Almost a Month Later

I said I would be back to give some thoughts on the 30 Day Challenge, and I'm finally getting around to it! Yay!

I had my first non-soy latte today since the start of this thing. It tastes weird!

Overall I think this has been a really positive experience. I think people hear the term vegan and they get this immediate mental picture of a tree-hugging hippie living in a VW bus and eating giant bowls of "yard clippings". Or at least that's what I used to see. In reality, it's just a more sustainable, "healthy" way to eat and live. It's not easy, but it's also not that hard.

Since the challenge ended and going forward, I won't be calling myself a vegan. I'm aiming more for a "plant-based diet". I read that term somewhere recently (couldn't tell you where) and it clicked with me. I want the majority of my fuel (calories) to come from plants. I'm going to give in to the occasional dairy product, and I'm not going to stress over whether the salad I just ordered is going to have eggs in the dressing. I'm going to eat sushi. I love sushi! But I expect I'll continue to shop like a vegan. Most of the "cheating" is going to be when we go out to eat or on special occasions when we cook for friends or eat at a friend's house. I guess if you want to get hung up on words, technically that will make me a pescatarian.

I have more thoughts, but I'm out of time for the moment. Pesky work-Saturdays!

Days 29-30

We made it to 30 Days!!! ::happydance::

Yesterday was standard. Green juice for breakfast, bean burrito for lunch. Didn't even eat my banana because I'm still avoiding food after that binge snacking on Sunday. Seriously, I haven't even wanted to touch food, but somehow I've managed (hahaha).

Dinner was Moe's since it was also grocery shopping night and I refuse to go on an empty stomach. I took a picture this time!! Look at my yummy "Earmuffs", which used to be called a "streaker" or a naked burrito. I basically ate it as nachos since I used my chips as a fork.

Earmuffs from Moe's

So far today I've had breakfast (green juice) and a new burrito that I found at Kroger last night. I usually don't buy Amy's burritos there because they are $3.29 or higher, but they had them all on sale for $1.99 which is the same as the commissary's price, so I scooped up a few new ones to try. Today's was an Indian tofu burrito, and it was good!

Also, I haven't said much about what I've been drinking. I am trying my best to cut out soda and artificial sweeteners. Last week I found these:

True Lemon packets. They are not with the drink mixes in my store, they're over with the bottled lemon and lime juice. They are sweetened with organic evaporated cane juice, and contain nothing else but citric acid, lemon juice, and ascorbic acid. It's in a crystallized form and flavors a bottle of water really nicely. It says one packet = one wedge of lemon and has zero calories. True Lemon also makes drink mix packets, and I found those over in the drink mix section. They contain stevia, which is still better than splenda or aspartame, but I'd rather stay away from all of them.

I'm not sure what's for dinner. My brother-in-law gets in tonight around the time I get off work, so I guess we'll play it by ear. I've got a big post coming soon with my thoughts about the 30 Day Challenge!

Day 28

I'm excited as I write this because I just realized today is day 29. We're almost to 30 days!

Yesterday I had green juice for breakfast, a banana, and a burrito for lunch.

Hubby made dinner since he got home first. We had spaghetti. Whole wheat noodles with some leftover pasta sauce that was in the fridge. He added some chopped onion and 2 vegan burger patties to the sauce to give us a good "meaty" sauce. It was good! If I had thought about it ahead of time I would have made the breadsticks again, but instead we had garlic toast. Simple and tasty!

And because I feel bad about not having any pictures of food, here's a picture of my cat instead. =D

Days 25-27

Saturday we had plans to go out to the woods and check out some campsites and do some night-time photography, but our friends stood us up! We would have stayed home to finish moving the studio/office, but since we were planning on a little day-trip, we went to Moe's to pick up lunch before meeting our friends.

I'm getting only slightly tired of Moe's at this point. There are so many combinations that it's hard to get bored. I had a homewrecker junior with tofu this time. It was loaded with rice, black beans, grilled mushrooms and onions, black olives, cucumbers, guacamole, and the southwest vinaigrette. I actually asked for the Salsa Vinaigrette, but the southwest was good too. It was VERY oily though, and my plate quickly turned into a puddle. I couldn't eat the last inch or so of the burrito because I'm pretty sure it was all vinaigrette.

We were pretty bummed about being stood-up, and I'm not sure that we ever got around to real dinner. We did finally get busy moving furniture, and I want to say we ran out to Kroger for a loaf of bread and I had a pb&j and some chocolate almond milk for dinner. Dinner of champions.. hahaha

Sunday I started the day with a bowl of oatmeal before we did a little grocery shopping. We bought mostly convenience items since we are expecting this week to be a little hectic. We scarfed down a cheese-less Amy's veggie pizza before heading over to a friend's house to watch the Super Bowl. I'm glad we planned ahead and brought our own snacks, because I think the only vegan things there were potato chips and teddy grahams. I brought roasted red pepper hummus, wheat thins, veggie stick chips, and BBQ Almonds. I've really been good about avoiding snacks all together, but being around a bunch of people eating lots of good smelling food was a real test. If I hadn't brought my own snacks I might have caved and eaten other things!

Since I'm not used to snacking like that, I felt sick when we got home after the game. I had to try very hard to keep all that junk food down, and I probably would have been better off if I hadn't. I'm not condoning binge eating and throwing up, but my body was definitely trying to purge... ick.. Makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it!

Monday I had some store-bought green juice for breakfast. It's not as "healthy" as home-made, but at least I'm getting the vitamins. The juice has a lot of things my multivitamin doesn't have, and it tastes good. And it is easy to drink when my sinuses/allergies are making me nauseous in the morning.

For lunch I had an Amy's bean burrito. I bought 5 to last me the week at work, so I'll be repeating myself a lot. They're quick and easy, even if they do often fall apart. You could easily jazz one up with some salsa and/or guacamole, or even some Better Than Sour Cream. I don't really get tired of them, since lunch is more of a hassle than a culinary experience for me. They keep me full for the rest of the day and they taste good. Maybe someday I'll be able to step outside the box of leftovers and frozen things. I'm just not that dedicated yet.

I had a banana and some almonds when I hit my mid-afternoon slump, and I think that was a pretty good snack. My energy levels stayed fairly consistent yesterday, all without any caffeine! I didn't have one of my (in)famous yawning fits at 4:30, so I'd call that a good day.

For dinner I made a stir-fry with the fake chick'n teriyaki strips again. It's so quick and easy and only uses one pan, so I'm inclined to make this at least once a week. I used frozen veggies to save time, but if I was going to serve it to friends I would definitely take the time to chop fresh veggies (onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, green beans or sugar snap peas) and at least buy a few cans of authentic stir-fry veggies (bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, yummm). The bag of veggies I used last night was heavy on the broccoli, which I kind of think of as Chinese food filler. If I was making it from scratch, I'd probably leave out the broccoli. If I had a little more time I'd have made some fried rice (with tofu or sans egg), but honestly the veggies and chick'n filled me up and I didn't miss the side dish.

Day 23-24

Since I work later hours on Thursdays, I got a lot done yesterday before work! We had a new sleeper sofa being delivered for our guest room "between 8-10am", so I couldn't sleep in like I usually do.

New sleeper sofa!

I had oatmeal for breakfast. It's boring, but it's easy and I like it. I was able to sit down and eat it as I watched the morning news. There's something I could get used to, if I didn't enjoy sleep so much.

Lunch was kind of weird, because I get to work right before lunchtime on Thursdays. My routine is always off, and I try to save my lunch break for dinner time (I would be ravenous if I tried to wait to eat dinner after 8pm). I ended up eating some hummus and wheat thins as I worked at my desk. I had also mixed some cranberry juice and apple juice in a tumbler and brought it to work, so that counts as lunch too.

Organic Thai Coconut Curry Hummus. So tasty.

For dinner I had a black bean burger (freezer to microwave, so easy at work!), and my leftover salad from dinner at Good Eats. It was a huge salad, so I had plenty left.

I ended up eating another bowl of oatmeal when I got home because I was hungry again. I've been having a hungry week. Oh well.

Breakfast today was the same.. oatmeal. It really is good with unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Really creamy and like a completely different substance from oatmeal made with water. I think vegan or not, I'll keep making it this way. Who needs the added sugar from regular milk anyway?

I brought a strange last-minute concoction for lunch today. I mashed a can of white beans and mixed it with a few tablespoons of salsa to make a bean dip. And we were out of tortillas, so I brought tortilla chips instead. I'm not crazy about the extra sodium, but oh well. It's what I had. And it's going to taste good. I brought some mexican rice I can heat up in case I'm still hungry. Oh the strange things I eat when I'm running low on produce. =D

We're going out for sushi tonight to celebrate the hubby's successful PT test. He passed with a 97%! That's his best score ever, in the entire 5.5 years he's been in the military. He's practically sold on being a permanent vegan now. Success!! We might even pick up some sorbet, though I'll feel guilty and I'll have to drag my butt onto the treadmill tomorrow to make up for it. The next adventure is going to be adding in more exercise and cutting out the (vegan) junk food. 

Day 21-22

Tuesday was fairly standard as far as food goes. Had a muffin for breakfast, banana a little later, and an Amy's bean burrito for lunch. For dinner we tried some Chick'n burgers. We made sweet potato fries in the toaster oven and I threw together a salad of spinach, avocado, tomato, and cucumber with balsamic vinaigrette. Everything was good, especially the Chick'n burgers. They have me convinced that fake chicken is much better than fake beef.

Home made salad

Wednesday was a hungry day for me. I had a muffin for breakfast, then for lunch I had a black bean burger and wheat thins with Thai coconut curry hummus. I ended up having two cups of coffee late in the work day because I was fighting sleep and a headache. I've been using coconut milk creamer and it's a fair substitute.

We were out shopping for new running shoes, so we went to a local place called Good Eats for dinner. I ended up having a Spicy Thai Vegetable Soup and a Greek Salad (minus the feta). Hubby cheated and had a shrimp po-boy, but he's been good up till now so I didn't fight him on it. The girls at the counter were friendly and answered all my questions about the soup ingredients. I asked about dairy and she told me there was none in the soup. It was very creamy, and it definitely had a hint of coconut milk.

Greek Salad from Good Eats

Day 20

On Monday we tried juicing.

Two servings of Green Juice

I couldn't finish mine. I drank about 80% before my gag reflex took over. The juice is spinach, kale, celery, green apples, cucumber, and ginger. I found a different recipe (different ratios, plus lemon) that I want to try next time. This one was a big no. I wish I could find a good one without celery because I don't like celery at all, and it's overwhelming in any juice. That wasn't really the problem with this one though. This one just tasted like grass clippings. Yuck.

I had a muffin later on, and my co-worker brought me a soy mocha from Starbucks.

I found a new kind of Amy's burritos that I like, and that was my lunch. I also had a vegan cupcake (!!) since I brought them to work to share.

For dinner we had Chick'n Stir Fry. I bought 2 bags of stir fry veggies (peppers, onions, baby corn, water chestnuts, broccoli, snap peas, carrots, mushrooms) and a bag of Chick'n Teriyaki strips and dumped it all in the skillet for a few minutes. I added a little soy sauce and the teriyaki sauce that came with the chick'n. It definitely passed the taste test. I really liked the fake chicken strips.