One month as a Vegan, it's a mind set. (favorite food list towards the end)

So tomorrow is my one month official Vegan life mile marker. Wow how time flies! I'm hooked on this big time. I can not even believe how much better I feel. I saw my Mom yesterday for the first time in several months. (her turn with my sister and the baby, her rib btw is doing much better yeah!). She said my skin is glowing, and my eyes are so clear and sparkly. Sweet!

I can see changes in my body, but really you'd have to know me to notice. So I'm not saying miracle weight loss here, but I'm probably eating way more food than I use too, only fewer calories over all I'm very sure of that. I know I've lost some inches, and am not swollen anymore at all. :-) I see wonderful changes in my daughter too, her shape has changed, she looks happier too. She also feels so happy to be eating this way.
Last night I was driving back from my sisters (an hour away), and my husband called in an order for Chinese, he actually had them make some things from scratch just for me so I wouldn't' have to cook. This is a man who when I've made changes before would wig out go to the Dollar store and bring home junk for us all. It's always been hard to make changes around here with kids and hubby. I can honestly tell you they have been WAY supportive this time, I have to thank the movie Food Inc for that one, not to mention Jamie Oliver's new TV series keeping them form forgetting what junk does to people's health.

One thing to report, how I now feel about processed sugar. I can honestly say it was Jr. High when I learned to use sugar as a mild drug. I would not eat, only sip a coke and a bag of skittles or m&m's every day. It kept me going w/o having to eat, and my mind would stay comfortably numb from the pressure I was under. So it had begun, it's been a life time struggle for me to not starve and then abuse sugar. After more knowledge I did things here and there, but always relapsed under stress, the no breakfast have a coke mid way through the day, following by a too big dinner, was a way of life for me.
Well I've not had any in my diet now for over a month. It feels wonderful, and to discover I can have sweet things w/o having my insulin spike and my head go fuzzed out and my joints ache. Wow liberation! I'm a big believer in taking into consideration the origin or beginning of things. It's been called white gold, and heavily taxed through the centuries, I think personally through my own experience it's addictive power also increased it's value to those who understood sugar as a profit wealth maker.
To now know of alternatives that are not damaging to my health is precious knowledge. It also has me respecting the process of sweet being a treat. It's laborious and more expensive to eat healthy sweet, and be vegan. It shouldn't be something you can have every day for very little money it's a drug.
I didn't realize how much better I was feeling until I had a single bite a vegan cake, that ended up not so vegan. It's icing was made with powdered sugar, sure that might be consider vegan by some but not by me. That icing hit me like an electrical impulse coursing through my body. I felt it instantly and it hurt! My neck tensed up and I got an instant headache. I asked for the ingredient list and there it was the culprit. ugh! I felt that one bite in my body for 3 days, even after sucking on an umboshi plum pit.
This is the thing though, all the sensations were what use to be normal, only I just thought I was headache and body ache person. No it was the sugar in my diet. My joints don't hurt, I'm not having headaches, no sugar crashes, no shaky days where I need something sweet to survive. I was addicted! I've told myself that truth before, now it's on a level of deep understanding and commitment to never let sugar back into my life.

Which brings me to my 2nd thing to report. How I see food, or what I see as 'real food'. Again at my sisters house, I open her frig and pantry and how much has changed in my mind set in the past 30 days! Wow! I open those doors and see nothing I would consider real food. Now my sister is a healthy person, who does not have a weight problem, in fact she never really struggled with her weight, just wasn't an issue for her. So her frig and pantry is very typical, well even likely more above board for most people. 
At the grocery store I see no need what so ever go walk down any of the isles, there is no 'real food' down those isles! I no longer am seeing boxes and bags, and chemicals and processes as food. Putting food into my body as Alicia says in her book is something we do 3 times or more a day, it's one of the most connected factors to our health of anything we do or can do for ourselves.
Now I see real food as food. It was backwards! Honestly how can in just a short time in human history did this happen? I'm old enough to have had the blessing of two grandmothers who had huge gardens and feed their families fresh farm produce they raised. My children have no clue what that would be like. I remember food wasn't processed into chemical compounds, yet over my life time I fell into the cycle of advertisers convincing me, fast convenience was food. Wow, you know your there with me, you believe it too. People around the globe eat better than we do in several respects on this front. Some rice, beans, and greens is a basic healthful meal, who knew? who forgot? who's accountable? What will I teach my family now?

I'm a little dizzy up here on my soap box. lol So I'm going to just move right on into my new favorite foods! REAL foods! tee hee

Ezekiel Tortilla fill with Tofu Cream, beans, rice, cabbage, radish, carrots, cucumber, sprouts, avacado, cilantro! I could eat one of these almost every day and be so happy.

Miso soup 1 tablespoon miso per serving
    2 teaspoon dried cut wakame (seaweed you can use other types too)
    1/2 cup chopped daikon (Japanese radish looks like a large white carrot)
    1/2 cup carrots, optional
    1/2 small onion, optional (I use leeks if I'm out of onion)
    tofu, chopped into small cubes, optional
    chopped green onions

It's very important to not 'cook' the fresh miso when you add it, two minutes on simmer to get it to melt into the broth. You do not want the healthful enzymes to be cooked to death. This has made me feel SO much better, and I can tell when it's been more than 2 days since I had some. I've not had any ill side effects from my high veggie and bean intake due to the digestive aid this soup provides. I mean I thought I would be living on Beano trying to be a Vegan. ha

Squash! I love squash in so many varieties of ways to prepare. It's amazing. I was always afraid to buy one, what the heck to do with that large hard cased thing!? ha ha and to toast their fresh seeds and eat them as snack or a crunchy topping on salad etc. YUM!

Cabbage! Green, Red, Napa, who cares they are all wonderful. I love cabbage. :-)

Zucchini, I crave this! love it sauteed.

Gomashio! (black sesame seeds and salt toasted and ground) Such a wonderful flavor to add to lots of foods. I use half the salt Alicia recommends so I can put it on more things and not get to much salt in my diet. (natural sea salt w/o iodine btw).

Tahini! What a wonderful spread on toast. This keeps me from late night snacking off my Vegan path sometimes a simple slice of healthy real bread with a light spread of Tahini. Delicious.

Umeboshi Plums, a wonder of amazing flavor and healthful aid! I have the plums, the vinegar and the paste. I love this food!

Fried Mochi! with (real) Maple Syrup! This is a breakfast for the weekend that will keep you from ever even considering you need to cheat to be happy.

Ok and the big shocker, I resisted this for the first several weeks, now I crave it. Steamed greens with my breakfast. I know! Me too! I never thought I would enjoy steamed greens with my breakfast, but it's just SO good to me now. Miso soup, steamed greens and porridge (take your pick all of Alicia's are good). Its' my breakfast of champions.

Now tomorrow I fly out to California to shoot a wedding. I'll be at the mercy of my schedule and the people I'm working with. I'm worried, because 'real food' takes time and costs money and I need to eat to not cheat. (I learned that lesson early on read back if your curious). I'll be gone from Thursday afternoon, till Monday evening.

I know two things I MUST avoid to not feel miserable, sugar and salt. I have a few things in mind to help me. I'm hoping it all works out. I'm bringing some Umeboshi plum with me in case I need it to restore myself. I know your thinking you'll be in California Vegan capital of the States. Yet, I won't have my own car, and am not staying at a hotel, rather with extend family of the bride. It's gonna be complicated. Lets hope I have way more successes in keeping to my plan than not. :-)

This was a long post, but you'll likely not hear from me for several days now. I want to say one last thing. I know this change seems so drastic. The truth is though it's been a long time coming, over the years knowledge has been creeping in, things I've heard, read, believed about food. It all came together so that when I read the Kind Diet I recognized the path I needed to be on, and so far this is exactly what I need to be doing. I do not take this change lightly, and I'm not doing it to save the planet. I'm doing this to save me, and my family. It's not easy and I have hard days where I mad about how much time things take, and how many dishes it takes (because I also gave up my microwave), but I keep going, because this is real food and that makes sense all by itself.

So thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your week, and I'm sure I'll have some stories and food pics to post when I get back.