H - Week 3: Hurraayyy!!!

Today marks the official half way point of our Eat to Live Challenge!

3 weeks or 21 days of eating vegan and we're still going strong. In fact, C has been talking about extending this challenge pass 42 days and my boyfriend G is already planning a bbq to celebrate once this is all over.

At this point I don't think I'm going to hit the 20lb the ETL book says you'll lose in the 6 weeks but at 8.2lbs right now I think I'll come close. I would like to integrate some exercise to this plan since I've gotten pretty comfortable with this new eating habit but I can't seem to get the motivation to workout after work. Recommendations?

C - The Trouble with Having (non-vegan) Friends

Sorry I haven't updated you folks for a while. I've been busy...with what you ask? Hanging out with all of you! And that brings us to my most pressing dilemma to date: What are you supposed to do when you're a vegan and you have *gasp* non-vegan friends? If you're sitting there reading this, totally oblivious to the significance of this question, let me give you a little background. I have met more than just one vegan who's religious about their veganism, to the point where their didactic spiels about their diet and lifestyle have all the omnivores in the room running to their nearest steakhouse. Let's face it...some vegans are just f-ing annoying. They rant, they preach, and they judge you from their moral pedestal for being a murderer because you had their favourite pig Bobo for breakfast when you decided to order that hickory smoked bacon with your eggs. And if it wasn't Bobo, it would have been Mr. Snuffles and they still would have been pissed because every pig is the Militant Vegan's freaking favourite pig.

Well, of course, there are many of us who don't judge because we know that dietary decisions are very personal and value-driven. I would like to think that I fall under this category. However, the reality is that a full vegan lifestyle is demanding and often vegans just have an easier time with other vegans. I know of a couple where one partner ended up converting to a mostly vegan diet to suit the extreme vegan lifestyle of their sweetheart. It happens. Food is such an integral part of our culture and our relationships that it would be naive to think that a dramatic diet change would not have an impact on your social life. Which brings me back to my question:

What are you supposed to do when you're vegan with non-vegan friends?

Bring out some premium tempeh and hope a conversion happens? I think not. However, I did attempt to answer that question last weekend. This question was bound to come up for me sooner or later, because unlike many of my vegan peers, I absolutely love people. All sorts of people, similar and different from me. I make friends easily and love to go out. I was about to embark on a social experiment. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that as a dietary outsider in a meat-eating city, my options were limited.

Meal 1: Dinner with AM

AM is one of my best friends and she would be what I call a "flexitarian." She does eat meat, but 80% of the time, she's vegetarian. Bravo! But there's a kicker: she has an allergy to gluten so her diet is pretty restricted. She got diagnosed a little over a year ago and I would be lying if I said that it didn't change how we made dining choices when we got together to hang out. She used to be my ramen buddy, but alas, those days are no more. Steaming bowls of miso ramen have been replaced by gluten-free meals at her house or sushi dinners sans soya sauce.

"So what do you want to eat tonight?" I'll ask her. "Sushi would be alrite," she'll say with a sheepish laugh. It's a rhetorical question of course. We've had sushi dinners nearly every time for the last 12 months.

And of course, she's one of my closest buddies so I don't mind one bit. Recently though, we were happy to find that Joey's has a gluten-free menu. On Friday night we wanted to watch Date Night, and pressed to make it for the 7:40 show, we just hopped into the Joey's on Burrard near the Scotiabank Theatre. With her gluten-free menu in hand, AM confidently ordered her beloved comfort dish: butter chicken. I, however, did not have such an easy time. I scoured the menu frantically for vegan choices. The tables had been turned. I was now the one who couldn't find anything to eat!

"Are these Chinatown Lettuce Wraps vegan?" I asked the waitress. "We can make them vegetarian for you, no problem," she reassured me. Then her eyes narrowed. "Wait, how vegetarian are you? They have oyster sauce in them."

What part of vegan did she not understand? I guess where she comes from, the vegans have vowed to spare all animals except the oysters, with whom they have an undying grudge??

I thought about it and remembered that most commercially prepared oyster sauces don't really have oysters in them - it's usually just artifical flavoring (you didn't know that? well now you know!). So at Joey's that night, I ended up having a bunch of szchewan edamame and some questionable lettuce wraps. I probably cheated there because even if there weren't actually oysters in the oyster sauce, both dishes were drenched in oil. Oh well, at least the food was delicious...I'm thinking of recreating that edamame recipe at home actually.

And yes, the movie was really funny. At least funny enough to distract me from breaking down and ordering a giant bucket of movie popcorn layered with real churned butter and topped with that fake cheese sauce. Not that I eat that stuff normally, but being without any junk food makes you crave strange things...

Meal 2: Lunch with S-K

The next day, I met up with my pal S-K for a casual weekend lunch. "You're what??? Since when??" she exclaimed. Gawd, I might as well have told that her that I joined the sisterhood. "So what are we going to eat then?" she asked.

"Sushi," I replied, cringing at the irony. Is sushi the godsend for everyone who's dietarily "challenged"?

We were on Denman Street and too lazy to think of a more adventurous sushi place, we hopped inside Shima Sushi. I had been there a handful of times before, mostly in a rush from having only an hour to eat lunch during my shift at the library. Akira and Tanpopo were the other two options, but I was too lazy to cross the street to get to Akira's and I had a horrible date once at Tanpopo, so Shima was the only logical choice to me. It turned out that Shima Sushi was lucky find for the EtL regime because they have a brown rice option for all their rolls. Brown rice also became symbolic in ways that I wasn't aware food could be.

S-K was telling about her turbulent life as an artist as I scanned the menu. To my relief, there were several types of veggi rolls on there. Thank god, because I used to be an avid sushi and sashimi eater, and this sudden change in diet left me feeling like I was one avocado short of a California roll. Haha, I know, bad pun.

The waitress came up to our table and I began to order, "Okay, I'll have an order of gomae, an inari roll and an avoca-" She interrupted me before I finished, "With brown rice instead of sushi rice, right? Dieting, right?"

Well yes, I did want brown rice I told her. She looked at me with a sympathetic smile. God, was I that easily type-cast? Was I now one of those people? Did ordering a bunch of vegan options suddenly initiate me into the cult of the patchouli wearing health freak? (No offence to those who wear patchouli, but I can't stand that smell!)

Who was I kidding. That "I feel so sorry for you look" said it all. As S-K ordered her two dynamite rolls with, yes, real unstigmatized sushi rice, I wondered why people who've chosen health-promoting socially conscious diets get so much flack from the "normies." I guess for regular people who aren't especially thoughtful about what they put in their mouths, the negatives (i.e. all the restrictions and all the things you can't eat) are all that they see. Never mind that in forty years I won't be in the emergency room needing yet another quadruple bypass; never mind that I can still give you my trademark look of skepticism with both eyebrows because of those stroke-inducing cheeseburgers I didn't have... all they can see is the huge list of "Can't Eats." I get identified for all the "lack" in my life and not the things I gained (i.e. better energy levels, better skin, a killer waistline etc.). When did society get so "glass half empty"?

Meal 3: Dinner with J

On Saturday night, I had dinner with my friend, J. So let me tell you about J. She's one of my favourite people. What is J like, you ask? Well, she's incredibly smart, has great fashion sense, can be a bit strange at times and can be endearingly neurotic at other times. J is one of the few people in my life who can make me laugh to the point where I can't breathe and tears start streaming down my face. Oh, and I forgot to mention, she's got a big heart; her goal is to work in advocacy. She's a rebel with a cause.

So after being abroad in India for a year doing activist work, J has returned to Vancouver and recently moved into a two bedroom apartment in the West End. I visited her new apartment for the first time about three weeks ago and I've got to say, it's an interesting place. The former tenant, presumably high on a bevy of recreational drugs, decided to exhibit his artistic talent through redecorating the apartment's walls with large scale murals. On the walls of J's apartment, there are pictures of warped, contorted faces sprouting out of skyscrapers, hands looking like they're grasping at nothing and everything at the same time. Everything is painted in psychedelic colours. When the tenant left, the landlord took a look at the walls and decided that he liked some of the murals and that they could be a selling point for potential new tenants. He kept the mural of the faces and skyscrapers.

But there was still the issue of the penis monster.

Above the spot where J's couch is, there is an illustration of a penis monster. It is a penis, growing out of a body, with eyes, a gaping mouth and sharp jagged teeth. The landlord decided that this would be offensive to potential tenants, so he painted it over with a coat of white paint. Problem is, he got lazy and applied only one coat, so the penis monster is still visible, lurking above J's couch. If you sit in just the right spot on the couch, it'll look like the penis monster was about to take a bite out of your head. Kind of like the whole Jaws thing. Come to think of it, that'd make a great Facebook profile pic.

Well anyway, so why all this info about my friend J? Because J is also on a special eating regiment right now. She's on the PaleoDiet. She is doing it as a cleanse, and she started at exactly the same time H and I started our EtL diet. I would also like J to start a blog on her diet, so hence I'm talking about her ad nauseam (J, if you're reading this, I'm still waiting). J is doing the Paleo Diet as a part her training in CrossFit, this crazy exercise program that works on strength training and overall fitness through endurance and stamina. It sounds pretty intense, and J is taking it to the next level with doing the diet part of the program too. For those of you wondering, Paleo Diet is where you eat like a neolithic hunter gatherer, so 1). no grain 2). no processed food 3). no dairy 4). no soy. You're only allowed to eat meat, vegetables and fruit.

Maybe you can see the problem with this already. Her diet is nearly opposite of my diet, in the sense that she has to have meat with every meal and I can't have any animal products at all. So what did we have for dinner that night? Sushi, of course (it apparently is the solution of all the world's dilemmas. One day, it'll bring world peace). We ended up going to our favourite sushi restaurant downtown, Aki's.

"Feel my callouses!" J insisted to me after we were seated at our table. J is very proud of her callouses. Those little bumps of thickened skin at the tops of her palms were evidence that she had become proficient at dead lifting and chin-ups. Today, those callouses were broken and popped, but she made me inspect them anyway. I usually touch them but today looking at them was enough to make me cringe. Fitness was painful.

I looked at the menu and was confronted with same looming problem: what does a vegan eat when eating with non-vegans? I selected a bunch of appetizers, a roll and some robata (food grilled japanese style). Most of the items I selected seemed pretty safe, but I needed clarification.

"Does the tofu hotpot use bonito flakes in the broth?" I asked the waitress.

"Umm....no bonito. That one vegetarian," she said in her perky Japanese accent.

"Are you sure?"

"Ehhh....yes." Her eyes darted back and forth.

I've seen that expression before on wait staff. It's the "oh shit I think it's vegan/vegetarian but I'm not sure and I don't want to look dumb or screw up my chances for a good tip" look. This happens quite a bit and actually, the last time I went to Aki's with D and AM, D's supposedly vegetarian eggplant robata showed up smothered in bonito flakes. We were not impressed.

I think a lot of the time, the wait staff are not that knowledgeable about food allergies or diets and how these correspond to the ingredients of the dishes on their menus. Some of the dishes are straightforward: obviously a greek salad is not vegan if it has feta cheese on it. But it starts to get tricky when there are pre-made sauces or dressings; usually these have eggs and hidden dairy ingredients, obviously big no-no's for vegans.

Well, I ordered the tofu hotpot in good faith, and sure enough, when it arrived, the broth had the signature smoky flavour of bonito. Damn it.

"I think I screwed up with this one, but it's not my fault!" I complained to J. "I was misled!"

"Oh whatever," she replied. "It's no biggie. I won't tell H." J was not one to judge at the moment. She was busily devouring a spider roll, a delicious sushi roll made with deep-fried soft shell crab. J was obviously having a cheat night. She was apparently allowed two a week.

The tofu hotpot that did me in!

***

So there you have it. To sum it up: it's hard for vegans to eat out with non-vegans in an omnivore's city because there are a lack of vegan-friendly eateries. There is a general stigma associated with any diet that is specialized or apart from an omnivore's. And from my experience, there is a paucity in the awareness of special dietary needs on the part of wait staff and menu items. With all these factors combined, I am not surprised that some vegans are either A) hermits B) misanthropic or C) all of the above. I'm writing this post on a Friday, exactly one week after all these lovely meals. I have a horrible sore throat and I'm living off of Alicia Silverstone's "Magical Healing Soup" (I kid you not, it's actually called that in her book, "The Kind Diet"). If I feel well enough, I'll write about our outings to Nuba. I've been there twice in the past week, and let me tell you, after the dining experiences I had last weekend, Nuba turned out to be one hell of a place in comparison!

Ciao for now,

xo C

ps. Sorry for the bad photography. My SLR was missing in action during my outings!

H - Week 2: Shopping While Vegan

It’s been a long time since our last entry…almost a week in fact! And while C and I always intended this blog as a means for us to update each other on our process and also to document our journey we did hear this week that people do indeed read our blog and their feedback is…. Update more often! So here I am updating!

Shopping while Vegan…

So last Sunday C and I decided to go on our weekly shopping trip together. With C’s sister driving and armed with several exceptionally long grocery lists, we were off to a very different type of grocery shopping experience. First of all, if you decide to undertake something like ETL or veganism in general, be prepared to spend a lot of money on groceries.

First stop – Whole Foods

I’ve been to the Whole Foods at Robson before but I have to say I am quite impressed by the new Whole Foods at Cambie. First of all its HUGE and it has a wide variety of organic and vegan friendly food but I think the part I liked the most was its ready-to-eat section. Simply because it actually had food we can buy and eat right away. I guess this wouldn’t be as impressive when you’re not on ETL, in fact you may wonder why people would pay by the 100g for steamed veggies, but when you can’t eat 90% of the readymade food out there - this is a pretty exciting find.

Here are a few pictures of our lunch that day.









Now the reason why we stopped at Whole Foods was because C had a few recipes that she wanted to try that involved some vegan ingredients. The only one I remember is Tempeh because after buying a package from the super market we actually got to sample some at the ready to eat section.

Tempeh is type of fermented tofu that is typically used as a meat replacement and in fact it is the only tofu that didn’t originate from China or Japan. After trying it though, I think I’m going to stick to my regular tofu… It reminds me of tofu cheese, and this is not to be mistaken with Soy cheese, tofu cheese is another type of fermented tofu that my parents used to eat with lamb… in Cantonese it’s called Fuyu.





Anyways I typically don’t shop at higher-end super markets because I always thought they were more expensive. Plus I was content shopping at my usual places like Superstore, Save-on Foods, Safeway, Costco, and T&T. But I was pleasantly surprised to find certain foods to be CHEAPER at Whole Foods. Things like tofu and canned beans were around the same price as typical super markets and some things like almond milk, Yves ground round, and spices actually cost less here!~

The next stop was Save on Foods across the street, as this was a regular grocery shopping spot for me there was no big surprises I just bought the things that I didn’t end up picking up at Whole Foods here, including Unsweetened So Nice Soy Milk, Soy Creamer, and taco spice.

Then it was off to T&T…

If you’re not familiar with T&T they are an Asian supermarket chain that originated from Taiwan. Their main focus is Chinese food but you can find other common Asian ethnic foods here like Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai etc. The size of the supermarket is comparable to Save-On’s or Safeway and recently they were purchased by Loblaw’s, the owners of Superstore.

My usual trips to T&T were usually quite unhealthy now that I think about it. Often my bf and I would load up on things like this

• Asian beverages like Schwepps Cream Soda, Vita drink products, Sarsaparilla, Japanese Soda, Calpus yogurt drinks, honey lemon green tea, and aloe drinks etc.
• Snacks included rice crackers, Pocky, and those yummy Japanese candies
• Frozen dim sum like gyoza
• And of course the staple of any Hong Kong household – instant noodles. I always liked to try to funky flavours like Lapsa or XO Sauce or Thai Chili

Now that I couldn’t eat any of this I found that T&T is actually the best place to buy produce. They have a great selection of produce, plus they were fresh and well priced. Now I know if you really want a bargain on produce you would have to venture to Chinatown or other privately owned Chinese markets but the cramp spaces of these places always deterred me from frequent shopping trips.

In addition, I also picked up some Wheat Flour Dumpling Wrappers, which were egg-free for making my own vegetarian gyozas, which I ate last week.

Despite this great find of egg-free gyoza wrappers, which are actually quite difficult to find. The best buy at T&T was actually green grapes. C actually commented on how expensive they were - $3.50 for this tiny package but I wanted something to snack on and they looked so plump so I bought them anyways. Good thing I did because these were hands down the best grapes I’ve ever had. Ever. In fact, if you’ve ever had any type of Japanese candies that were white grape flavoured, this is what it tasted like. So I guess those Japanese food scientists weren’t making it up, Nature’s own candy did taste like this. I can’t wait to go back and pick up some more! Hopefully they’re just as good…

After all this shopping you would think I was done. But no, Monday my bf and I had to venture to Costco after work to pickup my prewashed salad mix, strawberries, and prewashed veggis for this week’s snack content. Plus C had to buy me some buckwheat soba noodles from H-mart.

I think I easily spent $100-$150 for last week’s groceries. Mind you, I have a LOT of leftovers and I’m still using some of the ingredients this week but I did spend another $65 this week on groceries too. All this to feed 1 and a half people, 0.5 accounting for my bf who is not on ETL but munches on my food for lunch and snacks.

Before I go, I wanted to announce our progress!

So far both C and I lost between 5.5 – 6 lbs! Pretty impressive for 2 weeks of eating a lot of food - this is definitely much more enjoyable and sustainable than WW. The only thing is that you do have to sacrifice 1 day a week for shopping and cooking and the cost of buying groceries. But I see it as 4 birds with one stone, you get to eat well, get healthy, learn how to cook, and lose weight. Plus I’m sure as time goes along we will figure out a way to lower our food cost.

Next time one of us will blog on our trip to Nuba. It’s a traditional Lebanese restaurant that has quite a few vegan choices. Our experience and pictures soon! If you’re interested in seeing their menu click here http://nuba.ca/

H – Week 1: Making it Automatic

So the first week of our ETL challenge has officially gone by! 1 down, 5 more weeks to go!
When C and I decided to do this challenge we knew that it was going to be tough. For starters, the diet is extremely restrictive and from C’s sister’s research, the odds are against us as most people drop off ETL at the 2 week mark. Well, I’m proud to report that after the first week there are no indications of our will powers wavering.

From C’s blog you can see that one of her strategy is faking it until you make it, so basically using substitutes to mimic the food you would usually eat. I guess from that, my strategy would be: Making it Automatic. I figured that if I was super organized and disciplined during the weekend and made things really easy for myself on the weekday I would be able to resist temptations.
The first day of our ETL Challenge was Monday April 12, so dutifully the Thursday before I began the challenge I planned out my meal plan for that week. Luckily for me, laziness has always won out variety during the weekdays so I’m used to eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch during work days. Prior to ETL, my breakfast usually consisted of a bowl of cereal with a cup of coffee, lunch would include a deli wrap, which I made the night before. Dinner would be the real challenge for me as my boyfriend’s parents used to own a restaurant and are both excellent cooks, so our typical we would go over to their place for dinner.

For breakfast and lunch, I just wanted to make slight adjustments to mimic my old ways but so that it also complied with the ETL rules. It now looks something like this:

Breakfast

• 125 ml of unsweetened So Nice Soy Milk
• 2 – Mandarin seedless oranges
• For the first 2 days I would have a very very small handful of fibre rich cereal to curb my desire for carbs. But by the 3rd day I replaced this with a banana.
• Cup of unsweetened coffee with soy ( I used Silk for Coffee). On days that I can’t stand to have my coffee unsweetened I add a 2 teaspoons of Agave nectar
To keep my energy up, I would snack on a small helping of raw almonds from breakfast to lunch. But this was only as needed.

Lunch

• Steaming hot cup of tea
• Giant leafy green salad either with strawberries or tomato with a touch of low fat dressing
• 1 - Yummy veggi wrap

includes:

o Weight watcher’s 100% whole wheat wrap
o Sautéed veggi with fajita / tacho mix. I use mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and garlic
o Spoon full of Salsa
o Spoon full of Guacamole

For dinner the first week I decided to have my favorite leek and garlic soup but I adjusted it by replacing chicken stock with veggi stock and omitted the chicken and the pasta. This soup is super easy to make and it’s delish!

Directions : All you have to do is add a 1 L of veggi stock, 1 large can of diced tomatoes, 1 leek, 6 cloves of garlic, 1-2 celery, 1-2 carrots, to taste I would add Italian spice, salt, pepper and Tabasco. Wait until it comes to a boil and simmer for 2 hours or until carrots are soft. I typically add in some spinach right before I take it off the heat.

I also made a vegetarian chili and would have a big serving of this for dinner. The chili turned out flavorful but I would reduce the amount of chili powder used – it was really hot! I got the recipe off the Food Network website, it is the vegetarian chili made by Emeril.

Another important thing for me was to know my body well and when you get cravings. For me, I always get my major munchies about 1-2 hours after dinner and right after work. Before I would always crave crunchy things, so naturally I reached for the crackers, chips, and popcorn. To combat that, I prewashed a bunch of fresh fruits and veggi and kept them readily in sight. Every counter in my house and at my boyfriend’s house had a bowl of strawberries, tomatoes, or grapes, waiting for me to munch on. If I craved something really savory I would have a spoon full of guacamole or hummus and that always satisfied.

Also, try to consume as few calories from drinks as possible, but sometimes tea and water gets a bit boring. So one of my favorite things to drink while I was on WW was sparkling water with lime juice – it’s really tasty and refreshing and it curbs your desire to have a pop.
But I have to say the HARDEST challenge I had this week was on Saturday when I attended a Chinese wedding and was faced with a 10 course banquet of delicious food during the reception. It was pretty funny when the first course came and everyone was getting their share of roast pork, marinated meats, and other Chinese delectable, and I skipped it all and ate some of the cucumbers used as garnish. Of course, after that I had to explain to everyone that I was eating vegan for 42 days and I was trying my best to stay on track. After some looks of horror and surprise people were genuinely curious about what I was doing and how I could resist this tempting feast. For the remainder of the meal, I ended up eating the only 2 veggi dishes served and that included lots of cooked sugar snap peas, baby bak choy, and Chinese mushrooms. To reward myself for all the hard work, and also because C had cheated the day before, I allowed myself to have a glass of red wine

I think that’s the main reason why people drop out of diets in the first place. It’s so easy to get caught up on being perfect and following the rules to the T that you forget why you started this whole thing in the first place. I think it’s all about mind set, is it more important for me to finish this 6 week challenge and end up being healthier than I started? Or is it more important to follow every single rule Dr. Fuhrman outlined for us and deprive yourself so much that you end of dropping out due to all the guilt you’re feeling?

I think it’s more important to keep your eye on the prize and cut yourself some slack.

C - Cheaters Never Prosper....Or Do They?

To my dearest Eat to Live,

EtL, I know we've only been together for about a week...but I haven't been totally honest with you. I've been keeping something from you since Friday night and it's seriously KILLING me inside. You've only been in my life for a little while, but you've made me into such a better person. You've been eternally good to me, putting up with my bloated bitchiness, all the loud cursing in the kitchen, and telling me I looked great even though I know I totally botched the makeup on that one massive zit which gave me a third eye. It makes saying this to you so much harder....

I cheated.

I am so, so, so sorry! I just couldn't help it!! I was at Dana's art show with M and everyone was just letting loose and, you know, having a good time....

And there he was... just standing there looking at me. He's been around. You know the one. He didn't have a 6-pack like the rest of them, but you can't miss those blue eyes anywhere.

And I swear, it was only once! It wasn't even a double, even though Dana was TOTALLY egging me on. So you see, it wasn't entirely my fault!! I have friends who are enablers!!!

But I want you to know that you're still the one I want. EtL, you're my guy. I'm still in this all the way and I want to make it work.

Will you forgive me?

Lamb who lost her way,

C

***

Okay folks, so as you just discovered, I screwed up. Although technically alcohol is vegan, the Eat to Live regime doesn't allow alcohol in the first 6 weeks. For those of you who thought I cheated big time, relax. No one caught me at Denny's inhaling half a plate of bacon.

But yes, I was at an art show with my friends, and yes, there was a little open bar involved. I fell victim to my Achille's heel: a straight up gin and tonic with lime. To be quite frank I've never gone to an art show and not had a drink there. Let's face it, some art work is just screaming for you to get intoxicated, or you just won't survive. (Just for clarification, my friend Dana's work is wonderful and does not fall under this category, not by a long shot).

I'm back on the wagon though after that little indiscretion. It's barely been a week and I'm already feeling a lot of benefits from this diet. I could have sworn that I was borderline hypoglycaemic, as I seem to be extremely sensitive to fluctuating blood sugar levels. I used to have full-on sugar crashes complete with headaches and nausea. Since starting EtL however, my diet's been chocked full of fibre and I've felt good the whole week, even after drinking coffee (which is usually my danger zone because of the amount of sweetener I put in).

Speaking of coffee, I want to give full cred to my friend Deirdre who directed me towards Silk soy coffee creamer. I used it for the first time today in my coffee, along with some agave nectar, and honestly, it wasn't that much different from my regular cup. Granted, I had to use weaker coffee because the soy doesn't have that much fat to cut the bitterness, but it passed the ultimate test. Chris took a sip and she didn't gag or spew.

Well anyway, that's where I'm at. It's day 6 and I've lost 2.5 pounds. And this is what I had for dinner tonight: Orange-glazed Tofu on Baby Bok Choy, with a side of Rosemary Roasted Sweet Potatoes. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed eating the food!

Until next time,

xoxo C

H - Preface: Confessions of a Serial Dieter...

Okay so before we start, a bit of background ;)

This blog is written by Carla and Joyce (that's me! aka H). We're two best friends who decided to undertake the "Eat to Live" 6 weeks Challenge. Eat to Live is a book written by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and is based on the concept of nutritional density. Where Nutritional Density = Nutrition / Calories.

Essentially, you want to eat foods with the most nutrition in the fewest amounts of calories while staying away from foods that are high in calories and low in nutrition. If you look at it as a spectrum from the best foods to the worst foods, it would go something like this: green vegetables, other raw vegetables, beans, and fruit. The nutritionally un-dense foods would be your cheese, meats, refined grains and oils.

Now the 6 week challenge is even more intense than the above concept, Dr. Furman feels that this is necessary because 6 weeks is the time it takes to form a habit and also because your body needs time to adjust to not eating meats, sugars, and oils. He claims that after the 6 weeks you will lose your cravings for such foods. Everydiet.org has a decent summary of this plan here

I think our initial intentions for starting this challenge is quiet relatable. Ever since graduating from university and starting to work full-time we both gained some “post graduate ponch” and we wanted to shape up for the summer.

Of the two of us, I’m the serial dieter. I started on Weight Watchers about 2 years ago – the first 2 months were great, I lost about 10 pounds and was happy with my progress but then I hit 2 road blocks, the smaller of the two was Christmas and the bigger one was that I hit my plateau weight. After a few weeks of no progress at all I gave in to all the sugary temptations of Christmas and fell off the boat. But now that I think back, even though I saw results, going on the Weight Watchers diet wasn’t the healthiest either. I remember eating sausage and egg mcmuffins for breakfast with a large cup of coffee and basically deprive myself for the rest of the day, eating barely anything and continue pounding away at my desk.

The following months was not so good, I was laid off from my job and was feeling pretty blue. But now that I look back, being laid off was the best thing that could have happened to me. I’m not sure how long my health could have suffered if I continued on that path. I was intensely stressed out from my job and as a result I suffered from insomnia and had constant pain in my shoulder and back from all the office work I did and sleepless nights and low nutrition didn’t help the case either.

I decided that I wanted to be healthy again.

So rather than going back on WW I decided to start exercising. I went to yoga classes and started going to the gym at least 5 time a week. I still remember the first yoga class, my instructor had to keep adjusting my shoulders because they kept curling forward, in fact my boyfriend had made fun of me for months before saying that I was starting to develop a small hunch just below the nape of my neck. I was turning into Quasimodo and I didn’t even know it!

Surely but slowly I started sleeping again… The first few months were not easy though. Even though I could fall asleep as I was tired from all the exercising, I would wake up in the middle of the night from anxiety about not finding work yet. But during the day I would remind myself that health took precedence over that.

Then the pounds started to slip back on.

With all the exercising I was doing, I would let myself indulge as a reward. But these indulgences seem to occur more and more often and afraid of reality, I avoided the scale. I think I did this for maybe a few months and when I finally did step on the scale again I realized I gained back 6 pounds.

By this time, it’s been 5 months since I made the decision to get back in good health. I was sleeping regularly and I felt my psyche was wound up less tightly. I decided I was ready to add a diet portion to my exercise regime. Being unemployed, and living off EI I didn’t want to pay for WW so I found a similar online calorie counter system for free. It’s called CalorieCount and I highly recommend it.

This time around I decided to use a different tactic. I started eating low-fat, low calorie substitutions of almost everything I would normally eat. I bought WW bread/wraps, Special K, low fat mayo, etc. During house parties I would opt for one slice of pizza and a green salad for dinner rather than the usual 2-3 slices I would eat. With the addition of exercise, the weight came off easily. In 3 weeks I lost the 6 pounds I gain and I felt great. By the way, during this time I was also interviewing as well and luckily I received a job offer. With my smaller waist line, I started shopping and preparing for my new job. With high hopes that this time it would be different from the last.

Work began, and I could feel that this was a different culture and work environment. I had an amazing manager that I greatly respected and my coworkers were welcoming and open. In the beginning I did have a few sleepless nights from the anxiety of starting something new but I knew what to do. Even though I was extremely tired from long day of work I would force myself to go to the gym, even for 20 minutes and eventually I fell back into my normal sleep habit. With this however, I fell off my exercise regime.

Ever since I lost that 6 pounds I was back at my plateau weight again and I stayed there. I’ve been working happily for 5 months but in the back of my mind I needed to get past the plateau. I decided I needed to do something different. With drama stirring up at work, I realized my body didn’t handle stress well and I wasn’t doing everything I could to help it cope.

I came across Eat to Live from an article I read online with a before and after shot of Alanis Morsette. To be honest, I didn’t even realized she had gained and then again lost a bunch weight. But that sparked my interest and I decided to buy the book from Chapters. I started to read the book and after the first few chapters I was intrigued. Everything he said in there made sense to me, it was just logic and good research and I decided that I was going to do this Challenge. Around the same time, my best friend Carla was talking about getting in shape for the summer. She is pretty fit but wanted to lose the extra few pounds she gained since graduation. I think having the extra support was what really motivated and drove me into really doing this extreme Challenge.

I’ll tell you all about my first week in my next entry!

Until next time

C - Day 3: Fake it until you Make it.

So today's Day 3. Hmm. I was lectured today at work about the "unnaturalness" of veganism, and the simple rationality that if a creature or living organism was put on this Earth, we were allowed to eat it. Yes, well, that's all fine and good way back in the day when the planet's total population was less than 100,000, and we all lived in chic cave-person attire, but let's face it. As of today, the US Census Bureau estimates that there are 6,814,800,000 souls living in the world, and there is no way that we're going to sustainably and ethically raise animals to feed everyone. No f-ing way!

And I guess some of this stems from the assumed, unchallenged belief that we're more superior than the other living beings on this planet: i.e. animals and plants. We are the masters of nature, are we not? We are better than say...carrots, right? Well to be honest, with the way that some human beings act nowadays (cough...leaders of Goldman Sachs...cough), I rather throw the life-jacket to the carrot any day.

Well anyway, enough ranting, back to the post (you can really tell who's the more positive friend of the pair!). Yes, it's day 3. I can report proudly that I already feel benefits of this new eating regime. I have more energy in general. I actually woke up feeling AWAKE! I kid you not! For those of you who work with me, you know that I am not a morning person. But I actually felt energy this morning without the coffee. I just felt lighter....it was strange, but nice.

On the downside though, I am still feeling a bit bloaty and gassy, but I realized that I wasn't taking enough Beano tablets with each meal. I upped it to 3, and now I feel better. And also, to my dismay, I started breaking out on my forehead a little! I wonder if my body's trying to expel toxins. I remember when Anna Marie started her gluten-free diet, she started breaking out like mad, so much so that she got pissed off and bought ProActive. Well, either my body's decided to up-chuck everything toxic from all the meat I've been having, or I'm allergic to something new I'm eating. Hmmm, I'll keep you posted on this one.

So today, for dinner....I decided to fake-out my body a little by tricking it into thinking it was eating meat. And how did I achieve this, you ask? With Yves Veggie Ground Round! I made taco lettuce wraps tonight, complete with vegan "refried" beans and soy cheese. I think the scariest part of the soy cheese. Have you folks actually had this stuff??? If movie theatre nacho cheese and Play-Doh eloped and had a child, soy cheese would be it. It reminds me of processed cheese slices, but weaker and faker tasting. It's okay, but for those of you who can eat the real thing...AVOID SOY CHEESE AT ALL COSTS! I bought the one from Okanagan's Soya Co., but Alicia Silverstone says that the one by Tofutti is better. We will have to see about that.

I've got to say....I really enjoyed tonight's dinner. Alongside my taco wraps, I had a big green salad with strawberries drizzled with a smidge of sesame vinaigrette. Everything was really tasty, even the fake meat, which was reminiscent of ground up mushrooms but a bit spongier. I think if I have a meal like this once a week, I'd be able to finish the 42 days, no problem. My only caveat about tonight is that if I could have it my way, I would only have things like Yves Veggie Ground Round and soy cheese once in a while because in the end, it's still processed food "pretending" to be something else. In his new pocket book, Food Rules, Michael Pollan says that these "food-like products" are overly processed and full of additives (it says so in rule #10, to be precise). They should be avoided as much as possible because they're not natural, and who knows how your body will be affected by it in the long run....

So yes, that's Day 3 for ya. You're in for a treat...I actually photographed my food tonight! I did used to be a photographer after all. There is nothing like transferrable skill-sets...enjoy!

Here's my meal!

Here are my lovely vegan "refried" beans. They're actually quite good and simple to make. Let me know if you want the recipe!

I think one of the best parts about this diet is that it inspires everyone else around you to be more healthy too. In this photo, my sister's dinner is placed adjacent to mine. She's having my vegan channa masala over rice with avocados. Yay Chris!