Day 4

Breakfast: nuked smoothie in freezer from yesterday

Needed to soak some chickpeas. We had a nifty co-op when we lived in upstate New York that would sell us 50 pound bags of dry goods at a discount. We hauled this stuff out to Utah with us, and now to Virginia. I love my bucket o' chickpeas. I wonder if there's a resource around here to replenish my supply when I run out.

Would you like them in a bucket?


Would you like them in a bowl?


Would you like them in some water?


I just love chickpeas. They're so cute, and interesting, and versatile, and yummy, and fun. I cooked these later in the afternoon, in the pressure cooker, for 20 minutes.

Lunch: same delicious salad as yesterday

Dinner: Middle Eastern Chickpeas with Spinach, from the Moosewood Low Fat book.

Sauteing veggies. Kinda perty.


The finished product. With some brown rice mixed in.


And then, as if that weren't enough food, we had really good strawberries, (an impulse buy from Trader Joe's). Totally not in season, but so yummy.


And I'd been wanting to try roasted chickpeas via this method, and here was my chance, with these freshly cooked chickpeas. I spiced them with cumin, Indian curry (which I've learned is spicier than regular curry), and garam masala.


That was a lot of food for dinner. But that's okay. It was all healthy and Plan-friendly.

Day 3

Breakfast was a green smoothie. The greens were the Costco spring mix. A tablespoon each of flaxseed and hemp seeds (I can get away with 2 tablespoons because this makes 2 smoothies). A couple baby carrots (also from Costco). Grapes. Half a frozen banana. Frozen chunks of mango (from Trader Joe's). A little unsweetened "whole grain beverage" (also from TJ's, it's like rice milk and stuff). A little H2O.

Before.

From Eat To Live

After. Out of focus. This filled 2 glasses, so I ate one and froze the other.

From Eat To Live

Lunch was a salad with this delicious dressing again, and grapes cut in half. The greens were part romaine and part Costco Earthbound Farm Spring Mix. Yum. I had seconds.


Lately I find myself going through the below process a lot:




Helps to have the world's best salad spinner. Okay so I don't actually have proof that it's the world's best, but it's a recent upgrade from an older not-so-great salad spinner, and now spinning salad is really fun.

Then whatever I don't eat for that meal goes in here, and into the fridge.


Exciting stuff.

Dinner tonight was leftovers from last night. Nice to have a break from cooking.

Day 2

Today I didn't want breakfast. For lunch I had half an apple, and a salad made up of romaine, the Spring Mix greens from Costco (see photo), sliced carrots, and Susan's Lite Goddess Dressing. It was pleasurable.

Rockin' fat ol' bin of greens from Costco:

From Eat To Live

Mah lunch salad:

From Eat To Live

For dinner I had a handful of grapes, and then Vegetarian Feijoada from the Moosewood Low Fat Favorites cookbook which I keep picking up from the library in the various places we've lived, and today finally decided to just order myself a cheap used copy. Yay!

I thought the Feijoada (the national dish of Brazil, how cool is that?!) would be gross because I didn't have one of the spices, and because I was an idiot and dumped the greens in with the beans and other veggies, when the greens were supposed to be separate. But it turned out real yummy. There's a separate recipe in the same book for this spicy oniony lemon sauce that goes over it. The book said to make it with 3 chilies, but I couldn't even find chilies, so I threw in a seeded jalapeno pepper instead. Turned out great. It was so yummy that my 5-year-old daughter even had seconds and thirds! We served it over rice.

Feijoada, Brazil's national dish, can ya dig it?

From Eat To Live

And my brain wasn't working today, I don't think, because I totally put black beans out to soak this morning thinking I needed them tomorrow, but I needed them tonight! So, enter pressure cooker! My hubbie got me a pressure cooker 2 Christmases ago, and tonight was like the fourth time I've ever used it, but it rocks. Soaked black beans cook in 12 minutes. Wha-bam! So we had dinner almost on time.

Black beans soaking.

From Eat To Live

Also, today I had half a thing of silken tofu to use up, so I made Tofu Island Dressing, sans the relish and parsley, because we never have/eat relish, and I didn't have parsley. Yeah, don't ask me how parsley is the one thing missing from my spice cupboard.

Haven't tried this yet, but looks good.

From Eat To Live

Goodbye Back Pain

One thing I have noticed is that when I eat according to Eat To Live principles, my back doesn't hurt. That was a very surprising and unexpected positive side-effect of this diet. My back had ached ever since Samantha was a new baby (she is five and a half, now). The only other solution for that back pain that I've found is to sleep on the floor rather than on a mattress. That is the solution I relied on for a long time, but I started to miss sleeping in a real cozy warm bed. And since we have moved to a new apartment where the bedrooms have wood floors rather than carpet, sleeping on the floor felt too hard. So I am very happy that I can sleep in a bed, now, and still not have back pain.

Food I Ate 2 Days Ago

The other day for breakfast I just drank a cup of water. For lunch I had a salad that consisted of romaine lettuce with cut up pieces of orange, and Brainy Blueberry Dressing, the recipe for which is in the book, Eat To Live. I did not really like that dressing. There are several other dressings that are compatible with this eating plan which I enjoy more. The ingredients for the dressing wouldn't blend, so I thawed the blueberries in the microwave, which solved the problem. But then while I was eating the salad, little bits of the dressing splatted on my clothes and on our new table, which made me nervous about staining. It tasted okay, but I don't think I'll make that dressing again. I have found lots of other dressing recipes to try that look delicious, which I'm excited about.

For dinner the other day I made an African Stew that was supposed to have sweet potato and kale, but I substituted what I had, which was Yukon Gold potatoes and collard greens. It turned out delicious. The stew also had chickpeas, rice, onion, and peanut butter!

Day 1

Several years ago I read a book called "Eat To Live" by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. It is marketed as a weight loss book, but really it is a book about how to truly eat to sustain and promote health throughout life. I have been somewhat consistent in following the dietary guidelines outlined in this book over the past several weeks, and have experienced many benefits from doing so, but I have not followed its principles with absolute consistency every day. In the book, a six-week eating plan is described to help those who need to lose weight. I am not overweight, but I do have some inches to my waist which I'd like to shed, and so I have decided to follow this 6-week plan with absolute consistency. Today is the first day of these six weeks. The six weeks will end on Monday, March 15th. At that point I will evaluate how the six weeks went, what progress was made, and determine how to eat from that point forward.

I've created this blog in order to increase my sense of accountability, to keep track of what foods I eat, and to share other thoughts and experiences related to this way of eating.

No More Headaches

I've made the observation that for the past two months, I haven't had the ugly premenstrual headaches that for the past year or two have plagued me during the second half of every monthly cycle. I am thrilled not to have to stress about taking ibuprofen for that anymore. Also, last month, when I had been doing Eat To Live for less than a week, my cramps at 'that time of the month' were so mild that I only had them on one day, and they were gone after a single cup of red raspberry leaf tea. I don't know whether that was due to Eat To Live or just coincidental, but if it continues, I'll have to chalk it up to ETL.