New Year, New Plant Based Diet

I know it’s March already, and gosh, my blogging has been off track so far this year. But with Covid-19 going on in the world and dealing with our own health issues, I really have not made blogging as big a priority as I planned it to be. I meant to post this in January, so please forgive me for getting behind. I hope you enjoy this post about how we’re transitioning to a plant based diet! Maybe it’ll give you some new ideas if you’re in a “stay at home” order area.

Heads up: this post contains affiliate links that may provide me a small commission if you click on and decide to purchase anything. Thanks!

Isn’t it one of the first things most everyone thinks about every new year? Getting in better shape, losing weight, eating better. I’ve been firmly in that camp every year for a decade or more, when I plan my New Year’s resolutions.

But this year my hubby and I have decided to work together on these goals! We hope that by developing an actual strategy for achievement, we might find success. And our #1 goal is that we are going to strive to primarily eat a plant based diet.

While we won’t be 100% vegan, we are going to try to eat this way the majority of every week.

Not that we have been terrible “eaters” in the past. My husband grew up with a very health minded mother and made sure he knew what eating healthy looked like.

I on the other hand, didn’t learn about balancing nutrition much, and have had to learn it as an adult. (Which becomes much harder after eating the same way for 30 years.)

We’ve tried really hard to eat more vegetarian-like for the past 3 years already. Although, we’ve still been having health problems, so apparently what we’ve been doing hasn’t helped that much. Or hasn’t been enough.

So when we recently watched a great documentary on Netflix called “Gamechangers”, we really became inspired again. The movie follows the stories of several athletes and/or kinds of champions, and how they feel they owe some (or a lot) of their successes to a plant based diet.

I know there are plenty of detractors out there that point out how there are flaws with the movie. Some contend the studies and facts they focus on don’t paint a full picture. Like for every plant eating champion, there are 10 more that are not vegans.

And maybe that’s true! I have no doubt that what’s in the movie isn’t the whole story. Of course they are going to show everything that supports their view, and not show or discuss anything else, duh.

HOWEVER, there was one scene in the movie that really struck me and my husband. It was a segment with three basketball players and their blood test results following one meal.

Two of the guys ate burritos with meat in them, and the third guy ate only a veggie burrito. The results were shocking!

They spun out the blood vials and when that occurs, the light colored plasma separates and goes to the top. What it showed was that the two guys that ate meat had this gross looking, oily, fatty, cloudy plasma. But the guy that ate only veggies had light yellow, completely transparent, healthy looking plasma!

In other words, the veggie guy’s plasma was “normal” or how healthy plasma should look like. Eating anything fatty will cloud your plasma for anywhere from 3-6 hours according to researchers.

Trying to Get Well

Seriously, the visual of the two blood vials really got to me. Especially because this past year my husband has been struggling with some mysterious health issues that have been very worrisome and have really affected how we live, where we go, and what we do.

We’ve done SO much research for such little benefit. Some of what we’ve found may have been helpful, but it also puts the fear of God in you when you read about all kinds of crazy, rare diseases or conditions that you feel like you have all the symptoms for!

FORTUNATELY- after having not known for almost two years, we finally think we know what’s going on and know some of the next steps we need to take!!!

Unfortunately, with the coronavirus going on, it’s really not an option for us right now to get out to the additional doctors we need to see, and for him to start any physical therapy or treatments.

As I mentioned, we have already been trying to clean up our diet over the last two years, just for general health benefits, as we’re both in our forties now. But, we weren’t exactly successful, other than adding lots of salads to our meals.

Well, as things have not gotten better, and some symptoms have actually been much worse, we realized that it’s probably time for a more dramatic change. Thus, we decided to change our diets, as we felt that was the only thing we can do that’s really within our control.

We know we can’t control a lot of things with our bodies too, but at least we absolutely can, when it comes to what we put in our bodies.

Trial and Error

Technically I guess we started trying to eat more vegan-like in December, but these past two months we’ve really been kicking it into high gear with our plans.

I even discovered a recipe book that my mother-in-law owned called Deliciously Ella, and I immediately fell in love with her blog of the same name.

Her story is in many ways much like ours, not identical by any means, but similar enough that just reading about the benefits she’s experienced by changing to a plant based diet, have solidified my decision to try it.

You can read all about her story on her blog, but I’m summarize and say that basically when she was nineteen she got really, really sick. Like, she was bed ridden, couldn’t leave the house or even walk around in her house because she was so exhausted and ill.

Turns out she was diagnosed with a rare illness called Postural Tachycardia Syndrome that basically breaks down your autonomic nervous system, which controls all the automatic things your body is supposed to do on it’s own.

She went to doctor and doctor and had weeks of hospital stays before they figured out what it was. In the meantime, her summer modeling jobs in Paris were gone overnight. It was completely devastating for her.

Then after treatments, rounds of drugs and an unfortunate incident while she tried to go on a trip with her boyfriend, she finally realized it was going to have to be her responsibility to figure out how to heal her body.

Now, her situation is unique, just like yours is, and just like mine is. Certain illnesses can require much more than just healthier eating of course.

But she herself became inspired after she discovered a woman named Kris Carr who was able to manage her cancer diagnosis with a completly plant based diet.

So Ella gave up everything processed; sugar, gluten, dairy, and anything with additives or chemicals. The crazy thing is that she was a total chocoholic previously, and says she’d never eaten fruit or vegetables before.

She started out eating the same three meals everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner because she didn’t know how to cook at all. And that’s when she decided to start her blog and document her journey.

She started seeing and feeling beneficial changes within weeks, and knew that she needed to keep going, but needed some motivation along the way. So by blogging she felt she could keep herself accountable, and force herself to try three new recipes a week.

And with that, I’ve been inspired to write about our journey with this diet as well!

My Challenges With Health

But, as I mentioned, we were/are desperate to get healthy too.

The other part of this equation is my own health, which I haven’t discussed much yet, out of shame.

I have had Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism since I was at least 18-20 years old. However, I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 22, as I was just getting sicker and sicker so slowly that it wasn’t perceptible until it was really, really bad.

When I had my first blood test to find out my TSH levels (normal for all people should be about 1.5 – 3.0) mine was at 245. Yes, you read that right. It was two-hundred and forty-two points out of the normal range.

Looking back now, it’s completely remarkable that I didn’t slip into a coma or something before I got help. My skin was practically yellow, I had slowly been gaining weight, after having been skinny all my life up until then.

I kept thinking it must be what I was eating. I even started to exercise regularly at this point and nothing was happening. Well, nothing but becoming completely exhausted whenever I did try to workout, making me feel like that wasn’t beneficial either.

Also, I started to become so fatigued on a daily basis that I literally could not get through the day without at least a two-hour nap. It was so awful and yet somehow I didn’t put two and two together to realize that I was sick.

It’s not normal for a 21-year old to not be able to get through the day, after sleeping 8 hours every night, without having a nap.

So at that initial appointment the doctor put me on Synthroid immediately, and I lost like 23 pounds within the next two weeks; which he said was expected and was mostly water weight and tons of toxins that had been building up in my body for several years.

It was absolutely amazing what a difference the medication made for me, and how it helped me become a functioning person again.

Fast forward, now 5 years after that. I’m now regulated on my meds and my blood work shows that I’m at a healthy TSH level, right about 2.0. (Mind you that even if you’re experiencing symptoms at this point, the doctors will generally not increase your dose because you are “in normal range.”)

Well, anyone with this disease will tell you that’s total BS. At some point, even though your thyroid is getting what it needs for you to not be so sick on a daily basis, you can still suffer from some symptoms that can become debilitating.

And that’s what has happened to me. Even with medication, I still have to practically starve myself and exercise like a maniac to ever lose any weight. And if I gain weight, oh gosh, it’s like going through the depths of hell to try to lose it again. Especially if I stop working out and stop starving myself.

That’s where I am now. For about the last four years, I’ve had many other things going on in life that have become the priority. That seems strange to realize now, that I’ve let my health suffer in this way, but I did what I thought I needed to do.

Anyway, because of this break in doing anything good for my body on a regular basis, I’m now at the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’m in the 170’s and I’m only 5′ feet tall, so that’s A LOT!

That’s really embarrassing for me to admit to the world. I can’t bring myself to take before pics right now, maybe down the road, but needless to say, I have a long way to go.

Clearing Out the Excess

I’m hoping that with our significant eating changes, and a regular work-out schedule, that it might not be so hellacious this time. However, again, as we no longer (well currently) have access to our YMCA, which we just joined, I’m going to have to get creative with figuring out where and how to workout.

I’m even going through my mountains of clothing, ranging from size 0-12, and making myself get rid of the overabundance, which is sickening in itself. Seriously, what woman needs a full wardrobe in 7 different sizes?? Apparently me.

Related: How to Clean the Heck Out of Your Home!

I will try to document that big project too, in future posts, but for now I’ll just post this awful picture showing all the bins of clothes that I’ve had in storage now for anywhere from 5-10 years. (And this is not all of it!)

5 Steps to Transition:

With all that said, here’s the 5 main steps we’ve taken so far that has really helped us get started with this new way of eating:

1st: Figure Out What You Should & Should Not Eat

In order to do this right, we had to really understand what we should and shouldn’t eat. Because in addition to just getting rid of processed foods, we decided that due to my husband’s issues, we should probably try to eat gluten free as well, at least at first.

So, we’ve spent quite a bit of time researching what foods to avoid and what we can use in place of those ingredients. You may not need to do this part, if you’re not going gluten free, but you will want to compile a list of foods you intend to target in your meals.

2nd: Clean Out Your Pantry & Fridge

We went through our cabinets, fridge, etc. and got rid of anything sugary, processed, made with white flour and or contained gluten. And trust me when I say that it was a sad day. We hate wasting things.

And maybe, especially in times like these, just eat through the stuff you want to avoid going forward. No need to actually throw things out and literally waste food.

Or, maybe you can even donate stuff you don’t want to eat to a neighbor or an elderly or sick person that can’t easily get out.

3rd: Start to Put Together Some Meal Plans

Next we researched several recipes and books about how to become a vegan. Then we started to map out what kinds of meals we could start to make going forward.

I’ll mention a few of the books we found helpful, besides Ella’s mentioned above: The Plant Pure Nation Cookbook by Kim Campbell, The Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook by Neal Barnard, and The China Study Cookbook by Leanne Campbell.

4th: Put Together a Shopping List

Once we’d come up with at least meals for the first week, we created a shopping list for all the ingredients we’d need to have on hand.

I understand that getting different ingredients might be difficult at this time, unless you can safely get to the grocery store. So, be careful out there!

Protect yourself where you can– use Lysol wipes, wear gloves and masks, whatever you can do to avoid much contact with other people.

5th: Make the Meals, Then Evaluate

Next, we just started making some of the recipes and evaluated what we liked and what we didn’t. It’s just a lot of trial and error really, you just gotta start somewhere.

This is my new favorite breakfast so far:

This has a few super basic ingredients and while not exactly what Ella’s recipe was, but it’s inspired by hers!

Ingredients:

• Pocono Cream of Buckwheat 1/4 cup, cooked
• Oat Milk (or you can use Almond Milk or whatever kind you prefer)
• 100% Maple Syrup for sweetness (Agave works too!)
• Fresh blueberries 1/4 cup
• Small handful of slivered almonds

That’s pretty much it for this one! It seriously takes me less than 5 minutes to make in the morning and we love it! We’ve even started experimenting with different fruits and nuts too.

You may want to even try other “toppings”, maybe granola or something else?

And here’s one example of a lunch/dinner that we have made that is again, super easy and SOOOOOO GOOOOOD!

Basically these is spaghetti, salad, and steamed asparagus, but with a few changes from a normal recipe.

We use Spelt Spaghetti, which is an ancient grain, and it’s a type of flour used in many items now.

My husband seems to have a sensitivity to white flour products so this is a good alternative for us.

For our sauce we generally just saute up some peppers, onions, and garlic, then mix in some tomato based sauce, simple.

Then we simply steamed the asparagus for a few minutes, it was still a little crunchy which made it seem super fresh too.

Lastly, we made a basic but delicious salad with romaine, tomatoes, cucumber, and celery. Then just add your favorite dressing and you’re good to go!

Conclusion

I know that’s only a few recipes to start with, but I do plan on posting more about our plant based diet journey throughout the year. At least it might be enough to help you see how easy it really can be to transition to this new way of eating.

While the world watches and waits to see how the Covid-19 pandemic plays out, I hope these suggestions might give you something beneficial you can work on to take to your mind of things.

There may be lots of other projects around the house that you’ve been putting off too, make a list and see what things you have wanted to do and never have time to work on. And get busy!

Hang in there friends! We will get through this scary time- I truly believe that we will. Just hang in there, continue to practice social distancing, and wash your hands!

If you have any ideas for other great vegan/vegetarian recipes or books, I’d love to hear about them! Feel free to leave a comment below.