Day 14: There's been a robbery

If I could do a good Hank Hill impression over the Internet, I'd be saying "Dang it Peggy! People today have no appreciation for the small business man!" It appears that my local farmer, Kenny, also my neighbor, has been robbed. He has a small stand on the corner of his yard where he sells tomatoes grown out of his garden.

For the past two months I've been able to buy a pint of tomatoes (about 6-8 plum tomatoes) for a buck! Talk about supporting the local food movement (nothing beats yard-to-table foods)! With prices this low, Kenny never has too much money sitting in his lock-box, maybe five dollars at the most at any given time. He donates this money to charities for kids with cleft palates.

You can imagine my disappointment when I saw the damage done to his little stand (see photo)! I saw Kenny himself out there this afternoon getting ready to repair the damage. He didn't seem too frazzled by the incident - with a chuckle he says that it's probably the work of neighborhood kids and ultimately is payback for all the trouble he himself caused in his younger days.

I told him that I was posting on this most heinous event in my blog and that he'd be a celebrity! I'm not sure if this was what motivated him to send me home with two pints more of tomatoes or if it's just because he's one of the nicest people on the planet (probably the latter) but it's BLTs on the menu tonight! I thanked him profusely and mentioned that veggies were very important to me given the vegan diet restrictions. I laughed out loud because upon hearing that I was eating a vegan diet he said "Oh no!" What a great reaction :)

Fortunately for me, Kenny is repairing his stand and there will be copious tomatoes to consume for at least a few more weeks.

I have many more stories to relay to all four of my blog followers - but I have to book mark these for a later time. Book club is this weekend and I've been delinquent in keeping up with my reading! Interestingly enough, I'm co-hosting this particular book club meeting, so the menu is going to be entirely vegan. So far, we're planning on vegan BLTs (I can't help it, the tomatoes are too perfect right now) and a delicious salad. I've got some other ideas for the menu and definitely have some tricks up my sleeve, but for the sake of discussion, anyone out there have any other ideas for a vegan brunch?

Days 5-8: I am not the Biggest Loser

When I started this whole “Biggest Loser” plan, I had this vision of triumphing at the scale while mimicking a sort of Julie-Julia project gone vegan (however, someone’s already beaten me to the punch http://reductionproject.blogspot.com/). Of course, like many things in life, my actual experiences are not in sync with my fantasies, but I am not unhappy with the situation…just not the triumphant winner I had hoped to be.

I had taken a few days off of blogging – first out of fear of redundancy (my food choices were not very diverse – I’m kind of sick of hummus at this point) and then I became so busy with various activities that I pushed aside the blogs for a bit more. Let’s see – we are now on day nine so we need a recap on the past four days.

Well, after I completed the blog about my bug-resin/particle-eating dilemma I received a very nice post on Facebook discussing how individualized a vegan diet can be. From my imaginary Facebook friend, Jessica, “you need to decide up front what your own personal deal is. There are vegans and there are Vegans. Little v vegans avoid all meat, dairy, fish... and…an alarmingly large amount of completely random processed … ingredient(s)... Some avoid honey, but I think this is sort of silly since the only reason to avoid honey is because it’s ’taking advantage of the bees’... Oh, and the big-v Vegans? They're rocking manically in the corner, munching on a blade of grass and worrying about the microscopic bugs that were killed when it was mowed down.” I admit that I edited the comment to keep it brief and PG-rated – but the major take-home I got from this comment was to keep my own personal goals in mind. My mission in this particular case is to wean myself off of dairy products and improve the nutritional quality of my meals while working towards weight loss. Last time I checked, bugs were a figure-friendly food item (although their secretions may not necessarily be low calorie as we see in the case of honey). Also, bugs, in this particular case, lac bugs, don’t appear to be dealing with the anguish of being repeatedly impregnated and involuntarily separated from their offspring. And let’s face it – I’m pretty much afraid of all bugs, ladybugs included, so I’m kind of OK with a few less bugs in the world (however, for the record - in the unlikely case that we run into a lac bug shortage, I reserve the right to change my tune). Bottom line: I’m eating those damn dark-chocolate covered cherries.

So getting back to that idea of improving my nutritional intake, I thought I’d mention that I was reading the No Meat Athlete Half Marathon Road Map (Frazier) this morning and I came across an interesting comment on diet. From the author of the e-book’s forward (Robert Cheeke):

“Much like our training programs, perhaps even more-so with food, when it comes to our nutrition programs we’re simply not being honest with ourselves or others. We tell people, “I’m healthy and I eat (fill in whatever inaccurate information you tend to tell people),”

but that simply isn’t the case for most of us. We want to believe that we eat fresh whole foods all the time and that is what we tell ourselves and others because we’re conditioned to remember the things we want to remember and conveniently forget the things we don’t want to remember. We feel bad about the things we didn’t do (like the times we miss workouts, or eat junk food, or didn’t get

enough sleep, etc.). We enthusiastically share our best workouts, not the ones we missed because we got “busy” and the same is true with foods. We may have a great, healthy meal and can’t wait to share it with others, but if asked, “What did you eat yesterday?” we’d rather not answer.”

Well, I’m not going to fall into the pattern Cheeke describes here and say that my diet has been perfect during my time off blogging - but I have stuck to the vegan restrictions. Rather than providing an exhaustive list of every morsel I consumed over this time period, let me just highlight my most deviant choices: On day five I ate an entire Vegan Tofurky Pepperoni pizza. On day 6, I housed some Fritos and BBQ potato chips with my sister. Of course, rather than beating myself up for the millions of calories I perceived myself to be eating, I did a nutrient analysis on what I consumed to keep perspective. Proving my Grad School professor’s mantra “All Foods Fit in a healthy diet,” I found that even with the inclusion of these foods, I was able to keep my average caloric intake over the course of the week at 1,643.59 calories, which was about 150 calories below my goal. According to the data I have available, the percent of the calories coming from fat was at ~38%, the percent from protein was ~14%, and the percent coming from carbohydrates was ~50%. In addition to this, I burned an average of about 200 additional calories per day through various physical activities (walking and jogging). As far as the macronutrients go, I was pleasantly surprised to see I was doing well with my vitamin D intake. But I did purchase some vitamins because I am low in all of the following: Vitamin A, Selenium, Calcium, Iron, Zinc, and Magnesium. I’m pretty sure I could meet these needs if I wasn’t restricting my calories (and giving into various food cravings on a regular basis) but for now, an occasional multi-vitamin seems like a good idea.

Now for the report on the cooking…My sister, Cynthia did come to visit me on Thursday so that we could sneak in a bit of a run and slam out some vegan deliciousness from my very tiny but well-stocked kitchen. Although I had envisioned myself using only recipes coming from Appetite for Reduction (Moskowitz), we veered off the path a little to include recipes from the Veganomicon (Moskowitz), Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World (Moskowitz), and The UnCheese Cookbook (Stepaniak). We made delicious Chickpea Cutlets (http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=265436) with Mushroom Gravy (http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/vegetarian-vegan-raw-living-food-recipes/127424-mushroom-gravey-veganomicon.html) and Roasted Asparagus for dinner that night. For meals to be consumed over the following days we also made the Everyday Chickpea-Quinoa salad (http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/everyday-chickpea-quinoa-salad/), The Mango BBQ Beans (http://mmmmmmmmvegan.blogspot.com/2011/01/mango-bbq-beans-and-cornbread.html ), Cheddar-Colby Cheez (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3FYduSF-dw ), and Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheez frosting (http://www.food.com/recipe/vegan-golden-vanilla-cupcakes-302367 ). I honestly was a bit afraid of making my own homemade cheez but every vegan cheez review I read noted that the homemade ones were far superior to the store-bought products so I decided to take the plunge. The cheese tasted like nacho cheese before it set. This morning I added it to my tofu scramble (no, I’m not getting sick of eating this yet) and it was an improvement from just using the nutritional yeast. I’ll be evaluating how this cheez works in other dishes as the week goes on (photo on left).

The not-so-triumphant news: After one week, I am not the Biggest Loser. In fact, of the three of us that weighed in, I am coming in last! Caryn has lost seven lbs in one week and Sylvia has lost the same amount as me, 3.5 lbs (this is a larger percentage lost for Sylvia than it is for me). Of course, I realize it is still early in the race – we have five more weeks – but since the most dramatic loss is usually seen in the first week, things are not looking promising. Cynthia tells me I am the “dark horse” of the race though, noting that I did consume a number of – you guessed it – salty foods in the 48 hours preceding the weigh-in.

And what if I don’t win? I might be OK with this since I am noticing that removing cheese from my diet is a bit like quitting smoking was. I have had some serious cravings and a couple of nasty headaches this past week so I wonder if going vegan AND looking to lose a tremendous amount of weight simultaneously is the most realistic plan in the world. Rest assured, the presence of these thoughts running through my head is no indication that I will be dropping out of the race anytime soon. I’ll hang on to Aesop’s wisdom about persistence (slow and steady wins the race) and I will keep plugging along.

At the moment I’ve got some Poblano peppers roasting in the oven for potato-kale enchiladas I’m bringing to a wedding tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes….In the meantime, I just wanted to thank everyone who has been sending me emails with vegan recipes, articles on veganism (and Bill Clinton), etc – they really have helped with my focus and motivation levels. I hope you are all eating your vegetables too :o)

Day Three & Four: This diet's bugging me!

OK, so I’m feeling far less interesting today then I have while writing my previous blogs. Perhaps it’s due to this feeling of exhaustion. Can’t blame the diet though – most likely it is related to my driving all night on Friday. My sleep schedule hasn’t been right since. This morning Zombie had to wake me up because I was sleeping through my alarm. I had incorporated the sound of the alarm into a dream: I was annoyed in my dream because someone wouldn’t answer their cell phone – turns out that someone was me, since I use my cell phone as an alarm.

My sister decided to join me on my vegan diet as of yesterday. I cooked her more scrambled tofu, this time with garden-fresh tomatoes, squash, and peppers along with the same spices I used on day two of the diet. I was worried that the tofu wouldn’t be flavorful enough so towards the end of cooking I doctored it up with some extra spices. It was a rainy morning and we were surrounded by five wet dogs, which was delightful. Cynthia complained that one of them smelled like an armpit. I got insecure and worried, maybe it wasn’t the dogs – maybe I smelled like an armpit. It turned out that the smell was coming from my tofu – one of the additional spices I used on this occasion was turmeric. The aroma was pungent but the tofu was delicious, definitely better than the version I prepared on Saturday.

I stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way back to PA to pick a couple things up to make lunch on Monday and found some delightful looking dark-chocolate-covered cherries that I threw into the basket since all of the ingredients on the label appeared to be vegan. Of course, when I got home I couldn’t find them on the Trader Joe’s list of vegan foods (they were on the list of vegetarian foods though) which made me wonder…are vegan foods not considered vegan if they are processed in a factory that also manufactures products containing dairy (as was noted on the label)? Why is it that Yves soy crumbles “may contain egg” yet they label the product as vegan, but foods that are “made on equipment shared with wheat, dairy, peanuts, and nuts” not considered vegan? At first I thought this was just a labeling issue (which apparently is a big deal in the vegan world, http://www.vegansoapbox.com/vegan-labels/ ) but then I learned that “confectioner’s glaze” is not vegetarian because it contains bugs (shellac http://www.vegansociety.com/resources/animals/shellac.aspx ).

Cynthia texted me today, worried that she messed up her diet because there was a hidden animal product (not sure if it was dairy or egg) in the bread she purchased. I told her not to worry – maybe it’s not fair to expect that we’ll just figure out how to eat vegan overnight. Perhaps the best way to describe what we’re doing is using the six weeks to learn how to eat vegan. I’m sure we’ll hit some more bumps in the road.

Sunday’s Menu (1,291 calories):

Breakfast: Scrambled armpit tofu, Black coffee (decaf)

Snack: Tortilla chips

Dinner: Soy Latte, Hummus and Veggie Wrap, Dark Chocolate-Covered Cherries

Vitamins: Women’s One Multivitamin, Sublingual B12

Monday’s Menu (1,513 calories):

Breakfast: Banana w/peanut butter, 24 ounces of decaffeinated, black coffee

Snack: Thai Chili-Lime Cashews

Lunch: Pita with hummus, Kalamata olives, tomatoes, bean sprouts

Snack: Dark Chocolate-Covered Cherries

Dinner: Cynthia’s delicious vegan chili (Thanks doo!)

Vitamins: Sublingual B12

Alrighty...Time for this bug-eating, vegan wanna-be to catch up on some Z's!

Day Two: Might as well face it, you're addicted to salt

Well, day 2 in the endeavor did not go according to plan calorie-wise, however I did stay on track with the vegan “restrictions.” I put the word, restrictions, in quotes because I didn’t really eat in a restricted manner at all on Saturday. The day started well, with scrambled tofu (half a block of tofu with one chopped, green pepper and half a chopped red onion in one tablespoon of olive oil with garlic powder, cumin, paprika, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and salt). I realized during the scrambling of the tofu that I had left one of my key ingredients at home in PA – the nutritional yeast. Unfortunately, this missing ingredient made a significant difference in the palatability of my tofu so I added even more salt to the tofu than I normally would have. You may have noticed in the photo I posted that Leah, my parents’ rescue Cairn, finds the tofu appetizing even without the nutritional yeast!

After breakfast, I was chilling in my parents’ living room and noticed that they had an issue of Prevention Magazine (January 2011) sitting on their coffee table. Interestingly enough, one of the items on the cover read “The Food Addiction that’s making you fat” – given the conversation I had with Tater yesterday I found this interesting. You see, we had discussed with some weird eating behaviors – for example, at times, I get so excited about what I’m eating that I will eat-not until I’m satisfied-but until I’m uncomfortable (or as my sister’s friend Molly calls it “uncomfortafull”). It reminds me of addictive behavior – jonesing for something really bad and then going overboard with it when you finally have it in your hands. So, I thought that I couldn’t have found this article on food addictions at a better time.

I turn to page 18 of the magazine and learn that salt is the problem apparently. At the beginning of the article there is a multiple choice question: Which of the following is true of salt? A. It’s addictive, B. It will make you fat, C. It will kill you, and D. All of the above. The article starts by telling us that the correct answer to this is “D.” Wow, how did I miss this in all of my nutrition classes? Note - Since it can be difficult to express sarcasm in the written word, let me point out my use of it in the preceding question.

The interesting thing about salt is that not everyone responds to it with increased blood pressure – not everyone is what they would call “salt sensitive.” There are many factors that influence blood pressure (e.g., weight loss, smoking cessation, exercise, increasing intakes of potassium & calcium, reducing alcohol intake to <1 drink per day, just to name a few) and while there are some groups in which salt restriction is a matter of life and death (dialysis patients, CHF patients), this is not the case for the majority of us (FYI, trial and error with a low-salt diet paired with blood pressure readings can determine if one is salt sensitive). So while I can see how the answer “C” is true for a portion of the population, I’m surprised to see it being mentioned as if it is the primary issue all of us face in our fight against weight gain and obesity.

The idea that salt is “addictive” and that it will “make you fat” is something I’ve been hearing anecdotally but not something I’ve come across in any nutrition textbook. The article in Prevention (“Adapted” from The Salt Solution by Heather K. Jones), does note that salt is often paired with fat in some less healthy food choices like chips and cheeseburgers, so it makes sense that consuming some high sodium foods might lead to weight gain – but it isn’t the sodium causing the weight gain here, it’s the calories. Then, as I continue to browse the article I find it – the one erroneous statement that makes me want to ignore everything I might have learned from the article. The article states that after we eat these high sodium foods we turn to sugar-filled beverages which add calories (fair enough, since this is supported by research) but apparently choosing diet soda instead of regular isn’t acceptable because “they’re full of sodium.” Hmmm…Last time I checked a 12 oz can of soda contains about 50mg of sodium – compare this to the conventionally-considered-healthy beverage, milk, which has over 100mg of sodium per 8 ounces! I’m not arguing that diet sodas are a healthy choice as much as I’m noting the article’s use of provocative statements to scare us into eating a certain way (and most likely trying to scare us into purchasing the book, The Salt Solution). I started to laugh by the time I got the end of the article because apparently the solution we need to fight the “Food Addiction that’s making you fat” is to follow a diet with three 300 calorie meals along with a 300 calorie mineral boost juice (http://www.prevention.com/health/health/health-concerns/how-to-kick-the-salt-habit/article/3bd0b810e847c210VgnVCM10000030281eac____/6). (Sarcastic girl says, “oh, in this case, it’s the sodium restriction that will make me thin…not the fact that I’d be restricting myself to 1200 calories per day…)

I can sit here and critique this article somewhat anonymously on the internet and feel really smart. But that doesn’t change the fact that I went out and ate a dinner that contained, oh, about 3000mg of sodium in one sitting and that my entire day’s worth of sodium intake was over four times what is recommended for someone with my individual characteristics. You could argue that the whole point of my critiquing the article was to distract you, the readers, from the fact that I deviated from my caloric goal of 1800 calories per day, consuming an actual 2262 calories over the course of my Saturday. So is there some truth to the article? I found myself contemplating this at 1am while watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and eating a nice salty handful of Tortilla chips.

Yes, I was definitely a deviant dieter on Saturday, following up my salty Tofu Scramble with Dinner at Bangkok Garden in New Haven (two vegetarian spring rolls and an order of vegetarian Pad Thai, no fish sauce, no egg), a vegan chocolate cupcake from Claire’s, and then the 1am Chips and Salsa munch with my sister, Cynthia. Even though I was concerned about the caloric intake, I learned from a brief computer analysis that I still took in about 150 calories less than what is required for weight maintenance (so yay for that) and this was probably substantially less than what I normally would have consumed on a Saturday in CT. And to quote the No Meat Athlete, “I'm not ashamed that there's a lot of vegan junk food here — during a diet change like this, I'm absolutely content to have my nutrition take a hit while I adjust psychologically to the added restrictions.” (http://www.nomeatathlete.com/vegan-grocery-list/).

So, as I complete this blog on a Sunday morning over my black cup of decaffeinated coffee, I leave you with the following question: if I add extra salt to this morning’s Tofu Scramble will this get me addicted to tofu and make me fat? Just wondering…

Day One: I cheated in my mind

Anyone who has known me for a significant period of time knows that whenever I restrict my intake, the food dreams start. This morning was no different, however since we are in the early stages of food restrictions, the dreams haven’t gotten gory yet (e.g., no body parts were consumed). No, this morning’s dream was relatively mild – In the dream I had already broken my diet vows with the consumption of a Martha Stewart Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Glaze. I ate the Mousse and then began to panic in the dream because how would I be able to forgive myself for my dietary indiscretions after making such a public statement about going (mostly) vegan? I opened my eyes at about 17 minutes after 5am, relieved that it was only a dream but a bit perturbed that my alarm never went off. Zombie kissed me as if she could detect a bit of imaginary mousse on my face.

Upon arriving to work the weigh-in and “before” pictures were taken (I posted a link on my Facebook page since I'm having trouble copying and pasting individual photos from the link). Four contestants are competing (we’re missing Caryn’s photo) and we have all contributed $100 to the prize, winner takes all (Similar to the television program the winner is defined as the individual with the greatest percentage of weight loss, not the greatest number of lbs lost). This is a nice little prize and should explain the ferocious comment left under yesterday’s blog (The Last Supper) by Tater – she is one of the four contestants and plans on taking the $400 and the glory (unlike last time around :-P ). If you have read the comment, you can see we have a delightful bit of trash-talking-banter going on to keep ourselves motivated.

So, the food…I started off the day with lots and lots of water and black coffee (Frankly, I think I had a bit of water retention working in my favor for the initial weigh-in). Breakfast was 1 cup of cocoa puffs (yes, they’re vegan http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/accidentally-vegan.aspx) with a half a cup of unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze (UVAB). Snacks were a quarter-cup of Thai Chili Lime cashews (Trader Joe’s), 2 baby tomatoes, and 2 kiwi fruit. Lunch was 2 cups of vegan chili, which was quite spicy without any dairy to mellow things out. I did purchase a rock-hard avocado from the grocery store across the street. Dinner tonight will be an Amy’s Breakfast Burrito (because it’s the best thing I’ve got on hand that I can eat while on a road trip) with baby carrots. Bedtime snack will be 16oz UVAB and a banana. I’ll only be coming in at about 1400 calories but I had a big day of calories yesterday so I think that’s OK. With Pad Thai on the menu tomorrow, I’ll have no trouble meeting the 1800 calorie goal.

Exercise was minimal today because I had to work a 12-hour day which will be followed by a four-hour drive (I took a little nap in between, we'll be leaving in a bit). Our charge nurse took a walk with me and I played around a bit with the eight-pound free-weights in my office. This is an area I really need to work on.

I talked to Tater about how I feel weird every time we do these diets. Not just because I’m hungry (and at times - like today - feeling a bit light-headed as I adjust to the new regimen) but because it’s weird not to have food to look forward to when my workday is over. I mean, after working a 12-hour day there is nothing I want more than to eat so much pizza that my stomach actually hurts. Tater theorizes that this is merely habit and that we need to find something new to look forward to. I want to argue that there's more behind this, but that's what all junkies (in this case, a food-junkie) say about the things they're addicted to (in my case, pizza). This certainly deserves some reflection. For now, I suppose I have Zombie and Voodoo's kisses to look forward to, so I'll try to focus on that.

The Last Supper

It has been just a couple days short of six months since I was pronounced the winner of the Renal Center of Philly's Biggest Loser contest, losing a whopping 24 lbs in six weeks following a low-carbohydrate, 1500 calories/day, vegetarian diet. Interestingly enough, I was able to maintain the weight loss for three months...until I was prescribed a change in medication that made my appetite shoot through the roof. Of course, I can't blame the medication entirely, but my weight has been creeping back up at astonishing speed. That's why I was thrilled when my boss called me into her office last week informing me that another Biggest Loser competition was about to take place. The competition begins tomorrow, Friday, August 12th and will be running for six weeks and three days (who's counting?) until Monday, September 26th. I've decided to take a slightly different approach than the last time around, this time going entirely vegan...well, almost entirely. The one exception I'm allowing are the Morningstar Farms black bean burgers - My boyfriend decided to buy a couple boxes of these burgers to "help" me on my diet (He told me he plans on cooking these once a week to give me a break from cooking - awww). This was so heart-warming, I'd hate to let him know they are not vegan. But otherwise, that's it for me - no more cheese (I've already cut out milk, butter, and eggs). I haven't got as structured of a plan as last time, partially because we are planning a trip to Connecticut tomorrow through Sunday so it's difficult to get a set diet plan in place. Today of course, I am eating like it's my job and am happy (albeit uncomfortable) to report that I ate Guiseppe's pizza for lunch and a nice home-made macaroni and cheese for dinner (complete with milk and cheese - soon to be forbidden - as well as delightful notes of dijon and nutmeg), pictured above.

For tomorrow, I have some kiwi fruit to eat for breakfast, a vegan chili for lunch, and a vegan burrito for tomorrow's road trip to CT. I am employing a cooler for the road trip so that I can bring tofu to CT (not because I think CT doesn't have tofu, but because I'm thinking about making scrambled tofu for breakfast and don't want to worry about going grocery shopping before breakfast time) and I think there might be some vegan Pad Thai on the menu - along with exercise. I'm planning about an 1800 calorie restriction for the first week or two and this will taper down as we approach the final weigh-in, ultimately getting down to 1000-1200 calories with a modest carbohydrate restriction. There are definitely going to be some challenges along the way. We are going to a wedding on August 20th, we're attending a Halloween convention on Labor Day weekend, my college roommate is coming down to party with me September 8th-11th, and the weekend before the weigh-in my parents are having an open house...not to mention this is the time of year when my favorite beer becomes available: Oktoberfest (drooling). I'm looking forward to the challenge - it should be an interesting six weeks. Now its time to sleep off this macaroni & cheese bloat.