49 months a vegan! Filling meal of Spaghetti Squash #foodismedicine #vEGANisNOTboring

Spaghetti Squash with homemade marinara and portobello mushrooms

      I'm into this whole foods plant based no oil cooking for over 4 years and the food is never boring! This is a spaghetti squash with meatless spaghetti sauce, portobello mushrooms that I cooked in it's own juice using a non stick pan and cooking it on medium low heat.
     It's really easy and it took almost no time to prepare. All I did was cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, sprinkle on a tiny pinch of salt and that was the prep. I baked it at 350 degrees open side up in the oven for an hour. During that hour I did paper work.
     Once done I used a fork to scrape out the squash, mixed it with the sauce that I made and jarred 2 weeks ago, added the mushrooms and sprinkled on a little nutritional yeast. Season to taste with salt and pepper.


That squash was in the fridge in the garage waiting patiently for me  to do something with it for about 4 weeks uncovered. Had it been chicken, beef or fish I would have thrown it out by then. That's the great thing about veggies. Even when they are a few weeks old you can still use them. Almost nothing goes to waist! Wilted veggies usually perk back up if you soak them in water for a little while and if they don't, I cut them up, throw them in a pot and make soup!  This is not a complicated equation.
Eat your fruits and veggies, get healthy, lose weight without going hungry and save money!  What's not to like?

Think you could never give up meat and cheese?  So did I and I was wrong. Try it for a week. Anyone can do this.....even me.

49 Months a Vegan! Here is my salad dressing recipe. #Simple #hatepublicspeaking #lovethemessage

I had the honor of speaking to an audience about my personal lifestyle changes over the past 4 years following a lecture on whole foods plant based no oil eating given by Dr. Joel Kahn last week.

In case you missed it, I gave out a recipe for a healthy, simple salad dressing. Here it is again. 

Hope you like it as much as I do!

Romaine and Kale with sweet bell peppers and tomato

     There is absolutely no reason in the world to eat oil period. It doesn't matter if it's vegetable, olive, coconut, safflower, canola, etc, They are all oil and oil damages the endothelial lining of your arteries.  It is the most calorie dense food out there. One tablespoon is 120 calories taking up almost no room in your stomach, adding no nutrition that you couldn't be getting from whole foods. If you have a history of heart disease, a family history of heart disease or you just want a future without heart disease, stay away from oil!!!  ← (that's a link...)

     When you are trying to lose weight, you should go for foods that fill your stomach yet are very low in calories. These are the foods that Weight Watchers assigns Zero points and tells you to eat them as much as you want. Any fruit or vegetable that grows above the ground will do. Stretching out your stomach with low calorie whole foods tells your brain you are full and don't need to eat anymore. Here's my simple salad dressing:

NO OIL SALAD DRESSING

Red Wine Vinegar

Agave nectar (may substitute Mandarin orange slices)

Rosemary

Lemon Juice

Onion flakes

Black pepper

Mix up a nice large salad in a bowl. Drizzle on the vinegar, lemon juice and a little agave nectar. Sprinkle on the seasonings. Toss. That's it! Simple. This is how my mother used to do it. There was no measuring. Add or subtract any seasoning you like and enjoy!!!

     Check out PBNSG.org more recipes and tips.

Vegan Gluten Free Oil Free One Pan Pasta Primivera!

Happy 2018! 

I was at Costco over the weekend and came across this gluten free chickpea pasta. I have no problems with gluten but I saw this on the shelf and thought I would try it. I wasn't disappointed! It's easy to cook and 5 times higher in protein than regular wheat pasta. Coincidently,  I was watching a video of a guy who made some changes to a Martha Stewart one pan pasta recipe and all he did was add some spinach. If that's all you have to do to make it your own, then I have it covered! The only equipment I needed was a skillet, a very sharp knife and a wooden spoon. If you want you can use this same recipe with regular spaghetti or any dry pasta. It's really easy!

Easy One Pan Pasta

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Everything in the skillet

Servings: 2.

Ingredients:

2 Cups uncooked pasta

2 Roma tomatoes

4 Baby Portobello mushrooms

1 medium onion

1/2  of a sweet yellow pepper

1 medium Jalapeno pepper

1/3 cup of chopped fresh parsley

1 T dry basil

1 T dry oregano

6 stalks celery chopped fine

1/8 t black pepper

2 Cups water (or vegetable stock)

Using a very sharp knife slice the veggies as thinly as you can so they will cook quickly. Put everything in the skillet and add the water. On high heat, bring it to a boil. Cook it down and stir so it cooks evenly. 

As it begins to thicken, lower the heat to simmer and continue stirring until you cook off most of the water. 

Put it on a plate and serve hot. As an option, I also sprinkled some nutritional yeast over the top. 

It makes a great main dish or a wonderful side dish. Eat! It's good for you!!!

3 things you can do to get started on New Year's Day #Vegan #Eatlikeahorse #LeanVeggieMachine

This is an article I wrote in 2016 for Detroit's   Plant Based Nutrition Support Group.  It still applies:

In 2013 I was feeling pretty good, taking my blood pressure medicine, my cholesterol medicine, using my CPAP machine for my sleep apnea and coping with random aches and pains in my back, knees and shoulders. I knew I was fat, wearing size XXL shirts and size 44 pants. My weight maxed out at 284 lbs the year before. By the end of that year I had managed to lose 10 whole pounds. Not much of a difference and I knew it.

     When I decided to change my life I was lucky enough to have access to the information I needed to point me in the right direction. Here's my list of 3 things you can start doing right now:

1) Get some motivation from your television. Your TV is a remarkable teaching instrument. It captures your attention and allows you to stop, rewind and go over information as  many times as it takes to understand. If you have the TUBI app and Netflix, watch Forks Over Knives and then watch Plant Pure Nation. You have all this great information available right in your own home. Its time to sit down and let it sink in. 

2) Collect a few Plant Based Whole Foods recipes. Learn about things you can do to veganize food that you already enjoy. For example I love oatmeal for breakfast. I buy steel cut oats because I like the texture. It's available at any grocery store and also in most bulk food stores. Instead of cow's milk I like vanilla almond milk. Make a pot with 2 cups of steel cut oats, 4 cups of water, 4 cups of vanilla almond milk then spice it up. I put in varying combinations of cinnamon, a chopped banana, allspice, dried cherries, raisins, chopped dates, chopped walnuts and or chopped apples. All of that is from plants and nothing has been highly processed. I like to sprinkle on a tablespoon or two of milled flaxseed for the Omega 3 fatty acids once its in my bowl. My blog has a bunch of other simple recipes that you're going to love. There are lots of vegan cookbooks out there. Pick one, like the Engine 2 Cookbook  or The Plant Power Way and flip through it. It will give you great results and give you an idea of the many substitutes you can use instead of oil, milk, sugar and meat! Once you collect 10 or 15 recipes to rotate, you'll never get bored.

3) Make a commitment to yourself. Set a time to get started. Changing your eating habits is the same as breaking any addiction. It takes your body a month to get over the withdrawal symtoms of an addiction. Its not a coincidence that the most effective substance abuse rehab programs are a minimum of 1 month. High fat, processed, sugary, salty processed foods stimulate the same pleasure center in your brain as opiates.  I chose New Year's Day and committed myself to do this for 1 year. By the end of the 1st month I had lost 20 lbs and already felt better physically and mentally. We're all watching football and recovering from the holidays on New Year's Day. Its a great time to begin. 

Its a chance to follow through with the same resolution you've been making every year and breaking every year. Make this the year that you commit to yourself. Nobody is going to do it for you!

 

My 5th Year a Vegan Starts Tomorrow! Recipe: White Beans and Wild Rice #WFPBnoOil #ReverseDiabetesNow!

White Beans With Wild Rice

      Here's my recipe for white beans and wild rice. It's full of fiber and contains ZERO cholesterol. I used my pressure cooker and it was ready in an hour. It contains all the essential amino acids so your amazing body can make it's own protein with no added oil to gum up your system. The things I used to eat as side dishes are now the center of my Whole Foods Plant Based No Oil diet. 

     Tomorrow is New Year's Day 2018. Start it out with a bowl of oatmeal with vanilla almond milk, raisins, cinnamon and sprinkle on 2 tablespoons of milled flaxseed. Have a banana. Eat an orange. Have an apple or two. If you get sick of football, sit down with a big bowl of air popped popcorn and watch Forks Over Knives on Netflix. If you don't get Netflix, watch Dr. Esselstyn from the Cleveland Clinic lecture about how to make your heart healthy through what you eat so you can eliminate your blood pressure and cholesterol medications. Have the healthiest, happiest New Year ever! Anyone can.

White Beans with Wild Rice

1/2 cup of dry white beans

1/2 cup of wild rice

2 cups of vegetable soup stock

1/2 cup of water

Servings:  2

Saturated Fat:  0

Rinse the dry beans. Put everything in your pressure cooker. Set it for 1 hour. Let the steam vent on it's own.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

DONE!

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Four Years a Vegan! Happy New Year!!! #eattolose #foodISmedicine #nutritarian #WFPBnoOIL

White beans with wild rice, Zoodles stir cooked in veggie broth, Sweet orange pepper, Portobello mushrooms and Sweetcorn  

2013

     Monday, January 1, 2018 will mark the beginning of my 5th year living a whole foods plant based no oil lifestyle. I started out at age 58 as an obese, prediabetic, sedentary, depressed couch potato with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, exercise induced asthma, kidney issues and obstructive sleep apnea. In less than a year those problems vanished and my doctor took me off my medications. By 18 months I had lost 100 lbs without increasing my activity. When I was challenged at age 60 by one of my nieces to join her for a 5K race I found that I liked running for the 1st time in my life and that I was good at it! Another 10 lbs vanished with the running and my weight became stable at 174 lbs. Total weight loss was 110 lbs. Now at the end of my 4th year my weight remains stable, I eat enormous amounts of food, feel great, don't need medications and have tons more energy than ever before. As a bonus, my chances of developing Diabetes or of having a heart attack have been reversed!
     Heart disease is the number 1 killer of people in the United States and the numbers are growing. All of the blood pressure pills and statin drugs out there haven't changed that fact. So even if this whole foods plant based no oil diet didn't make me lose weight and keep it off, reverse prediabetes, eliminate the sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma and kidney issues wasn't it worth doing just to save me from suffering a heart attack? There aren't any pills out there that can replace a healthy diet and there aren't any other diets out there that can do all the things for you that this one can.
     Get over to the produce section and you won't have to spend time in the pharmacy department. It doesn't matter how old you are. Anyone can choose to do this for themself. It makes a GREAT New Year's resolution. Make changes in your food choices now to look and feel better next week, next month and for the rest of your life!
For a FREE 21 day kickstart plan that starts on the 1st of the month go to Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine. Make that 1st choice. Nobody can do it for you!

NOW!

Merry Christmas! Give yourself a gift of health ❤ #veganNOoil #eattolose #eatmoreweighless

    In 2013, age 58,  I was pre-diabetic, weighed 284 lbs, had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea and my kidneys were leaking blood; 5 red cells per high powered field. Rather than wait for a health crisis to hit, I was proactive and chose to get on board with a whole foods plant based lifestyle.

    In the first year I lost 80 lbs. By month 16 my weight was down 100 lbs without any exercise. I was no longer pre-diabetic, no longer had sleep apnea and my doctor took me off my blood pressure and cholesterol pills. My kidneys stopped leaking blood completely.

    Memorial Day of 2015 I started running. By Labor Day I was down a total of 110 lbs, comfortable running 5K and ran in my very 1st race. I won the Bronze Medal in my age group!

    January 1, 2018 will mark the beginning of my 5th year doing this. My weight is stable between 174 and 180 lbs no matter how much I eat. I am more active and weigh 5 lbs less than I did when I was 18. Going whole foods, plant based, no oil was the best health decision I ever made!

Your age doesn't matter. Anyone, and I mean EVERYONE, CAN DO THIS!