I recently began learning about the slow food movement and joined a group in my area. Many communities have groups so look for one in yours…
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I have really been enjoying this lately:
http://myplantbasedfamily.wordpress.com/
It’s about raising a family on a healthy plant based diet and doing it on a budget. There are some delicious recipes, weekly meal plans and some over all great ideas for those of us beginning our journey on a plant based lifestyle.
For those that are new to this blog, up until last week I’d spent over 5 months on antibiotics for a nasty staph infection. Staph is something that many of us naturally carry on our body and in our noses. Most of the time we are immune to it, but on occasion it does find a way into our systems and it can be very stubborn to get rid of. I happen to live in an area with many, many hospitals. It’s the medical capital of the northeastern United States. Because staph originally comes from hospital settings and has now found its way out into communities, this part of the country has seen dramatic increases in people becoming infected. It is an exponentially growing problem and you are now more likely to get it at the gym or while pushing your shopping cart than you are at a hospital.
I’ve never been a big fan of meds, always preferring to let my body try to fight things off naturally if possible. I don’t even use pain relievers, unless I’m burning up from a fever. But when I became sick with staph, my body was in no condition to do any serious fighting. Lack of sleep, lack of exercise and a horrendous diet left a gaping hole in my body’s natural defenses. My immune system was left weakened and susceptible. With the severity of my staph infection, I was happy to be on antibiotics and to eventually find a medicine that would do a good job in fighting it off, as I had tried a number of different ones that really didn’t do the trick. What I never expected was to be on meds for so long. At my last doctor’s appointment just before Christmas, I fully expected to be given the green light to forgo the meds, but was instead told to continue on for two more months as a precaution. At times the dosages were so high that several times a day I was suffering from “medicine gut” a term I coined to describe the fire in my belly that would rise up my esophagus. The ironic thing about being on meds for so long though, is that I eventually started to somehow believe that I wouldn’t be well without them. I was literally scared to go off of them. I had become sort of psychologically dependent on them. Being off of them for a week now has definitely raised my confidence level that things are going to be alright. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still nervous but am feeling better.
Before I got sick, I was so completely exhausted. My life was a vicious circle of poor choices leading to worse health leading to worse choices. At times I have been over 400 pounds. I don’t even no how much over 400 because even the scale in my doctor’s office wouldn’t go higher then that. It’s hard to carry that much weight around all day long. I’d get home and just want to get horizontal. I was eating poorly which also sapped my energy. Then I would turn to sugar to get an energy bump. When that rush wore off, I’d up the amounts of sugar. One day I actually totaled up my sugar intake and found out that often times I was consuming hundreds of grams of sugar daily. I was doing nothing to improve my situation and physically and emotionally I began sinking deeper and deeper.
When I did get sick with staph, I slept for days. I couldn’t even eat. I was nearly bedridden due to exhaustion. I lost 17 pounds in two weeks (some of which I would later gain back). It was a miserable time. And as overdramatic as it probably sounds, there were times that I wondered if I was going to even make it. I felt that bad.
Twenty two weeks on antibiotics gives a person a long time to mull over their situation. I researched ways to fight staph naturally and began using a variety of supplements. I began looking at my diet. Some blood-work confirmed that I would need to make some serious lifestyle changes if I was going to get well and get off meds. Shortly after switching to a plant based diet, I began to feel energized like I hadn’t been in so long. I never crashed. Some nights I had to tell myself it was time to go to sleep because I still had energy. I couldn’t imagine feeling much better. But after being antibiotic free for three days last week, I actually felt the best I have in 18 years. It’s not an exaggeration. I literally felt 18 years old again. The fog lifted and I felt so good – physically and emotionally. For two days I wanted to pinch myself. I felt like I had found the fountain of youth.
With a plant based diet that has been modified to also assist with my other health issues, there are a lot of things that I find myself missing. I do miss meat. I do really miss cheese. I miss bread. I miss Snyder’s hard pretzels (with sharp cheddar cheese). I miss fried foods. Sometimes I think of how nice it would be to have a coca cola on ice. Today, I broke down and bought three small peppers stuffed with prosciutto, hard provolone cheese and marinated in olive oil. Three no no’s. But I felt like a little bit of this stuff might actually do my system a favor as I’ve been eating nothing but fruits, veggies and beans lately. They were so good. It was the taste of my grandmother’s kitchen growing up. But afterwards, I felt rundown. And that’s what I don’t miss. And that’s why I will never go back to how I used to eat. Sure I’ll be less militant when I’m healthy and I know I will eat meat and cheese again, but I’ll never go back to having such an unbalanced diet. I feel too good to ever go back to that. It is worth the trade off. It is worth missing these things.
You really can put lightening back in a bottle. You really can feel 18 again. It’s not bullshit. If you want to feel young again put good gas in your tank. If you want to lose weight, cut out the things that the body has difficulty processing and eat more naturally. Go plant based for two weeks and tell me if you don’t feel absolutely incredible. I’m not telling you its gonna be easy. It’s gonna be very hard but everything that is worth something in life comes with a price.
Some people have asked how to make the switch to a plant based diet easier and I have said get really, really sick and see how easy it is. Because short of that, I doubt I would ever have found this path. In a few weeks, I hope to put together a daily menu for people who want to try a plant based diet out for a couple of weeks. If you are already on the path, consider leaving me some of your favorite plant based recipes below in the comment section or email them to me at johhnysized@gmail.com. Keep them easy. Remember what it was like when you first started. how overwhelming it can be.
If you aren’t yet on the path but suffer from fatigue, want to lose weight, etc. – consider going plant based just for a few weeks and see what a difference it can make. Even smaller steps like cutting out sugar, or processed foods could allow you to feel and see some real noticeable results. Learn from my mistakes, if you are unhealthy, don’t wait until you are so sick that you have no other options.
And so begins week 10 of a switch to a plant based diet. I lost a pound this week which brings the total to over 47 pounds lost through diet, exercise and sickness. Trying to hit the 50 pounds down mark has proven to be difficult, but I’m making changes to facilitate it so we’ll see what happens. I feel pretty good that this will be the week that I see the plateau crumble and see some serious weight loss start up again. Limiting plant based fats like seeds and nuts and cutting out oils all together while increasing exercise should help to make make the difference.
As someone of an italian heritage, I’ve grown up around olive oil and it is used in an awful lot of meals. I thought for sure that switching away from it would prove difficult but it has not been. I’m using veggie broth to saute with and I am enjoying the natural taste of my veggies now. Very often in the past, asparagus would be covered with a coating of egg, breadcrumbs and cheese or wrapped with bacon or with a glaze of some sort. Don’t misunderstand me, bacon makes everything taste better, but it’s also nice to eat these vegetables and be able to just taste their natural flavors. Over the weekend I used broth to make an asparagus and zucchini wrap with dijon mustard that was amazingly good. I’m using alternatives for salad dressing and enjoying the the results more than I did when I was using oil. I recently heard about a semi-local retailer that is selling 13 year old vinegars that are reportedly so good, nothing else is needed for a fantastic salad dressing. I’ll be eager to check that out at some point. It’s interesting that when you cut out a lot of the processed foods, fats and oils, you feel like your taste for things really begins to more fully develop. I recently had a small portion of macaroni with no sauce or any other topping and it was the most enjoyable pasta that I have eaten in quite a while. A few moths ago, I would of rejected the idea of plain pasta, but now it is an absolute treat.
I thought I’d be upset about not getting further along this week but I’m slowly getting to the point where I feel like weight loss cannot be the only measure of success. “Further along” is relative. I feel good, so good that how I feel must also be factored in. And as long as I’m heading in the right direction with my weight, thats fine by me.
This may sound crazy. I’ve always had an amazing sense of smell. But my sniffer is definitely changing lately. After two months on a plant based diet, I feel a bit sad to report that beef no longer smells like it used to. I want it to because I love beef, but it doesn’t anymore. The smell of hamburgers being cooked makes me want to be sick. I mean really sick! Like I need to get out of the room before I hurl sick! And the burgers end up looking wonderful and delicious but the smell is becoming an impossible hill to climb. And tonight the smell of fish sticks, a food that I have always loved, smelled more like rotting garbage than fish. I literally had to stick my head in the garbage can to make sure the smell wasn’t coming from there. It probably sounds horrible and overly dramatic but it really is the truth. To my fellow meat eaters, I’m sure I’m really starting to sound like one of those “nutty plant eaters”, but yeah, the longer I do this, the less meat appeals to me. It’s getting to be that I can’t really get past the smell, even if I wanted to eat meat. I really am becoming one of those “nutty plant eaters’ and its one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
I am happy to report that freshly made donuts continue to smell wonderful….not that I’ve had one.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ”Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
– Muhammad Ali
The lifestyle change to plant based foods has taught me to trade things I thought I loved for the things that my body needs. Giving up animal sources of food was a little difficult and although I do crave a juicy steak from time to time, I’m managing. Giving up sugar was hard for the first few days but now I don’t even think about it. I see things like soda and candy and they look like poison to me. (Donuts for some reason, still look wonderful!) Dairy was probably the biggest challenge because of my love of cheese. I still do miss it but I can’t argue with how I feel, and how I feel is better than I have in 15 years which is really saying something. In a way, a plant based diet is like finding the fountain of youth.
The problem I’m having now though is that after 46 pounds, the body is starting to level off with the weight loss. I’ve switched my diet up here and there, added some additional exercise but still I’m not seeing much weight loss. I think I’m struggling with plant based fats. I love seeds and nuts. A 3.5 ounce bag of pumpkin seeds contains nearly all of my recommended fat intake for the day. I can polish a bag that size of in a few minutes. I probably eat a bag of those every day or two. Pistachios have also become a big snack food around here. I’m realizing that a lot of my plant based fat is coming from these two things every day. But the majority of my plant based fat is coming from olive oil.
I’ve started reading up on olive oil and in so many ways its not the health food that it has been marketed as. It is total fat. There are 120 calories and 14 grams of fat per serving. Pound for pound, it contains more fat than butter. It’s also heavily processed and often cotains chemical additives. The reality is, its nearly impossible to find a pure grade of virgin olive oil in your supermarket, especially if you are buying it in clear glass or plastic (as sunlight breaks pure virgin olive oil down). It only has trace amounts of vitamin E and many or the purported benefits of olive oil can be gained from the foods I am already eating. To top it off, it is only heart healthy when compared to other kinds of fats. And no, other oils do not seem any better for you as the nutritional values appear to be about the same. I’m not a doctor, but what I’ve been reading lately would seem to indicate that my heart would be healthier without it altogether or at least in vastly smaller quantities. I have used about 36 ounces of it in my salads and cooking in just the last several weeks. I’ve never consumed so much olive oil as I have been recently. It’s a lot like taking several scoops of ice cream, dumping them onto your salad and asking why you’re not losing weight.
So this will be the next step in this process, severely cutting back on plant based fats and eliminating olive oil all together. For sautéing, I will try veggie broth and see how that goes. For salads, I tried using 3 parts balsamic vinegar and two parts dijon mustard (mixed together then drizzled) last night and it rivals any dressing I’ve ever gotten at a decent restaurant. It is so much better tasting than an oil and vinegar dressing.
It’s true, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve never eaten this way before and admittedly, I’m not well educated on these things but I’m trying to get there. I feel ike all of the plant-based fat intake has been slowing my progress down and so I’m going to tweak my regiment a bit and see what happens.
“Every mouthful of oils and animal products, including dairy foods, initiates an assault on these [cell] membranes and, therefore, on the cells they protect. These foods produce a cascade of free radicals in our bodies especially harmful chemical substances that induce metabolic injuries from which there is only a partial recovery. Year after year, the effects accumulate. And eventually, the cumulative cell injury is great enough to become obvious, to express itself as what physicians define as disease. Plants and grains do not induce the deadly cascade of free radicals. Even better, in fact, they carry an antidote. Unlike oils and animal products, they contain antioxidants, which help to neutralize the free radicals and also, recent research suggests, may provide considerable protection against cancers.” – Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.
So the Broccoli Rabe soup came out fantastic. As I tried it, I was thinking of how much my mother and grandmother would enjoy it. My mom stopped by today and tried a little and told me it was some of the best soup she has ever had. Success! This soup is hearty!
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I love cajun food and recently came across this recipe. I’m hoping to give it a try soon! It would have been perfect for Fat Tuesday!
CHICKPEA GUMBO (From Fat Free Vegan)
2 teaspoons olive oil (or 2 tablespoons water or broth—see SUSAN’s TIPS)
1 tablespoon flour
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
2 cups vegetable broth
1 28-ounce can tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with juice
1 16-ounce can chickpeas (drained)
16 ounces sliced okra, fresh or frozen
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tablespoon Tabasco
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
1-2 cups additional broth or water
In a large pot over medium-high heat, sauté the onions, pepper, and celery in the olive oil. When the onions begin to get translucent, add the flour and stir continuously, scraping the bottom of the pan, until the flour begins to brown slightly. Add the vegetable broth and tomatoes, stirring to combine. Then add the remaining ingredients.
The gumbo should have enough liquid to resemble a chunky soup; if it is too dry, add some more vegetable broth or water. Cook for at least 30 minutes, until the flavors have a chance to mingle. Remove the bay leaves and serve over rice.
Veggie sausage can also be added!
That’s it for today, Brother Body wants some rest now!
It’s been 24 hours without these:
Since September, I’ve been eating these things like candy for a staph infection that I was eventually diagnosed with. It took a month just to find a med that really responded to it, hence all the different ones. The pink ones were for pain as a pimple on the back of my neck had swelled to something about the size of a deck of cards in less than 72 hours. Some of the white ones were to prevent the sepsis (blood poisoning)that was beginning to occur from really taking root. Then the dosage was increased but did little to stop the actual growth. So I was switched to a different and stronger med which still didn’t do the trick. Then I began getting antibiotic shots at my doctors office and again my med was changed (a third different white one). By the time I was finally diagnosed with the staph I had been on 6 different meds. The experience with my general practitioner was very difficult and I had to really fight to advocate for myself. If I hadn’t fought to get a culture done, I’m not sure what would have happened. Luckily I knew some knowledgeable people who were able to help steer me in the right direction.
The experience with my doctor was miserable and honestly I can’t even write about it in the detail that it deserves without feeling the anxiety that surrounded that time start to seep back in. So suffice to say, I found an infectious disease doctor that was quite fantastic and he put me on the blue guys for the last four months. Because the size of my infection was so large and was mostly under the skin in one of the deadliest spots you can get staph (the nape of the neck. The most deadly is on the forehead – all because of blood vessels and relatively easy access to the brain and spine), I had to take 8 of those suckers a day. That was 2400mg a day for three months. I can’t even begin to tell you what this does to a person’s stomach. I remember my new doctor saying that I was on enough meds to sink a battleship. Gradually I was able to reduce down to half of that dose. Yesterday I stopped all together.
Over the last four months, I have felt decent but there have been times where I thought the staph was coming back. The meds kept everything in check and within hours, pimples that popped up would be gone again. But now, I’m going without that net. It feels really good to be off of meds and I hope that I will never need them again for this. But I am scared like crazy at the same time. Hopeful and scared. Once I get through a week with no problems, I will start feeling better.
As miserable an experience as this was (for a little while there, I truly thought I would be hospitalized and possibly worse) it gave me the push I so desperately needed to try to get my health and wellness in better order. The human body was created to heal itself. It is it’s own best medicine. Taking care of it allows it to better be able to do its job. I’m pretty much doing all that I can to take care of myself now. I really hope the worst is over. It’s an interesting story, but one that I’d rather not have to live through ever again.
And so begins week 9 of my switch to a plant based diet. I lost a pound this past week. That brings the total to over 46 pounds lost through diet, exercise and sickness.
I wasn’t thrilled with the weight loss this week. I pushed myself to try to lose 5 pounds so that I could hit an even 50 pounds within 8 weeks and I ended up falling short. I gave it a good effort but it just didn’t happen. Maybe this is my ego needing big round numbers. I should be content with just continuing to lose the weight. In my mind I think it makes a good story to lose 50 pounds so quick. But the real story is this – losing weight is hard and its really #$&*!@ frustrating at times. You think you’ve found your personal formula for success and then weight loss slows down dramatically or stops all together. I didn’t even want to write this blog today because I was so aggravated.
I knew that five pounds in a week was not going to be easy but I felt that with some discipline it could be done. I came up with what I thought was a good game plan. I tried to switch the week up by cutting back the amount of plant based fats I was taking in but honestly it just left me hungry. I increased my fiber and protein intake but still hungry… Miserably hungry for the last four days and the scale barely moved when all was said and done. So I need to work harder, especially physically, if I’m going to be able to sustain the kind of weight loss that I’ve been seeing up until this point. I really hope my dumbbells I ordered get here soon as I’m eager to throw them around and I’m starting to hate the treadmill with a passion. It really is becoming “the dreadmill”. At least nice weather temps are around the corner which hopefully means a few days walking around the park which will be a pleasant change of scenery.
So after days of feeling overly hungry, tonight I did something counterintuitive. I went to the local buffet. It’s been two months since I was there and I definitely can’t put it away like I used to nor did I even want to try. I did enjoy a nice vegetable stirfry and some sushi. I also had some shrimp. I feel like my body has been craving meat so I allowed myself a little bit of seafood. There is definitely some sort of meal with beef in my future. I thought about tying it a 50 pound weight loss as a reward. But that sort of thinking got me into this predicament. Food shouldn’t be a reward, at least not for me, not now.
So yeah, dreaming of beef, even if it is just a piece or two. For now, I’m just going to increase the B12. What I did find interesting is that things I would normally get there, like coconut chicken, just weren’t appealing to me in the least. And if I’m going to eat beef, it’s going to be some place good and not at a buffet.
I’ve got the broccoli rabe soup in the slow cooker. It’s been going all day and it smells sooooo good. Pics tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!
I’ve been eating an awful lot of veggie wraps lately and they have been delicious. I’ve enjoyed all sorts of variations of peppers, bok choy, broccoli rabe, mushrooms, lettuce and sprouts. Here’s a pic of the veggies that were going into one of my recent wraps. Doesn’t that look fabulous?!
The wraps themselves have been high in fiber while low in fat and calories. But my weight has leveled a bit and I need to switch it up and get some more variety this week. I’ve recently got a hold of some wonderful plant-based cookbooks that are giving me some excellent ideas.
In the northeast US right now, it’s fairly cold. And nothing beats the chill like a nice warm homemade bowl of soup. I’m looking for something different though and I think I’m going to give this a try and see how it goes: Broccoli Rabe Soup! I don’t know what it is about Broccoli Rabe but I am just absolutely crazy for the stuff. Through the course of last week, I ate three heads of it. I know, I just said I need to switch it up, but I’m not letting go of my Broccoli Rabe! I’m going to add carrots and onion chopped very finely, lots and lots of garlic, mashed white beans as a thickener and then add some seasoning to my veggie stock. I’m going to let that simmer for a few hours and then add trimmed and chopped broccoli rabe! I imagine you could substitute escarole, spinach or kale if you prefer one of those.
I’m also going to make a Roman-Style Marinated Broccoli Salad. It’s really quick and easy. You take a package of broccolislaw (big time saver), add 3 chopped plum tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar and season to taste. Combine, sprinkle with a bit of parsley and then refrigerate for several hours. This will be a really nice side salad to that soup.
I can’t wait to make these. I’ll let you know how it goes. Pics to come!
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