Vegetarian Food
So, I just updated my about me page because it needed updating. I started out at the beginning of the year with this goal to go 100% Primal Blueprint and change my diet and lifestyle food good... and then... there was bread!
I did go Primal for about 15 days and lost weight effortlessly and then, I slipped. And then I did manage to maintain my weight for the last 6 months or so. And all the while, I've been eating loads of butter, more meat than I ever have before - a bit more vegetables and still some sugar and bread products now and again. But I've been eating full fat yogurt and kwark, full fat milk and mostly honey in place of sugar. And I have had not much energy. I've been sleeping a lot. And every morning, despite have 9 hours sleep, I'm still not ready to get up.
I've been watching a few documentaries in the meantime which have helped me redirect my diet for the better. The first one I watched was Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Pretty good, a little slow in the beginning but I got into it pretty quickly because I've been into juicing for a while now. Then half way through the film we are introduced to a very over weight guy needs help and gets it from a nice Australian dude. Sorry I can't remember first names. Anyway, this 426 lbs. guy drinks nothing but freshly extracted juice from kale, celery, cucumbers, apples -etc... for 10 days - and something amazing changes in him. Not only does he lose weight - which was obvious but his cholesterol, and all these other blood pressure and other things they tested for went way down to safe levels. And then he decides to juice for even longer - like 30 or 60 days - I can't remember which - but he loses something like 100 lbs. and is able to go off all kinds of medications he was on. It was very inspiring...
Then we watched Forks over Knives and this documentary talks about the China study and this other study with casein the main protein in milk products. This film doesn't just talk the talk but it gives actual scientific proof and shows years of research not just on lab rats but on real people - about the effects of certain foods and how that corresponds with health and disease. A plant based - whole foods diet - can literally turn off cancer!
Watching this documentary together with Mark- that's what we needed to get us going in the right direction with our food choices. I can't tell you how happy I am about it - but it's definitely the right decision for us. I like meat - some bacon now and again, spek (pork belly) yum - but every day? NO. It's not for me. I could tell that Mark wasn't really enjoying all that meat every day... he likes smoked sausage but how much smoke sausage can one eat - it gets kinda boring eating the same stuff all the time.
Since we have been eating meat again- Mark has had to take more sick time from work then when we were vegetarian - so it defintely has an effect on health.
So, we our also cutting back big time on our milk and yogurt/kwark consumption. And I've already noticed that I'm spending less at the grocery store because of it!
And I love cooking vegetarian. All the curries and the variety of plant foods - it's amazing.
Here are some things that I've been making and enjoying this week:
Onion Bhajia (made it twice this week) from VeganDad blog.
Mango-ginger relish (I'll have to post the recipe next week - it's so good)
Aviyal (lots of veggies stir-fried with a coconut curry sauce)
Banana Loempia's (spring rolls with bean sprouts and peanut satay sauce)
Quinoa and butternut squash - stuffed potato skins
We even had an awesome BBQ last night. We had pineapple, plaintain and watermelon on the grill! It was - well - it was awesome. I completely filled myself up on plant foods. Okay okay, I also made some of those yummy onion bhajia's from the VeganDad's blog. Those are my new favorite appetizer. I fried mine in coconut oil - it's better for you... see now that's something I've learned from the Primal/Paleo folks!
Check out my photo-slides on followgram for some of those food photos
It's been such a great week - and I look forward to next week... and yes, my jeans are a bit roomier this week :)
I did go Primal for about 15 days and lost weight effortlessly and then, I slipped. And then I did manage to maintain my weight for the last 6 months or so. And all the while, I've been eating loads of butter, more meat than I ever have before - a bit more vegetables and still some sugar and bread products now and again. But I've been eating full fat yogurt and kwark, full fat milk and mostly honey in place of sugar. And I have had not much energy. I've been sleeping a lot. And every morning, despite have 9 hours sleep, I'm still not ready to get up.
I've been watching a few documentaries in the meantime which have helped me redirect my diet for the better. The first one I watched was Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Pretty good, a little slow in the beginning but I got into it pretty quickly because I've been into juicing for a while now. Then half way through the film we are introduced to a very over weight guy needs help and gets it from a nice Australian dude. Sorry I can't remember first names. Anyway, this 426 lbs. guy drinks nothing but freshly extracted juice from kale, celery, cucumbers, apples -etc... for 10 days - and something amazing changes in him. Not only does he lose weight - which was obvious but his cholesterol, and all these other blood pressure and other things they tested for went way down to safe levels. And then he decides to juice for even longer - like 30 or 60 days - I can't remember which - but he loses something like 100 lbs. and is able to go off all kinds of medications he was on. It was very inspiring...
Then we watched Forks over Knives and this documentary talks about the China study and this other study with casein the main protein in milk products. This film doesn't just talk the talk but it gives actual scientific proof and shows years of research not just on lab rats but on real people - about the effects of certain foods and how that corresponds with health and disease. A plant based - whole foods diet - can literally turn off cancer!
Watching this documentary together with Mark- that's what we needed to get us going in the right direction with our food choices. I can't tell you how happy I am about it - but it's definitely the right decision for us. I like meat - some bacon now and again, spek (pork belly) yum - but every day? NO. It's not for me. I could tell that Mark wasn't really enjoying all that meat every day... he likes smoked sausage but how much smoke sausage can one eat - it gets kinda boring eating the same stuff all the time.
Since we have been eating meat again- Mark has had to take more sick time from work then when we were vegetarian - so it defintely has an effect on health.
So, we our also cutting back big time on our milk and yogurt/kwark consumption. And I've already noticed that I'm spending less at the grocery store because of it!
And I love cooking vegetarian. All the curries and the variety of plant foods - it's amazing.
Here are some things that I've been making and enjoying this week:
Onion Bhajia (made it twice this week) from VeganDad blog.
Mango-ginger relish (I'll have to post the recipe next week - it's so good)
Aviyal (lots of veggies stir-fried with a coconut curry sauce)
Banana Loempia's (spring rolls with bean sprouts and peanut satay sauce)
Quinoa and butternut squash - stuffed potato skins
We even had an awesome BBQ last night. We had pineapple, plaintain and watermelon on the grill! It was - well - it was awesome. I completely filled myself up on plant foods. Okay okay, I also made some of those yummy onion bhajia's from the VeganDad's blog. Those are my new favorite appetizer. I fried mine in coconut oil - it's better for you... see now that's something I've learned from the Primal/Paleo folks!
Check out my photo-slides on followgram for some of those food photos
It's been such a great week - and I look forward to next week... and yes, my jeans are a bit roomier this week :)
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