One Month of Veganism - Results

Today is the last official day of “One Month of Veganism.”  Out of the 30 days in June, I stuck to full veganism and followed the other prescribed “rules” (low salt, whole grains only, etc.) on 17 days.  For 8 days - I definitely “cheated” either all day or for parts thereof.  And the other 5 days, I didn’t keep good enough records to know for sure which way it went.  So, depending on how you look at those 5 mystery days (lumping them in with the 17 or the 8), I either succeeded 73.33% of the time, or succeeded 56.66% of the time.  Splitting the difference, let’s say I was vegan and followed the parameters an even 65% of the time.  Not great, but I made my choices knowingly, so it is what it is.  And it’s okay.  I’ll call it more positive than not.

Now, it wasn’t that it was difficult to stay on plan.  I wasn’t suffering in any way whatsoever.  I didn’t feel deprived or hungry – not in the least.  In fact, I really, really enjoyed this time.  We explored lots of new recipes, learned some new concepts, and picked up a few new cooking techniques.  It truly was an awesome adventure.

Food was SOOO good.  I mean, seriously, just lookit all them pretty colors!!  <--- pssst, click the link to see my Facebook album about all of this. 

Did I lose weight?  You bet.  On the days where I was consistent, I averaged -0.9 pounds per day.  But then I would cheat, which would either stop or temporarily reverse progress.  When all is said and done, I dropped about 10 pounds total (1/3 of a pound per day)….without exercising for one second, mind you!  It’s not as high a number as it could have been if I didn’t jump on and off the wagon the way I did, but that’s alright, because more importantly, at this stage, other changes in my body are pretty clear: clothes are fitting looser, cellulite is disappearing, things that were previously lumpy are flattening out, other stuff has tightened up, and while I haven’t had any blood tests or anything like that done, I do know that my resting pulse has dropped to below 70 (I just measured it right now).  That’s certainly an indication of improvement.  I have a regular doctor’s appointment in August, and will have everything else (cholesterol, liver values, kidney function, sugars, blood pressure, etc.) re-tested then.  Bottom line – I just feel great and I am happy.

So, what have I learned (or reinforced for myself) overall, insofar as eating goes?

1. My body just feels better eating this way  -- less sluggish, more functional; seems more balanced, consistent and steady.  Also (TMI warning) -- less gassy, bloated, and....stiff, if that makes any sense at all.
2. I am lactose intolerant.  Gluten?....I can say for sure has some effect on at least my gut that isn't nothing, though not at all anything major or serious or probably medically diagnosable or to the point of unhealthy/dangerous or that will make me stop eating gluten-y things entirely.  Same for lactose-y things.
3. Most of the time, I like to think of animal products as a side dish rather the main event.
4. We don’t need animal products every day, and because of that, we can be much, much pickier about where those that we do eat come from.
5. Food is not a cure for boredom.
6. Eating shouldn’t happen just because it’s “time to eat” or because there’s a spread looking you in the face at a party or somemsuch – i.e. only eat when you are actually hungry.
7. Cooking at home is almost always better and tastier than eating out, and of course it's much easier to control things at home. 
8. I need much less meat and cheese than I had been previously providing myself with, to be satisfied by them; the flavors go a long way without so much physical volume.
9. I don’t tend to feel stuffed after meals anymore, and I require a lot less food in general than I used to think I did to be completely satiated.
10. There is no need to suffer, or be deprived, or miss out, just because you are “eating right.”
11. There is, of course, a time and place for total indulgence.  ;)

There's probably more but that's all I can remember right now.

I am not where I want to be weight-wise yet, and that’s my own fault.  I could have been much closer to it by now if I didn’t waver.  But I’ve landed myself on a very good trajectory, as expected, and as I stated in my original post, while I can't say "I am a vegan now" or that I will cut out any particular thing or set of items completely (frankly, I think it's unreasonable, and maybe too hard, and definitely no fun, to be that strict) -- I do plan to continue eating Nutritarian (pure, clean, whole, mostly vegan, low salt, low sugar, low fat) the majority of the time, and permanently, if for no other reason than it feels good and right to me.  I simply like it.  Thoughtful moderation. Sustainable personal choices.  It will bring me to my final goals sooner or later (probably sooner – like by the end of the summer, I truly believe).  And sure, I’ll stray when it’s rare and appropriate.  Like now, I just got back from a sushi lunch celebrating the month wrapping up.  Cheers!!

PS:  I know a lot of this sounds pretty food snobby and hippie-ish, and maybe preachy.  Sure, I am a food snob....and a bit of a hippie, I accept and embrace that -- but what I'm not is a preacher.  If someone asks me for advice or for my thoughts, I'll give them.  But I am not here to judge anyone else.  For example, if I go to an event and there's food, or someone cooks a meal and serves it to me, or I'm at a restaurant where I don't want to be a huge pain in the ass -- I'm not going to start asking questions about where the ingredients came from or how it was made, etc.  I will gladly and appreciatively take what is given.  Food is love.  And I love food of all kinds.

Homemade Vegan Chipotle®

If you’re following any of my albums over on Facebook, you know that during June -- with an aim of losing weight, getting healthier, and rebooting our food habits -- Husband and I are endeavoring to eat a 100% whole grain, low fat, low salt, low added sugar, vegan "diet.”  I put the word diet in quotes because this isn’t some quick fix that we will use only until we get to our goals and then go right back to the way we were eating before.  The word diet, for us, means a maintainable lifelong eating plan, not something temporary.  And while we won’t stay 100% vegan forever, this is meant to be the catalyst that lands us on the path to what will be our permanent practice: Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutritarian Diet.

All of the parameters that we have set for ourselves (including ending up on the Nutritarian plan in the end) come from listening to Penn’s Sunday School and following Penn Jillette, Michael Goudeau, and Matt Donnelly’s weight loss journeys as close as possible (there's plenty of mainstream media on Penn's weight loss if you want to Google it).  They haven’t given away all the information that Ray Cronise taught them, but after listening very carefully to every podcast I could find where the guys talked about the “cult” diet, using my wits, knowledge, and experience to piece all the concepts and methods together as best I could, and reading every research paper, website, article, and other writing they mentioned – I am pretty sure I’ve got it mostly figured out; certainly enough to be doing the trick and not feeling any negative effects.  I tested it out on myself for one week, and lost 5.6 pounds in only 6 days, as I said, without being hungry or feeling deprived.  So now we are doing it for real.

Anyways, over to the right, you will see a link to my Facebook album (“One Month of Veganism”) where we are documenting our dinners (as well as some breakfasts and lunches).  Please note that I said “endeavoring” in that album description – there have already been, and probably will be a couple more, “slip ups” where we break the rules.  ;)  But still, it’s working….really well.  And the food is a.m.a.z.i.n.g!  Just look at all those pretty colors - seriously!!  I for one haven't yet missed what we're avoiding.  I feel very satisfied and perfectly happy.  In any case, results are being kept track of and will be announced when the month is through.  So stay tuned.

Finally, the reason I started to write this post today was to publish what we did over the weekend to create at home a meal from Husband’s favorite fast food restaurant, Chipotle.  Some people at work asked for the “recipe,” too, and it was so good, that I figured I should share it with anyone who might still be following this recently sadly sparse blog.  So here goes....

I thought I would be very cute and on Facebook described it as: 

"Chifauxtle" 

noun chi•fot•le \chə-ˈfōt-lā, chē-, -ˈfȯt-, -lē\

: all of the components needed to make a vegan Chipotle® rice bowl, except here they are homemade. 

;)

 

Clockwise from top right: cilantro lime brown rice,
black beans, tomato salsa, corn salsa, fajita veggies, and hot salsa.

Yes, it’s a lot of separate components, but the only part that individually took more than about 5-10 minutes was the hot salsa.  The other salsas were quick, as was the fajita veg.  It looks like a lot more work than it is – and that’s what Chipotle the restaurant relies on people thinking, so they’ll just go in and buy it instead of making it at home.  In the end, we easily had enough food for 3 or 4 meals.

Unfortunately, I don’t have exact measurement for everything (except the hot salsa recipe which Husband got from the comments in this website post).  Here is the best we could recollect after the fact not having written anything down as we went along:

Brown Rice

Cooked as normal but with a little lime juice and some cilantro.

Black beans

Straight out of a can, rinsed.

Tomato Salsa

Chopped up tomato, tomatillo, and red onion, plus a little lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper.  This salsa is not cooked – just mix it all up.

Corn Salsa

Corn, red onion (chopped), and poblano pepper (seeded, veined, and chopped), sautéed in a pan with a teeny bit of vegetable oil, then add some cilantro, salt, pepper, and lime juice.

Fajita Veggies

Red peppers, green peppers, and yellow onion, all cut into strips, then sautéed in a teeny bit of vegetable oil with cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, black pepper, and cilantro (mix of spices concocted by Hubby - and it turned out great!).

Hot Salsa (made by Hubby)

• 4 Tomatillos
• dried Arbol peppers (I think we used about a 1/2 ounce – use more of less depending how hot you want it.)
• Cumin
• 3 cloves garlic
• Water
• Salt
• Pepper
• Tabasco® sauce (we didn’t have Tabasco® on hand, so we just used the closest hot sauce already in the fridge) 

Boil the tomatillos until they are soft.  Put them in the blender with the stemmed and seeded chiles (Hubby didn't soak the chiles like the linked recipe says to - it wasn't necessary).  Add some of the water you used to boil the tomatillos.  Add garlic cloves.  Blend that mess up.  Add some dried cumin, salt, and pepper (guesstimated amounts).  Add a couple dashes of Tabasco and stir it up.

Obviously, because we are eating Vegan for now, there is no sour cream, cheese, or meat.  We also didn't bother with any vegan protein other than the beans, because when we do go to Chipotle, we don't ever get the Sofritas (even when avoiding animal products).

Here is what it looked like in our work lunch containers, and after mixing it up (granted, in the mix-up photo, I had already eaten a bunch of it, so it looks a little light on the veggies - it wasn't):

 

 

The only thing I forgot?  To make guacamole!!   Next time....

....because, as Hubby will attest, my guac rules (and chips made with my Homemade Corn Tortillas are awesome).  =)