg lettuce with a couple small tomatoes). But I also took a half sandwich made on ciabatta and sraped the meat & cheese off. And I took a handful (about 10-15) of tortilla chips.

(See above note: perfectly IMPerfect.)

Was it the best decision? No. Was it the worst? No. I didn't have the cookies that were there, I didn't eat the cheese, I didn't go back for more bread or chips. But I thought about all those things, and I'd like to avoid that right now.

I was exhausted last night - fully drained from this freaking virus. So I had some leftover pasta and fell sound asleep by 7pm. The pasta certainly added to the carb count, but it was significantly more sauce & veggies than pasta, and I'm happy about that.

Today is back on track. The sleeping helped for sure and I'm hoping another day of rest and relaxation will kill whatever it is that's beating me up. (I'm pretty sure it's allergies.) I had a large bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, with a nice cup of tea. I'm going to make sure I'm veggie-high at lunch and I'm making some applesauce for dinner and a large salad of kale and white beans. I'm going to beat these allergies one way or another.

My throat is on fire today, so I'm all about recovery right now. And using food to get there (Forks Over Pills, you could say, since "knives" sounds more for surgical things).

So I'm eating a hearty bowl of oatmeal for breakfast:
- oats
- almond milk
- salt (accidentally a little more than planned)
- flaxseed (dumped more in to try to compensate for the salt)
- cinnamon (same note as for flaxseed)
- maple syrup (same note as for cinnamon)
- vanilla

I'm not eating the whole bowl I made, since it tastes a little more off than usual. A couple bites feel like I'm a horse licking a salt cube.

I made applesauce last night! (Yes, it's sooooo easy, but I made it myself, so here comes the bragging...)

I cut a couple apples in half, threw them in a large saucepot with water to cover the bottom of the pot and cinnamon. And let it cook, covered, for about 20 min, stirring occasionally. (I've burnt apples before and don't recommend it. Neither do my neighbors.)

Then I stirred it through a foley mill and BAM delicious applesauce.

I like it chilled in the fridge. I'm having it for lunch today along with some baby carrots. I can't say that I've always liked carrots as a snack, but I've been influenced to think otherwise, so I'm giving them the college try.

So lots of vitamins today, low-to-no artifical sugar, and pleeeenty of hot herbal tea.

The Best Vegan Zucchini Bread Ever

You can make this with carrot as well. I just had zucchini on hand. Oh! And it's a great use for leftover pulp from juicing! Win win, since I hate throwing away juicing remains.

NO oil. NO eggs. NO dairy. ALL natural. ALL delicious. (And now ALL gone... so sad :-(

3 tablespoon flax seed
9 tablespoons water
2 cups grated zucchini (or carrot)
1 cup applesauce
2 cups sugar (or agave, or honey)
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon (I guesstimate but I also looove cinnamon)
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix flax seed and water. Stir in the zucchini, applesauce, sugar and vanilla. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well.

Pour the batter in to the pans and bake for 50-60 minutes. Let cool a little... and then dive in! Enjoy your vegan zucchini bread! (This is where you send Colleen flowers as a thank you :-)

Juice Fast day!

It's been so long since I've done a 36 hr juice fast. I used to do them more frequently when I lived in CT, but I hadn't done them as recently over the last 2 years. But I got back into juicing a couple weeks ago and am LOVING it again. It goes along so nicely with the renewed nutritious lifestyle I've embraced. So I got my lovely juicer and have been having at it...

Blah blah blah, I'm sooo focused on what I want to EAT right now! This is the hard stretch - the last hour or two before I go to sleep. When all I think about it fooood. What I'm going to eat tomorrow, what I'm going to cook, what I have in the pantry... Watching commercials about M&Ms almost made me tear up.

I did a 5 day juice fast a couple years ago, so I know I can do a measly 36 hours. My stomach doesn't know it, but I know it.

I know it's great for me and I know I'll feel amazing tomorrow - I just have to remember that! Thankfully doing it along with someone else helps with the moral support :-)

Pizza can totally be vegan

It was such a beauuuutiful day yesterday, so my friends and I decided to have a little impromptu picnic on the Boston Common. I thought ahead and decided that grabbing food from our favorite vegan Thai restaurant (conveniently located right off the Common) would be the best idea.

So we called them to place our order and were told that they were closed... "because it is too nice out and we have to party" and to "call back tomorrow".

....the HELL????

Anyway, it all worked out for the best - a pizza place that makes food I happen to have loved has a store right next to the park, so we decided to grab food from there. (I won't mention their name, since I am NOT a fan of their legal and ethical decisions over the recent past, so I'll avoid ANY sort of free publicity).

So this was my first foray into a pizza place during this new phase - and I have to admit it was a raging success. I got a garden veggie pizza with no cheese. The crust there is delicious, and flavored so nicely, then topped with sauce, onions, mushrooms, broccoli and peppers, it was super tasty and I honestly didn't miss the cheese! Honestly! And I have to admit, I'd much rather something like this than trying to replicate cheese with a fake-cheese thing. (I'm not ready to handle smelling the deliciousness from Colony or anything yet, but I'm working on it.)

And I wasn't tempted to partake in the "let's grab a pastry for dessert" since those are definitely not vegan! Win Win Win!

Only downfall - super thin crust, light tasty pizza led to Colleen eating the whole small pizza for dinner (700 worthwhile calories though) and having nothing left for lunch today.

Hmmmmmm

Yeah, it was still worth it.

Thank God I love pasta

I wasn't in a mood to cook much last night, so I went with the familiar: pasta. Definitely my "go-to" meal of choice. And I also made a nice and healthy juice: kale, cucumber, celery, green apple.

For the pasta, I use the Muir Glen Portabello Mushroom tomato sauce since it's fat-free (no oil!) and delicious. I figure, if I don't miss something bad for me, why add it in? If I were going to eat something with fat, which of course I still do, it's either going to be A) amazingly good for me (flax seed) or B) amazingly delicious (dark chocolate covered pretzels).

So I took that jar, added 1/3 bag of kale, basil leaves, the no-salt seasoning I still love, green onions and cooked it all up. Throw it over some whole wheat pasta shells and it's yummy.

I brought some for lunch, but I can't eat that just yet. I am supposed to send some analysis out by "lunchtime"... and if I haven't eaten yet, I'm not late...

Who Knew These Existed?

I had my part-time MBA classes last night, so I grabbed a delicious 6" veggie grinder on my way (whole wheat bread, all the veggies, a little yellow mustard), and then had the rest of my beet juice when I got home with a couple handfulls of cinnamon Kashi shredded wheat for a snack.

And then, since I'm all domestic now, I decided to cook something up to bring for lunch today... so in the spirit of trying something completely new, I made a baked sweet potato!

("New" to me, obviously, and only refers to the actual baking of it. I have a strong feeling people have been making them for centuries...)

I know what many of you are thinking... I'm guessing it's something like this:

"But Colleen, to bake a sweet potato, all you do is wash it, stick a fork in it a couple times, and throw it in an oven for about 50 min"

Now, yes, that may be true. (Is true). But maybe I did it more eloquently than that. (Not really). And maybe my sweet potato is special. (Unlikely).

What I did do, though, was to wrap it in foil (SUCH a trailblazer), and about 45 min into the baking process, I sprinkled on my no-salt seasoning from Costco, nutritional yeast, and salt and pepper, and then baked it for another 7 minutes. (The prime number makes all the difference.)

I mashed it up, put it in a bowl and topped it with about a half can of Trader Joe fat-free refried beans. I'd take a picture, but it doesn't look quite as appetizing in a photo as I'm sure it's going to taste. I'll have to work on the appearance for the next time.

I think the alcohol burns off...?

Success! I made a delicious dinner last night (and enjoyed it again today as my leftover lunch).

I made some quinoa in my rice cooker. I wasn't quite sure if you could do that (you can) or if it would come out well (it does). I chose to mix things up a bit, so I threw in a cup of quinoa, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of white wine, a splash of lemon juice, some cut up green onions, a pinch of salt, and some mixed dried seasoning (kind of like an all-spice thing from Costco... definitely recommended).

I was a little nervous if it would work - I used the white rice setting. Close enough, it seems.

As that cooked, I made my first beet juice in my juicer. And then spent some time getting the red beet color off things in my kitchen. Lesson learned on that one. And beet juice looks like blood.

And then I sauteed up some kale - I used white wine, garlic, the rest of the lemon juice, the rest of my green onions and some blanched kale.

I have to admit, it's not awful! The white wine definitely does the trick in making this vegetable palatable for me.

I was a little nervous that the white wine in the quinoa wouldn't "cook off" the alcohol, but since I'm not tipsy right now, I'm probably good... right?

I started today with some leftover oatmeal. I wasn't sure the consistency would work, being a day old, but I kept it in the fridge, then microwaved it at work with some water and more agave, and it was certainly tasty enough... Not my favorite way to eat it, but definitely not terrible.

Today's breakfast:

Oatmeal
Oatmeal
Soy milk
Flax seed
Cinnamon
Honey
Agave
Salt

Lunch will be
Pasta
Whole wheat pasta
Portabella mushroom tomato sauce (oil free of course!)
Nutritional yeast
Kale (not as much as I need - leftover trace amounts)

Snacking on some delicious dried black mission figs.

I don't measure when I cook - it's just not my nature. So I'll not be documenting that. When I bake, I measure a liiiiittle more. I take out the measuring spoons at least. I think that counts?

Since my day has been fairly carb-heavy, I'll be doing a large juice tonight (beet/carrot/apple/celery) and a big thing of kale, maybe over a little quinoa.

I have to start enjoying kale. It has now become an issue of stubborness. So tonight I've decided to try sauteing it with white wine, onion and garlic.

Worst case scenario, I'll drink the wine and THEN eat the kale. Everything is better with a glass of vino.

The Perfectly IMPerfect Vegan

I've decided to start a blog about my journey towards a plant-strong, whole foods based lifestyle. This is a new path for me and I'd like to document it, for me to look back on and see how I do. Plus there is something about communicating it that makes it real and makes me accountable.

I have been an active vegetarian for over 3 years now and I've loved it. I couldn't imagine at this point eating flesh, and this is coming from someone that looooved sausage, chicken, lamb..

After going to a seminar by my idols (Drs Esselstyn and Campbell), I've taken on the vegan lifestyle.

I call myself the Perfectly Imperfect Vegan :-)

And I'll document my journey. The highs, the lows, the upsides, the downsides.