VEGAN- the 5 letter word!!

This whole dieting thing started when my friend Kelli, a family practice doc, wanted to get a good scope of different diets for her patients. Naturally, as any normal friend, I didn't want her to lose weight without me, so I am joining in!

We are doing 4 different diets in one year; 3 months for each diet, one cheat meal a week, one blog a week, go!

January to March we will be doing our first and possibly hardest- the VEGAN. Vegan is a naughty word in my family. I grew up eating bacon with a side of bacon and bacon juice to drink. To tell the truth, I don't think I knew a lot about vegan eating until I did the research for this diet. Apparently people who are vegan don't take anything from any animal. ANYTHING! I don't know why this was a huge shock to me. Maybe because I never had to sit down and think about what vegans don't eat and why. One of the first vegan info sites I went to was a PETA site with a picture of a baby cow saying "you wouldn't steel milk from me, would you?" or something to that effect. Confession: In my head a tiny voice said, "Why yes, I would, and then I would turn it chocolate." I quickly shoved that voice out, and told the little calf I wouldn't. Then I told the bees I wouldn't take their honey, the chickens I wouldn't take their eggs, and reluctantly the cow that I wouldn't cut their cheese. Sigh.

I have a new respect for those who are vegan. WHAT DO YOU EAT?!?!?! I love me any vegetables with ranch dressing- homemade preferably! But without being able to consume milk, I need to come up with a better idea to feed this body! I started looking over vegan recipe sites and found that most of it consisted of wraps, smoothies and food that, well, looked like it had already been processed by someone's body. Insert 3 month life calling here: I need to come up with family friendly and kid friendly ways for one to eat a vegan diet and not feel like the only thing they are eating is roughage. So, two goals now: Lose weight and give people some new ideas for vegan.

My first week has not gone entirely as expected. My wonderful and handsome grandpa passed away on New Year's Eve, and we spent the past couple days doing stuff as a family and sorting through pictures. I am also getting over the Cold of 2012 as well as the Stomach Flu of '12, but I think this gave me an advantage. I haven't had much of an appetite. Alas, no new recipes, but one great tip for those of you who want to do a vegan diet without involving your kids or your carnivorous husband or making a complete meal for them and then a green smoothie for you. Last night I made spaghetti, only I started differently than I normally do. I sauteed a bunch of onions, mushrooms, peppers, olives garlic and tomatoes in veggie broth and then pulled a couple of serving sizes out for a sauce for me. Then, I added a can of sausage spaghetti sauce to the pot, cooked up some whole wheat noodles, and voila- a dinner my kids and hubby would eat and enjoy.

Then I had the sauteed veggies over noodles with LOTS of salt and pepper to taste and we were all happy. SUCCESS! So that is my tip of the week. Oh, and one more little nugget of wisdom: Chocolate and vanilla almond milk is very enjoyable. I will survive this because of those little babies!

Here is a link to Kelli's site in case anyone wants to view her posts. She is focusing more on the medical aspects and is actually drawing her labs before and after each diet. It will be very interesting to see her values after this diet!

www.4diets365days.blogspot.com

and some recipes to come:

www.4diets365daysrecipes.blogspot.com