Sunday, January 04, 2009

I've been a bad Vegan

No, I haven't cheated and eaten anything gross and animal derived. It's that I haven't been eating nearly enough beans. Really. Weeks without beans. How wrong of me! But in the spirit of the New Year and deciding to concentrate harder on weight loss I joined SparkPeople and the Eat to Live (ETL) group and, of course, the RAW group (I'll have my dehydrator really soon!!). Anyway, so one of the goals of ETL is to eat at least a cup of beans a day. So yesterday I ate a cup and a half of black eyed peas and today I had about a cup of black eyed peas and about a cup of lentils - go me! The results? My fat intake has been reduced and my fiber intake has increased - respectively, I've had 11g and 70g today! (and just under 1200 calories!!) So that should be very helpful in many aspects of my health.

I also decided yesterday that I would give up coffee today. Not for the caffeine, but for the sugar I want/need to put in it. Why? In Fitness Magazine's January 2009 issue, in the article "8 Ways to Transform Your Looks and Your Life," a nutrition specialist states that "For every single gram of refined carbohydrates that we consume, our bodies retain 2.7 grams of water." Well, anyway, between a sinus headache and a caffeine withdrawal headache, I caved and drank a little coffee around 3pm.


So what did I eat today? Breakfast was around 11:30am, which is amazing, because normally I'd die of hunger by then. But I had a smoothie with 2 oranges, water, hemp protein powder, 5 cups of spinach, a cup of raspberries, a cup of blueberries and 2 very small bananas. YUM! Lunch was a no-oil black eyed pea salad I made yesterday. I put it on a very low carb multigrain lavash with red pepper hummus, romaine, spinach and carrots. Also yum! Even L tried to take some bites. Dinner was a lentil loaf crafted from the Magical Loaf Studio and a bunch of peas, sadly, without butter. I have a pic of the b.e.p. salad I will get up soonish.

Also, for the few people who read this blog, a big THANK YOU to Dreena Burton who was awesome enough to send me advice about feeding picky toddlers! Awesome. I love "meeting" and "talking" to Vegan chefs - they're like movie stars to me :) As a recap on that note, I've met Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope Romero and I stood really close to Sarah Kramer but was shy that day. I've also met Veg chef Tony Fiore. Cool!

Okay. Black eyed pea salad type thing:

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And my updated cookbook collection!
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(Click on pic to enlarge and see the rest of the books.)

7 comments:

My Year Without said...

wow, i think it is so interesting that when you eat sugar, your body retains 3g of water or so...

i have not heard that before, in all of my researching of sugar. that is a great statistic, where did you find that out?

i gave up sugar for 2008, and am now going into 2009 sugar free! no way do i want to "get back on it". sugar is like a drug to me and i am so much better off without it.

i wish i could kick the caffeine thing, too, but i love coffee so much and i figure one cup in the morning isn't so bad. because i'm super healthy, i figure it's my one vice.

as far as a vegan diet is concerned, i was vegan for 5 years but now have decided that instead of living by the rules of a label, i will just not eat anything that i could be friends with...so basically i just eat fish. if i had a farm, i know that i would be friends with the chickens, pigs and cows, but i've never made that connection with any of my goldfish.

Sarah said...

I edited the entry to include the info (hurray I found it!!). And you're right - coffee really is the only vice - at least the only one I really feel I need - so maybe I'll let it hang in there a bit longer - at least through my doctor's appointment on Friday when I can tell her my various issues :) But I can't drink black coffee - I have to have it with soymilk and sugar. I dunno.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with your healthy eating. I'm trying to lose some weight too- trying to make healthier choices but allowing everything in moderation.
I look forwards to hearing more about ETL and how you're getting on with it.

Sarah said...

Well I already had a teeny bit of sugar in my coffee, so I'm clearly not going to follow it EXACTLY, but it does seem sensible in many ways.

I'll do vague, sometimes updates :D

Monique a.k.a. Mo said...

Those black eyed peas look SO good!

Anonymous said...

What a great collection of cookbooks`

skypie said...

Vegan With A Vengeance! My first vegan cookbook :D good pancakes, good muffins, good times.