Part-Time Vegan

 Much of my life lately has revolved around a cutting board, so I figured it was time to write a food post.  Here's the summary of our family's recent eating habit overhaul.

There's not a real clear start date to all of this, so I'll just give a little background info that seems pertinent at the moment.  I went back to work after 12 (glorious) weeks of maternity leave in November.  The holidays were relatively normal, as was the start of the new year.  Shortly thereafter, Rob went to have his routine blood work done, and his doctor recommended that he meet with an endocrinologist at Mayo to discuss some things relevant to his diabetes.  After said meeting had occurred, Rob came home with some dietary directives from the doctor, which mostly can be summed up by the following:

1. Eat your biggest meal of the day in the morning.  Eat most of your protein in the morning.  Taper off your meals throughout the day.
2. Get as close to a no-carb lifestyle as you can.

I am always a fan of better health, especially when it involves my husband, so I wanted to do whatever I could to support him in making some major changes to the way he/we eat.  So, naturally, I turned to Pinterest.  I started pinning high-protein breakfast recipes for inspiration.  In so doing, I came across a link to a book called The Big Breakfast Diet: Eat Big Before 9A.M., and Lose Big For Life, by Daniela Jakubowicz, M.D.  I was intrigued by what I read about it, so a few days later, I went out and ordered it at Barnes & Noble.  This book really helped us begin the journey we are currently on.  Because of the meal formulas laid out in the book, we learned how to start shifting when we eat certain foods.  We also began deliberately incorporating a LOT more vegetables into our diet, so as to adhere to these meal formulas. 

After that, I began looking into the MANY food-related documentaries available on Netflix.  The first one I watched was Forks Over Knives, on a quiet Thursday night by myself.  This one was very eye-opening as to how negatively our health can be impacted by the high animal-based diet we often have, and about how quickly you can turn some of that around by switching to a high plant-based diet.  Very informative and interesting.  I would definitely recommend this one.

One night after Rob and I put the children to bed, I came down stairs and put on another documentary.  When Rob came down and asked what we were watching, I chuckled as I told him the title, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, knowing the kind of eyebrow-raise this would get.  Despite his lack of enthusiasm, he watched the whole thing with me.  This one is about a guy with a severe auto-immune disease who, despite the large amount of medication he takes each day, continues to get worse instead of better.  He is also pretty drastically overweight, partly due to poor diet, and partly due to the steroids he is on.  He decides that nothing else has worked, so he will attempt to heal himself through an all-natural, whole-foods, plant-based diet.  To kick-start this drastic change in eating habits, he commits to go on a 60-DAY JUICE FAST!  Every meal, every day, for 60 days, he does nothing but juice fresh vegetables and fruit.  (The film explains in great detail the benefits of juicing.)  Both the weight loss and the health improvements are INCREDIBLE, to say the least.  He meets a guy along the way who has the same disease as him (very rare) who is also very obese.  This guy gets inspired by him and decides to follow suit.  His changes were even more amazing.  By the end of the movie, Rob had decided that we should buy a juicer and try a 10-day fast (as recommended in the film).  This shocked me, but made me very optimistic.  I knew Rob was on-board for some major changes.

I knew that I couldn't do a juice fast at this time because I am breastfeeding and would need more protein and nutrients than juice alone would provide.  But I did agree to the challenge of doing a 10-day vegan diet with no processed carbs.  We got started the very next morning, which was Sunday.  By Tuesday, we had come into possession of a juicer, so we bought a truck-load of produce and juiced away.  We are entering day 13 of this eating plan, and we are both surprised at how little we miss the meat/dairy/carbs that we had been used to eating.  I have been able to find some really great alternatives that I probably would have never tried before.  We have not committed to being "full-time" vegans permanently, but this has provided us with a great opportunity to learn about some healthier options that we can incorporate into our normal routine.

Some other sources of information that I have looked into are the film Hungry for Change (very inspirational, if you're ready for a similar journey), and The Blood Sugar Solution Cookbook by Mark Hyman, M.D.  This one provides more information about getting rid of the processed carbs in your diet so that you can naturally prevent spikes in your blood sugar (very important for Rob).  It does a great job suggesting ways to replace those carbs with healthier options, and it has some really great recipes, both vegan and not.  I made the vegan lasagna recipe, which was absolutely amazing!  I was very impressed.

If you're looking for some very informative sources to inspire you to eat better, I would recommend all of the above.  One that I would NOT recommend is the film Veducated, unless, of course, you enjoy feeling like a terrible human being because of all the animals you have slaughtered. But if that's the kind of motivation you need, then by all means, go right ahead.

In summary:
1. Eat protein early in the day.
2. Get rid of processed carbs.
3. EAT MORE VEGGIES!!!!

The end.  I welcome questions.

P.S. I've lost 40 pounds since before I had children 2.5 years ago.  I can't credit all of it to this way of eating, but this certainly has helped.