Faster Fasting

We just had a three day weekend adjacent to my birthday. (Read this as:  I ate my weight in spicy, fried, red meaty, rich delights–accompanied by delightful potent beverages–not necessarily in that order.)

I don’t feel guilty. Hell, I don’t even feel that bad.  But I’m back on the Nutritarian bandwagon today.  Because I have noticed some positive changes after eating this way for three weeks (weekends off) now.  I do seem to have more energy and I do not crave those naughty foods that get me off track (and by crave I mean gut-cramping, mind-controlling, drool-inducing, soul-crushing, can’t-see-straight, lock-the-doors, rapacious mania.)  By “naughty foods,” I mean white starches, crispy, salty or cheesy things.

Am I really fasting? No. I have fasted before and that is freakin’ intense.  However, I am currently only eating three meals a day–very little (if any) snacking.  This is a departure for me. I don’t like feeling hungry. (Let’s face it, we in this country don’t know hunger.  What we experience is merely our appetite.) At any rate, I don’t like that gnawing feeling in my belly.  So, I’ll jam something in my gob to quell that feeling–a handful of pretzels, some chips, cheese, olives–whatever I can my greedy little mitts on.

So, I’m not doing that since starting this lifestyle.  If I am really feeling voracious, I’ll grab a piece of fruit or some vegetables.  This is where things get similar to real fasting–you get spiritual about eating and food.  It stops being something that takes that bad feeling away–be it the acidic appetite feeling, the anxiety of whatever has cropped up during the day, the midday fatigue from not sleeping well the previous night, the boredom that comes with being cooped up in an office or at home all day…fill in the blank with your unpleasant feeling of choice.

Your coping mechanisms get amped up.  You fight through it.  And then you start thinking about when & what you are going to eat.  At first you fixate on it.  I’ve been experiencing a strange thing lately–when the time finally arrives to eat something, I can’t decide exactly what it should be.  Which is where the spirituality begins…

I start to carefully weigh my options.  I consider carefully what I should eat.  What does my body need?  What will best feed my brain?  I have stopped thinking about the consequences of my food choices; it really has become more about how food can build me up, make me stronger, make me function better.  It’s as though I’m in thoughtful communion with my sustenance.

I’m not getting all Dalai Lama here, I know this is somewhat trivial.  Except that it isn’t.  Food prevents our dying.  I also know that I am a total hypocrite, given my behavior on weekends.  The thing is, there is no one right path.  You do what you have to do to access that part of yourself–the part of yourself that makes your head warp through six dimensions when a new sense of perception enters your mind.

Anyway, this was dinner tonight: 

Dal (stewed red lentils) with assorted curry blends, a lot of vegetables, and some garbanzos.  I used a bit of coconut milk and topped off the works with cilantro, red onion & chilies.  Turnip greens, simmered with a goodly amount of garlic & onion and dressed with lemon juice.  Quinoa was the grain tonight.  It was good.

The last bonus of eating this way?  When I eat a meal now, I can actually feel it affecting me.  I feel it entering into my bloodstream.  My energy returns, my spirits lift (and stay lifted for a much longer time) and I don’t need a nap.

To Veg or Not to Veg

It’s Friday.  It’s a long weekend.  To this point, we have been eating vegan on Fridays, as well as during the week.  I couldn’t do it today.  Today, we were lowly vegetarians.

Dinner: Black beans & (brown) rice, cooked with some red bell pepper, carrot & garlic, cumin, ancho & smoked paprika (no salt, no oil.)

But I was feeling cravy.  I needed some dairy.  I needed some sharp cheddar.  I wanted some sour cream.  I had both of those things.  And I put some Frank’s Red Hot on there, too. (Total salt bomb–and it was great.)

We also had big (not bigass, but big) salads, and some steamed broccoli.

Look, a girl wants what she wants.  And sometimes she wants cheese & sour cream.  I also want some bacon fat popcorn…and I’m not sure the Willpower Gods will be able to snuff the Craving Gods.

Root Down

Hmm…so how’m I gonna kick it?

With a megasalad and no grains tonight.  There are only so many ways one can have beans, greens & grains.  I mixed things up a bit tonight: 

I roasted some sweet potatoes in a hot oven in my cast iron skillets–minus any oil or salt.  The results?  Meh…they would have been killer roasted up in some bacon fat.

I also roasted some beets, the normal method–wrapped in foil, no oil or salt, in  a hot oven until they are tender, about an hour.

I threw together a quick garbanzo dealie–carrots, celery, red bell pepper, garlic, artichoke hearts and herbs.  Completed the dish with some steamed some turnip greens.

Again, it was tasty and filling.  I feel good about eating this stuff.  I know that it is likely undoing some of the damage I have done to myself.  Don’t get me wrong–I wouldn’t take back a millisecond of my indulgent years.  Honestly, I am glad I had these past 6 years to enjoy all that I could get my greedy chops on.  And I still plan on getting my grindz on.  Every. Weekend.  Ever.

Desperately Seeking Savory

One of the perks of this vegan lifestyle is that my taste buds are experiencing a rebirth.  No, really.  My go-to seasonings prior to this experiment have been salt, pepper, fish sauce, soy sauce and dried chili pepper(s).

The first week of no salt was, well…agonizing.  It took me awhile to analyze why exactly that was.  Everything that week tasted pretty good.  I used my best tricks to make bland things palatable.  Here’s what I figured out:

Most food is inherently sweet.

I’m not a big “sweets” person.  My favorite sweets are those involving butter & salt–toffee, caramel, butterscotch–and even those I would most often trade out for something with either a crispy, battered & fried or peppery, seared crust.

Without salt, grains…are sweet.  Without salt, beans are predominantly sweet. Leafy greens?  With the exception of mustard & collards,  greens have a pronounced sweetness.

So what is a savory gal (such as myself) to do surrounded by such sweetness?  She tries to achieve true umami.

The things that I have found to work best are finely minced raw red onion, thin slices of fresh chilies (we’ve been using serrano, from the garden), minced cilantro and toasted nuts & seeds.  These things actually work best in combination with one another.  Seaweeds and liquid aminos are also very good, but of course these actually contain a good bit of sodium.  (I rationalize this by reminding myself that seaweed & liquid aminos also have nutrients in them, unlike plain salt or soy sauce.)

Dinner tonight (with a huge-ass salad prelude):

Red beans, cooked with garlic, onion & a tiny bit of coconut milk; smoky turnip greens and herbed, germinated buckwheat groats.

I was really not sure about turnip greens.  Turns out they are fabulous.  The cook fast, get very tender & have not a trace of bitterness.  By far my favorite green so far, and I believe this will go a long way to getting me to that “one-pound-of-greens-per-day” goal.  (I have been meeting the “one-pound-of-salad-greens-per-day” goal, without much trouble.)

I am thinking about conquering real collards this weekend, and I know just where to get the pork jowl bacon.  They will taste sooooooooo good with the fried chicken I have been fantasizing about.  I will preemptively atone for the sins of the upcoming weekend by running my ass off early tomorrow morning, in my new birthday sneakers.

Stature of Limitations

Week 3.  Whew.

So, the spouse has been surprisingly on board with this whole “weekday vegan” thing.  And we have been eating outstanding, meaty, salty, cheesy dinners on the weekends (and even on the weekends, we begin lunch & dinner with a big-ass salad.)

Sooooo…three weeks in & the spouse has dropped 12 lbs.  And you can SEE it on him.  His face is cut, his midsection is whittling down, his clothes hang differently–he looks good.  He has even started working out–and bought a new pair of running shoes.

I hate him.

I’m doing the exact same plan as he, and I have lost–wait for it–2 lbs.  Damn it.  I have been even stricter on the plan than he–and I’ve been working out–HARD for 2 weeks.

Two. Lousy. Pounds.

OK, so my clothes fit a little differently (thank God for small favors.) Nothing groundbreaking.  I still have a lot of clothes from graduate school–even some high school stuff.  It still fits–just differently since I’ve had kids.  (And–for the record–I was not a thin high school or grad school student, and these garments fall into the extra-baggy category.)

But this tells me a few things:  A. The manner in which I was eating before was not terribly high in calories, B. I must get more exercise than I think, just chasing my kids around & doing housework and C. I can go back to having my fancy cocktails. (Right???)

This was lunch today.  That is a half-pound of salad greens, topped with salt-free, fat-free black beans leftover from last night’s dinner.  (I included the coffee mug to give a sense of scale–I’m not sure that it was effective.  That is a big muthatruckin’ salad.)  No dressing, just a squeeze of lime juice and nary a dash of salt.  It was actually pretty tasty.

And here’s my dinner salad. A generous half-pound of salad greens. With tomatoes and a puree of avocado, raw garlic & lime for the dressing (note the lack of salt.) 

The rest of my dinner was this:

White beans simmered with carrot, celery, pepper, onion, rosemary & oregano.  No salt, no oil.  Kale steamed, with garlic.  No salt, no oil.  Brown rice, less than 1/2 a cup.  My snacks for the day included a nectarine and some carrots & celery. And I ran this morning–at 5:45am.  (All this salad must be negatively affecting my judgement.)

Suffice it to say, I must remember that I can not diet and exercise my way to a 5’7″ frame.  I actually do feel better, and as the good doc has suggested, I do not crave salty foods or starches.  I think about them, fondly…but I do not ferociously crave them, as I did before.

But my birthday is coming up…and I feel some fried chicken coming on.

Cocktail with Benefits

It is Friday.  Very technically the weekend.

Dinner:  Heaping salad with leftover beans & corn.  I splurged and drizzled about a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil over the top, along with some champagne vinegar.

My reward for behaving this week.  My signature cocktail, the Thai-tini.  Chili-infused vodka, simple syrup, lime juice & muddled cilantro.  Salad! Isn’t it?

Life is good friends, life is good.

Mean Joe Bean

I recently made acquaintance with collard greens…and they were likely the best greens in the country.  Yeah, I’m a little late to the game.  I’m going to go ahead and play the Yankee card here.

So, they were delicious–and I knew (even though I was a collards virgin) that I had just tasted something extraordinary; that not everyone could make a dish like this.  I expected something bitter, what I experienced was sweet, smoky, salty–even creamy (which I can only attribute to whatever luscious pork hunk was in there simmering away with the greens.)  They were delicate–and greens (outwardly) are formidable–what with their army-green coloring and less than appetizing name. I am in love with Bolton’s collard greens.  If Bolton’s had a Vegas location, I would marry these greens.

About tonight’s meal–big salad?  Check. 

Greens?  Vegan collards.  Beans? Black eyed peas.  Cornbread? No–in the spirit of eating “whole” foods, I made a roasted corn salad.

Everything was oil-free and salt-free. I toasted some pumpkin seeds for the salads.  I used Liquid Smoke for the beans & the greens.  A bit of red onion, lime juice & cilantro with the corn.  All in all, it was relatively tasty.

But, I know that salty, porky, sweet greens are out there, waiting for me.  I know that beans are sooooo much nicer with a dash of salt.

I also know that I am going to misbehave my ass off this weekend.