Three years and 1 month a vegan! #sustainableweightloss #eattolose #veganforlife #eathealthy

Seitan, cooked mixed veggies, quinoa and homemade whole wheat bread

It's now officially 37 month since I got away from animal products and joined the whole foods plant based, no oil movement. That 100 lbs I was trying to lose is gone and has stayed gone for almost 2 years. I didn't know I was part of a movement. It just kind of happened around me and I got sucked in.
It was absurdly easy to do once I accepted the fact that meat and dairy products were killing me and I could be ridiculously healthy without them.
     I was 58 years old, more than 100 lbs overweight and, after years of struggling with it, I had resigned myself to the fact that I always was and always would be fat.  I had given up on myself and had embraced the fact that this was me and there was no point in fighting a war that was never going to be won. That sounds so depressing.
     But that wasn't the end of the story. Lets break it down. A war is composed of individual battles. These battles are 90% mental and 10% mental. To come out the victor you have to win more battles than you lose. Each and every piece of food you eat is a small battle. I decided to win them one at a time. So I armed myself. First I had to gather intelligence. Starting with my friend, Joel Kahn, MD who has a rather large internet presence, I started reading. He was also kind enough to let me pick his brain when I needed a little more direct encouragement. I watched the movie Forks Over Knives and that took me from thinking: "There's no way I'm ever going to do this" to the realization that "I HAVE TO DO THIS!!!" As soon as I reached that tipping point, which took me about 3 months of mental preparation, I was committed. I picked up a vegan cookbook to help me learn something about cooking without oil and what to use as substitutes for eggs, butter and processed sugar. I had to "unlearn" what I thought were healthy eating habits and accept that I could get everything I need for great health from plants.
     On to step 2 - preparing for the transition.
     I set January 1, 2014 as my starting point. Prior to that date I collected a list of appropriate groceries and I practiced with a "Meatless Monday" a few times. I started drinking just water or black coffee. I increased my water drinking too. Simple enough. I'm lactose intolerant so I was already avoiding milk and cheese. In order to help myself manage time I made pretty big batches of the things I could use in multiple recipes, like tomato sauce, home made salad dressing, cooked vegetables, vegetable soup, veggie soup stock, chili, veggie burgers  and cheese substitutes. That way I could just grab a few things out of the fridge to throw together during the week. A breakfast of oatmeal made with almond milk mixed with blueberries, raisins, strawberries, dates or dried cherries along with a banana and a cup of black coffee was simple enough to make and filled me up nicely. (I make enough for 3 days at a time and store it in a container until I'm ready to use it.) As I learned more about nutrition I added 2 tablespoons of milled flaxseed for the omega 3 fatty acids and cinnamon to help control blood sugar and cholesterol. If you keep your blood sugar from spiking and troughing you won't feel as hungry.
For lunch I had a lettuce wrap and a pear with a glass of water. I made a bunch of them over the weekend. Cooking ahead of time is a big help. Around 3:30 I needed a snack so I had an apple and a cup of black coffee. For dinner there was veggie noodle spaghetti marinara left over from the weekend along with an oil free salad. Around 9:30 I ate some air popped popcorn.
The next morning I had a rather large smoothie for breakfast with a cup of black coffee. Around 11:00 I ate a banana. At 1:00 I ate a huge "salad sandwich". For dinner at 7:00 there was baked falafel and an oil free salad. Around 9:30 I finished off a fresh fruit salad. You get the idea.
     I collected and modified or just plain made up about 25 recipes that were filling, nutritionally sound and delicious. Some of them I could eat everyday, like oatmeal or smoothies. Some of them were very time consuming and would occupy hours of the weekend. I find cooking to be a relaxing and rewarding escape so I don't mind spending hours doing it. When things come out well I feel like I've accomplished something and I want to share. If they don't come out as planned, I eat it anyway.
     When I mentioned before that I got sucked in to this plant based whole foods life, I was referring to Plant Based Nutrition Support Group.  Dr. Kahn introduced me to Paul Chatlin, the founder of the group. He asked me to share my story. I started to attend the monthly meetings and I wound up volunteering becoming a contributing writer. The meetings are remarkably helpful. I thought I was doing really well before I started to participate with the group, but they took me to a whole new level. Not only do they provide a wide variety of recipes, but they also bring in nationally known, well published experts to lecture monthly and to answer questions. They offer small groups where you can sit down with a few other people who will help you learn to cook, answer your questions and give you encouragement. They helped me get over a weight plateau when during one of the meetings I

realized that I was eating way too many almonds and sunflower seeds. I leaned to read and understand food labels. I got a good handle on my cooking skills and got the encouragement I needed to keep moving forward. I went from a totally sedentary omnivorous couch dweller
to a medal winning whole foods plant based 5K runner in about 2 years. This works!  
     Everybody makes mistakes. I learned to accept mine, learn from them and move ahead with the help of members of the group. Whether you decide to go all in like I did to optimize my health or if you have a focused goal like kicking Type 2 Diabetes,  losing 20 or 120 pounds or focusing on just not dying from food related illnesses like heart disease this is a great place to start. Anyone can do this. Your food bill and your waste line will both get smaller! Make a commitment and start feeling good about yourself!

YES YOU CAN!!!

 
  

It doesn't have to be complicated. Quick mashed potatoes and green beans. #vegan #eatlikeahorse #eattolose #foodismedicine #kosher #pareve #glutonfree

Steamed green beans, sweet red peppers, mashed potatoes with tomato

I tend to make cooking complicated, but I can make it simple as well.  Above is a picture of my messy desk and my lunch. All the essential amino acids are included. I made 2 generous servings the night before along with dinner and brought half with me to the office to warm in the microwave on a paper plate. Simple, fast, filling, tasty and nutritious with no animal fat and no oil.

Quick Mashed Potatoes

Prep and Cook time:  12 minutes

Makes 4 servings

4 Medium Yukon gold potatoes

2 Roma tomatoes

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

Wash the potatoes. Wrap them in moist paper towel. Microwave them on high for 7 minutes. While they cook cut the tomatoes into quarters. Strip out the seeds then roughly chop them up. With the skins on, mash the potatoes. Mix in the tomatoes and spices. Serve hot.

Green Beans 

Prep and Cook time: 20 minutes

Servings: 4

6 generous handfuls of green beans

1 sweet red pepper

1/4 of a yellow hot pepper sliced into rings

2 TBSP white vinegar

1 clove finely chopped garlic

1 tsp salt

Wash all the veggies. Remove the seeds and ribs from the peppers. Chop the peppers roughly. Cover the bottom of a pot with 1/2 inch of water. Add the beans and peppers. Pour on the vinegar. Put all the seasoning and garlic on top.  Steam or boil for 12 to 15 minutes or the desired tenderness is reached. Drain and serve.

(I also added some Thyme and basil, but that's me trying different things.)

I ate 2 servings of each with a salad for dinner. Even I was impressed with how filling it was! Plenty of roughage, protein, resistant carbohydrates and even some Omega 3 fatty acids in each serving. 

You have to eat. Eat well to stay well!

Vegan Lasagna #eattolose #foodismedicine #plantbasedwholefoods #oilfree #veganpasta #Kosher #pareve

Vegan Lasagna

Being a whole foods plant based vegan, I get asked all the time if there are any foods I miss.
Well yesterday I was missing lasagna. With very little effort, I managed to veganize my old recipe and was amazed at how well it came out!
I already had a big container of oil free marinara sauce in the fridge that I cooked up over the weekend. All I had to do was come up with a substitute for mozzarella and ricotta cheeses.
Just to make it a challenge, in addition to dairy free, let's make it nut free and oil free too. Nuts and oil add a ton of calories. I already lost the weight. No need to risk packing it back on if I can avoid it.

Off we go to the market! I have a friend who is like me but will only eat whole grain pasta. Challenge accepted!  Barilla has it right on the shelf at my local supermarket. It only contains one ingredient: whole grain durum wheat flour.
Well that was easy!  I already have a recipe for a gooey white cheesy sauce that can substitute for mozzarella.  That just leaves the ricotta cheese.
I found a basic recipe online and twisted it around until it met my oil free, nut free and dairy free vegan parameters. I used extra firm tofu, nutritional yeast, white vinegar, salt, ground pepper, basil and parsley flakes, fresh garlic and starchy water. This part was left grainy for texture keeping the layers of the lasagna distinct. After all, as remarkably delicious as this main course proves to be, we need to complete the picture. It has to be visually pleasing as well. Taste is not limited to the tongue. It already smells great so we just have to make it look great.
While that delicious mazzarella-ish layer on the top is stretchy and tastes wonderful, it just does not easily brown. We need to do something about that.
Here's my solution. Coincidentally, I happened to be walking by the deli case in a restaurant and saw their beautifully presented servings of lasagna displayed with slices of tomato covering the top.
Brilliant and simple! Off we go to the produce department one more time. Colorful, inviting Heirloom tomatoes were on the shelf. The red and yellow varieties were large, firm and plentiful so I got 3 of each. After cooking the lasagna for an hour, I covered the top with thin slices of tomato then ground up some fresh garlic and spices to sprinkle over everything.  Another 5 to 10 minutes under the broiler gave it the finishing touch.   I let it cool for 20 minutes and cut out a slice, just to make sure it held together and tasted right.  It was perfect! Lasagna always tastes better the next day, so after it cooled completely I covered it and put it in the fridge. Now I can just cut out a slice, microwave it for 2 or 3 minutes and I no longer have to miss lasagna!! This time I wrote down the 3 building block's recipes so the next time I have 3 or 4 hours to kill...well...you know.  I don't have to miss lasagna anymore and neither do you 🇺🇸

Vegan Lasagna

The prep and cooking time was 4 hours. I made  the 3 building blocks over 2 days and kept it refrigerated until I was ready to put it together.

Marinara Pasta Sauce

1 can of tomato sauce 28 oz

1 can of diced tomatoes 28 oz
1 can of tomato paste 12 oz 
1 large sweet onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic chopped
2 TBSP of Oregano
1 TBSP of Sweet Basil

1 TBSP of dried Parsley

2 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

6 dates finely chopped

    In a large pot bring 1 cup of salted water to a boil. Add the onion and garlic. Let it boil and stir until the onions become clear. Add the Basil, Oregano and Parsley. Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes,  paste and dates. Bring it to a simmer, cover and reduce the heat for 30 minutes.  
    You can add salt and pepper to taste.

Vegan Mozzarella Sauce

4 Yukon gold potatoes

6 TBSP nutritional yeast

6 TBSP Tapioca flour

1 TBSP salt

¼ cup white wine vinegar

1 TBSP lemon juice

¼ tsp smoked paprika

¼ tsp Tabasco

Salt water to boil the potatoes

Peel and boil the quartered potatoes in salted water for 40 minutes. Save 2 cups of the starchy water.  In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together to prevent clumping. Put the potatoes, 1+¼ cups starchy water and all the wet ingredients in a blender. Pulse a few times to chop it up. Add the dry ingredients and  puree until completely smooth.

Pour it back in the pot from the potatoes. Over medium heat stir constantly with a wooden spoon until it thickens for about 15 minutes. Add a little more starchy water if it gets too thick. Set it aside to set up.

Vegan Ricotta Cheese

1 lb extra firm tofu

6 TBSP nutritional yeast

¼ cup white wine vinegar

2 TBSP starchy water

1 TBSP salt

1 TBSP basil

¼ tsp ground pepper

2 TBSP parsley flakes

2 cloves of minced garlic

Press the water out of the tofu. Crumble it up in a bowl using a fork. Mix everything together. Set aside.

1 box of Lasagna noodles of your choice cooked per package directions in salted water. Do not overcook. Drain and lay it flat until cool enough to handle.

Line a 9 x 13 inch lasagna pan with parchment paper. Put a double layer of noodles in the bottom of the pan. Cover evenly with the marinara sauce. Sprinkle evenly with Ricotta then cover lightly with Mozzarella. Put a single layer of noodles on top of that and repeat the layers of marinara, Ricotta and Mozzarella Sauce making the outer layer thick enough to cover smoothly.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Cover the top with thin tomato slices and sprinkle with a mixture of minced garlic, dried parsley, Oregano, basil, rosemary and thyme. Put it back in the oven under the broiler for 5 to 10 minutes to cook and brown the tomatoes.  Let it cool for 20 minutes and cover with foil. Refrigerate over night because lasagna always tastes better the next day. Slice it. Reheat it and serve.

Three Years a Vegan TODAY!!!! Pictures! #eattolose #foodismedicine

01/01/2014

01/01/2017

Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary to me! I started my vegan plant base whole foods diet on New Year's Eve 3 years ago at age 58. That picture of me on the left was taken the day I started my New Year's resolution. The picture on the right is me today at 61. 

I achieved my goal and lost over 100 lbs keeping it off for a year.

If I could do this anyone can.

How about you? Ready to look and feel better without medicine, surgery or strenuous exercise? 

Get started now !!

Try www.pbnsg.org for more information.

There will be a meeting next week.  Are you ready to change for your family's sake?

Before and After pics PUBLISHED!! #eattolose #vegan #wholefoodsplantbased

I wrote a "Three Things You Can Do Now" article and it got published with my before and after pictures! Click the above link to read it.

Veganized Sephardic Spinach and Chickpea Casserole #vegan #Kosher #pareve

Spinach and Chickpea Casserole

    Our son is flying in from Seattle tonight for the holidays so I made him his favorite dish that he's never tasted. My wife and I were watching a PBS documentary, "Hugs and Knishes", discussing Jewish cooking from different parts of the world.  This spinach casserole captured my attention.  I watched the ingredients including oil, eggs and multiple cheeses come together and I was thinking: "I bet I can veganize that!"

So I did. No oil, high fiber, tons of protein.

Recipe

2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach
or 1 pound of fresh spinach - cooked and drained
1 can of chickpeas - drained
1 box of extra firm tofu - drained
2 cups of nutritional yeast
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
0.5 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
2 pinches of ground pepper

In a non stick pan caramelize the onions. Add the spinach and garlic. Cook until most of the moisture is gone. In a blender combine the tofu, 1.75 cups of nutrtional yeast, allspice, salt and pepper. Put the chickpeas in a mixing bowl and stir all the ingredients together.
(I prepared my baking dish wth a little canola oil then wiped it out with paper towel, but you can use parchment paper.)  Put it all in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish, spread it evenly and sprinkle the top with 0.25 cup of nutritional yeast. Bake it at 350 for 1 hour. Put it under the broiler for 5 minutes. Let it cool. I cut it in half and stacked it then refrigerated it to let it firm up. Then, tomorrow when your son gets in, you can heat it up and feed him something healthy that he didn't know he'd love (I hope).

35 Months a Vegan! Beans and Rice Noodles tonight #EatToLose #EatLikeAGorilla #PlantsRule #glutonfree #Kosher #pareve

      It's been 35 months already since I got away from all the foods that were making me fat. What a difference! All I had to do was start eating my veggies along with fruits, grains, seeds and a few nuts a week.

All I had to stop doing was eating meat, chicken, eggs, milk and anything else derived from an animal. It was way, way easier than I imagined. Getting away from all the olive and vegetable oil in my salad dressing and cooking seemed counterintuitive since they come from plants. I learned how calorie dense and nutrient poor all oils are and how terribly damaging they are to your arteries. That convinced me. Don't eat oil or any processed food.  Just whole foods, unprocessed and strictly plants.

Here's a simple meal. It was my dinner tonight.

Steamed green beans, sweet peppers, onions, rice noodles sprinkled with nutritional yeast.

Ingredients:

Green beans, onion, sweet red and orange peppers, rice noodles, nutritional yeast, salt and spices

Slice up the onion and peppers. Put them in a pot with the green beans using one of these inserts to keep the veggies separated from the water. I went Simon and Garfunkel with the spices adding parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme with a little garlic salt and turmeric sprinkled over everything. Bring the water to a boil, cover tightly and steam it for 10 to 15 minutes depending on the degree of tenderness you like. I found millet and brown rice Ramon noodles at  at Target.  I strained the cooked vegetables and used the broth to cook the noodles. Either plate them side by side or mix them together and sprinkle with nutritional yeast. What you see on my plate along with a glass of water was my dinner at 6 pm. A large Apple was my dessert. It's now 11:30 pm and that's all I ate tonight.

So to recap, I had a filling, nutritious, high fiber meal of vegetables and grain with some spices and a fruit chaser with no animal products and no oil that kept me satisfied for over 5 hours. I forgot to mention that beans and grains combined include all 9 of the essential amino acids covering my body's requirements for a source of complete protein.

2013

2016 - down 110 lbs

     Eat well, eat smart and stay healthy.  A good plan for the New Year!