Why we love smoothies:

• They are delicious
• They are cold and creamy
• You can hide veggies in them
• They can replace meals
• They are easy to digest
• They can be more nutritious than solid food
• You can hide “superfoods” in them
• They are quick and easy to make (if you know what you’re doing)
• They make great frozen treats for our kids 😀

The simplest smoothies consist of fruit, dairy or nondairy milk or yogurt, and ice.  The fewer ingredients you add, the better the chances that it’ll taste yummy.

But the most fantastic OMG wonderful amazing smoothies contain much, much more…and are easier to make when you have a high speed blender.  If you have a cheap blender (under $400 😉  then you’ll want to add nut butters instead of nuts, cocao powder rather than nibs, vanilla extract instead of vanilla beans, and chopped fruits and veggies so you don’t overwork your motor or end up with large chunks.

The most important thing to remember when making a smoothie is that your blender needs plenty of liquid to do its job. You can use water, juice, dairy or nondairy milks or yogurts, kefir, coconut water, kombucha, or even coffee or tea as your base liquids. I usually use filtered water, personally, though if I have it on hand, I use kefir, kombucha, or coconut water for their various health benefits. I avoid dairy and sugar, as the former makes me sick and the latter makes me moody.

Here is what I put in my breakfast and snack smoothies, in this order:

1. Water (or soy/almond/hemp milk, rarely tea or juice)
2. Veggies (a handful of leafy greens, a small handful of sprouts, a few baby carrots, maybe a stalk of celery or a bit of cucumber. I’ve seen recipes that call for tomato, red pepper, squash, radishes, beets, and other veggies, but I usually prefer those veggies roasted or in salads or soups.) Leafy greens are especially high in calcium and iron, and vegetables are great for minerals, fiber, protein, and a few vitamins.
3. Fresh fruit (a peeled orange, a kiwi sliced in half, apple, pear, watermelon, or whatever I have on hand that needs to be used up before it goes bad.) Fruit is great for vitamins, fiber, and a few minerals.
4. Frozen fruit (bananas, blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, pineapple, mango, peaches, grapes, or whatever I have on hand.) Frozen fruit means I don’t need ice.
5. Sweetener (preferably a small handful of dates, which contain vitamins and fiber like all fruits, but sometimes I’ll choose raw local honey, agave syrup, stevia, brown rice syrup, grade b maple syrup, or molasses.)
6. A small handful of nuts, such as coconut, avocado, pecans, almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, filberts/hazelnuts, walnuts, pistachios, or macadamia nuts. Nuts are high in minerals and make smoothies creamy, adding healthy fats and protein.
7. A couple tablespoons total of assorted superfoods such as bee pollen, raw chocolate, maca powder, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, spirulina, fresh ginger or other spices, sprouted quinoa, goji berries, etc.  Superfoods tend to have strong flavor (and they tend to be expensive,) so go easy on them!
8. Ice, if it needs extra cooling or thickening after I blend the rest

Foods that thicken smoothies, and so should be used lightly and rarely in combination unless you want a pudding, include:

• blueberries
• bananas
• avocados
• flax seed
• chia seed
• dates and figs
• dried fruit
• ice

And then there are the amazing dessert smoothies of decadent love – using extra sweeteners and a bit of chia seed, flax seed, or banana to make them more smooth.  Vanilla and cashews with a sweet orange tastes like those orange cream popsickles I loved as a child.  Chocolate, with hazelnuts for a nutella flavor, peanuts or peanut butter for a Reeses’ flavor, coconut and almond butter to taste like almond joy, any of those combinations plus coffee and ice for a perfect cafe blended drink…the possibilities are endless.

I love making chai tea lattes, a vegan egg-less nog with almonds and spices, strawberry kiwi slushes, and vegan ice kreams with avocado to make them rich and creamy.

Crap, now I’m 45 minutes away from my vitamix and hungry…

I’ve been interested in the Raw Food movement for years.  I always loved trying plant foods raw.  It felt deliciously primal, and I was often surprised at how much I loved the taste.  But it wasn’t until December of last year that I decided to try learning how to “uncook.”  I spent hours in the Sarasota Barnes & Noble and the Bradenton Books A Million pouring over Raw Food “cook” books, picking just the right ones to help me on my journey.  I went with Any Phyo’s two most comprehensive books, but I got a lot of ideas from the others.  Here are the only three favorites of which I thought to take pictures:

Raw Dark Chocolate Ice Kream (Thank you Vitamix! lol)

sunbutter and banana sandwiches - I made the sunflower seed butter in my vitamix too, but next time I'll try making it in my food processor.

I was amazed at how easy it was to grow my own sprouts, and how tasty it was to wrap my sandwich in a collard leaf instead of a tortilla!

This one shows some of my yummy cheezy sauce, and I don't know if you can make out my favorite guacamole of all time. I just brought avocados, a bit of chickpea miso, a fork and a bowl with me and made my guacamole fresh right before I assembled my wraps. The cheez was made...in the Vitamix. Vitamix should be paying me for this post...lol

The plan was to try 100% Raw living for the entire month of January 2012.  The good part was that I lost 1-1.5 pounds a day – 15 pounds in the first 10 days.  I had more energy, I was hydrated, and getting a lot more done.

I had several problems, however.  My food budget was not high enough to make sure it was also 100% organic, as it’s supposed to be.  I didn’t have a dehydrator, which I could have used to make snacks that would curb my cravings for hot food in the coldest month of the year.  I didn’t have a food processor, which would have sped up my preparation time a TON.  I had a vitamix, but I couldn’t bring it with me, so for the most part I peeled, sliced, and assembled my food, making myself even hungrier, and then by the time I got to eat it my blood sugar was crashing.  And I started to resent the fact that I was dying for some beans but couldn’t have them because they were cooked.  And I was freaking COLD and wanted hot food! lol

On day 10, I was SO irritable and miserable, I decided to call my experiment a win – I learned that in my present capacity I was not capable of living 100% raw.  I planned to add cooked grains and beans to my menu…but the day I decided to stop restricting myself, my poor inner child ran screaming for the cookie section of Publix.  A week passed before I realized that I was eating worse than I had before going vegan in 2011.  I was starting to gain weight, my depression symptoms were coming back, I was still irritable, but now my blood sugar was all over the place.  Still, it took almost a month to get back under control.

And then, my friend Susan died.

Six weeks of binge-eating and 25 pounds later, I finally recovered control of myself and remembered that eating healthier is easier for me when I think of all the yummy things I CAN eat instead of telling myself I can’t have this or that.  I started cooking delicious vegan versions of my favorite foods again, and a week later I’ve already let go of 5 of those pounds.

My birthday present to myself this year is to take the Radiant Goddess e-course.  Last time I tried taking it, I was scared away by the raw food.  The nice thing about the course is that it’s not 100% raw – it’s “as raw as you are comfortable with this meal.”  And it’s not just about diet and exercise – it’s also about cleansing the mind and spirit with meditation and creative projects.  There is a video for every day of the course – 21 days worth.  And I just love Goddess Leonie – her love truly radiates through everything she does.

 The course starts tomorrow, and I can’t wait!

Wish me luck!

Unexpected fitness tool – my very first iphone!

My little brother upgraded his iphone, and gave me his old one on Thanksgiving.  Shortly after, I started browsing for free apps, and found www.myfitnesspal.com, which I have used every day since to track my food, water, exercise, and weight.

Counting calories never appealed to me, and this is the first time in my life I’ve done it…but I’m really glad I did.  I could not understand why I plateaued at 266 pounds on a whole foods, made-from-scratch vegan diet.  I didn’t see how I could possibly be consuming enough calories to maintain that many pounds, especially since I was more active than I’d been in years.

Using the app on my iphone, I found out on the first day that I usually consumed over 2500 calories.  D’oh.

And I discovered that I was not eating as well as I thought I was.  I know (and preach) that a balanced meal is half vegetables, quarter lean protein, quarter fruit, grain, or starch.  But I was eating half protein, half grain/starch for most meals.

So now, I’m eating a lot more vegetables.  My dad got me a Vitamix 5200 for Christmas (SQUEEE!!!) and I got it a week ago, and have lost five pounds in that week.  Having a smoothie loaded with whole fruits and veggies has made a huge difference for me, and blending all kinds of veggies into broth along with onion, garlic, and ginger makes for a spicy, delicious nutritious soup base.  I use my Vitamix several times a day to make smoothies, soups, and frozen desserts as well as real strawberry [almond] milk for my toddler and marinara sauce for the whole family.

I also recently got a pump for my bicycle, and have a place and time to ride it.

Another change that is going to help me in achieving my fitness goal is the fact that I’m starting a new routine where I work during the day four days a week rather than two days alternated by two nights.  This means more sleep and a more regular routine, and an opportunity to get up every morning before my toddler wakes and before my housemates leave for the day to ride my bike for 30 minutes, or take a brisk walk outside watching the world awaken.

When my son was a baby, I used to strap him to me and go for a walk just after dawn every morning.  I loved that.  I miss it.  Time to start it up again!

I plan to post to this blog every week from here out, talking about new recipes I’ve tried (next up: vegan beef-less jerky!) as well as my fitness trials and tribulations.  I hope to make a video blog every month, if not every week, and use this as an opportunity to get comfortable with my camera and video as a media so I can use it to develop my ecourses.

I’d love to hear other people’s goals. ❤

I never thought I’d have such a hard time getting a snack from the grocery store.

I’ve been thinking about food a lot since I went vegan in March, and even more in the last couple of weeks, after I went to the hospital in pain and found out I had gallstones and some really painful internal infection that extended from my pelvic floor to my kidneys.

The treatment for gallstones is surgical removal of the gallbladder. I like my gallbladder. I’d rather keep it.

So, I researched the causes of gallstones, and discovered they are made of bile and cholesterol, and eating super fatty foods triggers the pain. The gallbladder exists to help the body digest fat. That means, I need to avoid overworking it with highly fatty foods. I already have no cholesterol in my diet, so I’m good there. And since I don’t eat animals, eggs, or dairy, my fat all comes from avocados, nuts, grains, and oils. Because I cook from scratch almost everything I eat, I have direct control over how much oil I consume. So, I felt pretty confident that I could easily deal with this whole gallstone issue.

It'd be a piece of cake! ...right?

I wasn’t counting on my inner child freaking out and taking over.

I didn’t even know what was happening until a week later, when I realized I’d gained ten pounds, and reviewed what I’d been eating. A whole large veggie pizza over the course of two days. Four cans of Lays French Onion Dip (which is mostly fat, not vegan, and has msg among other chemicals…) with two family size bags of Ruffles potato chips (which are deep fried in oil!) Two to four non-vegan candy bars every day. And tons of vegan burritos from Chipotle, with guacamole as the fat, as if that would make up for all the crap I was eating otherwise.

Why did I eat that crap? I didn’t even enjoy it…it tasted nasty to me, made my stomach upset, my gallbladder hurt, gave me headaches, and wasn’t very nice to my bowels…but I ate it anyway, saying how bad it was for me with my mouth full, not even getting the “treat” thrill.

Then I realized that the nurse told me I wasn’t allowed to eat dairy, anymore, and it worked like reverse psychology. As a vegan, I CHOSE not to eat dairy. As a patient, I was ordered not to…and apparently, I still have some issues with power struggles involving food.

Having figured that out, I thought the problem was resolved…until tonight.

I had a delicious vegan dinner at home, at 5pm, and I should have packed some for later and taken it with me, but I was so full when I left the house, I didn’t even think about it. Instead, at 10pm, I was suddenly really hungry, but if I went home that early, I knew I wouldn’t get any more work done tonight. So I went to Winn Dixie…and found myself holding a can of French onion dip in my hands.

I had to literally tell myself, “You don’t want this. This makes you sick. It makes your stomach upset. It makes your gallbladder hurt. It gives you headaches, and it makes you gain weight. You don’t want this.” I walked to the other side of the store to look at crackers and granola bars, but found myself back in the chip aisle, holding the damn dip. I looked at the Baked Lays with Sour Cream and Onion, and had to give myself the same damn lecture. I nearly started sobbing in the middle of the aisle. I was spiraling into a panic because I was hungry and tired and feeling out of control.

Then I took a deep breath, and said, “Fruits and veggies. You can eat all the fruits and veggies you want.”

My emotional response to that realization was overwhelming relief with a touch of joy. I practically ran to the produce section, then stopped and shouted, “HUMMUS! I CAN HAVE HUMMUS!”

People probably gave me frightened looks before running for cover, but I couldn’t tell you…I was oblivious to the existence of the world around me as I zeroed in on the hummus and chose Athenos Roasted Garlic, and then chose to pair it with organic carrot sticks instead of tortilla chips. With my nutritious, low calorie, vegan snack of choice firmly in hand, I didn’t even feel a twinge of desire for the chocolate in the checkout lane, a fact I noticed with relief.

As I left the store, I wanted to shout my victory from the rooftops. Choosing hummus and carrot sticks, a snack I actually love, over chips and dip, a snack I don’t even like anymore, was a huge victory in my battle with food addiction. I don’t think I can explain it to someone who has never been there, but it I imagine it was something like a recovered alcoholic might feel walking away from an open bar.

It also cured my writer’s block. Yay, I finished a blog post!

I was really excited about the recipe for vegan pepperoni in Vegan on the Cheap. Pepperoni was my favorite pizza topping before I started eating better. I’d never tried to make a gluten-based sausage before, so I followed the recipe as closely as I could.

First, I assembled all the ingredients. I used garlic salt in place of the garlic powder and normal salt, since I was out of garlic powder.

I didn’t have tapioca flour, so I decided to grind my own. I also ground the fennel with it, since the recipe called for ground fennel.

I then decided to blend all the dry seasonings with the tapioca and fennel, to evenly distribute them, knowing that once I mixed the water with the gluten, it was going to clump together almost immediately.

Following the recipe, I mixed all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and all the wet ingredients in a small bowl.

It pretty much instantly clumped into a ball when I stirred the liquids into the dries.

Then I kneaded the dough for about three minutes, divided it in half, and rolled two logs. I wrapped the logs in aluminum foil and twisted the ends to seal them in, and placed them in a 9-inch baking pan with half and inch of water. I put more foil over the pan to seal the steam inside, and then I baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, turned them, and baked them for 30 more minutes.

They looked like poop when they came out.

They tasted like spicy crap with a wheaty aftertaste. Bleh.

I KNEW when I was mixing the seasonings that there weren’t enough seasonings, but I was afraid of messing up the recipe since I always boil seitan in broth when I make it, and I figured the sausage might need less since it had so much less water.

I should have listened to my gut. I’ll make this again, tripling the seasonings, and get back to everyone on what it takes to make a tasty pepperoni alternative at home. The recipe in this book just didn’t do it for me. But at least she gave me the idea!

My weight loss has slowed dramatically because I’ve been eating too many comfort chocolates, but I haven’t gained weight, so yay!

I’m getting a bicycle tomorrow, and hopefully a trailer for my toddler to ride in behind me, so we can bike to the park, and to his in-home daycare.   Yay easy exercise!

Last night, I made the yummiest vegan dinner!

First, I braised collard greens, with umeboshi vinegar to add salt and tartness, a bit of soy sauce for salt and flavor, fresh grated onion and garlic (four cloves and a small onion that I ran over a cheese grater,) a bit of olive oil to carry all the flavors, and a dash of liquid smoke to give it a bacon-ish flavor.  YUM.

It’s amazing how much they shrink as they cook!

I made seitan from scratch, which tasted a lot like chicken this time.

First I added the dry ingredients to a bowl, enough to make roughly three pounds:

-3 cups vital wheat gluten (the protein and meaty texture)

-1 cup nutritional yeast flakes (for cheesy flavor and softer texture)

-garlic salt, thyme, rubbed sage, and fresh ground tricolor pepper to taste

I mixed the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, because the gluten soaks it up really quickly and I didn’t want uneven flavor:

-3/4 cup soy sauce

-1 and 1/2 cups cold broth, this time refrigerated organic broccoli soup

-about a tablespoon of olive oil, though the recipe calls for 3 tablespoons

Then I mixed it all together with a fork for about 30 seconds before giving up and using my (clean) hands.  I kneaded the mixture for three to five minutes, then ripped it into baseball-size chunks and kneaded each chunk for three more minutes, forming meatyballs, which I put into the cold broth (the rest of the broccoli soup, a container of organic butternut squash soup, and cold water with a bit of soy sauce) in a deep pot.

The broth starts off cold so the seitan won’t fall apart before they cook.  I brought the pot to a boil for a minute or so, then turned the heat down to 3 or 4, covered the pot, and let it simmer for an hour.

Meanwhile, I baked three huge yams, then pulled the skins off of them, mashed them in a bowl with some organic maple syrup, and drizzled a bit of agave on top.

Dinner was awesome!

Last week, I zipped up my size 24 jeans and discovered that they fit comfortably.  It was such an amazing feeling!  I haven’t been a size 24 in about six years, and it’s overwhelming and wonderful, to say the least.

My last weigh in had me at 276 pounds, which is interesting, because I haven’t lost much weight, yet I’ve lost a couple of inches.  I haven’t been consciously building muscle, though I am inspired by http://www.twohundredsquats.com/ to start trying to build up the muscles in my thighs and bum, and work a bit on my abs with leg lifts (with a thirty pound toddler perching on my feet.) 🙂

I’m thinking about joining a biggest loser group on facebook, just for fun and a friendly sense of competition, not to mention accountability.  I would really love to be a size 16 by November.

I’m looking forward to when I’m a 14, when I will finally be able to borrow clothes from some of my friends, for the first time in my life!  That may not sound like a big deal to most people, but to me, it’s a bit of my girlhood that I was embarrassed to miss out on.

Me, 160 pounds at age 9. This picture is a good illustration of why looking at the scale hurts, whereas looking at my heartrate monitor fills me with a sense of accomplishment. 🙂

So, May was not so good a month for my health and fitness.

I started the month madly preparing for a five day camping trip, at which I ended up spending way too much money on vegetarian hot food.  Granola bars just weren’t doing it for me, and I failed to prepare yummy vegan foods to bring with me, so I decided to be vegetarian out of convenience.

The next week was a weeklong celebration of my birthday, and I decided to have some of my favorite cheeses and cakes and ice creams and continued to be more vegetarian than vegan.

I learned that dairy actually makes me sick.  It made me nauseated, bloated, and gave me some of the nastiest diarrhea in recent memory.  It also made my weight plateau at 280ish pounds, though I was still eating less than 2200 calories a day.

Worst of all, it sapped my energy and put me in a lethargic, irritable mood.

I’ve been back on the vegan bandwagon this week, and my weightloss has started up again.  I was 278 this morning, 279 yesterday, 280 the day before, so it looks like I’m back on the pound every day or so trend.  Yay!

My energy, motivation, and peaceful mood are back too, for the most part.

In more exciting news, today I made and tried seitan for the first time.  It was awesome.  Every one in the family liked it, and said they’d eat it again.  OMG YAY!

I followed the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance, minus the lemon zest, and I wish I’d taken a picture.  It tasted kinda meaty, with a bready aftertaste, and it was moist and delicious.  I’ve got lots leftover, and am looking forward to eating it tomorrow. 🙂

Also, I read in one of my awesome cookbooks that freezing tofu (and thawing it before cooking) makes its texture spongy, so I tried it.  It soaks up flavor and I much prefer the spongey texture, so from now on, when I have tofu, I’ll freeze and thaw it first!

I just want to point out that I’m not wearing makeup in this picture. Good food = pretty skin. 😀

I have no idea what I weigh right now, or if I’ve lost pounds since my last post. I know I’ve lost at least an inch, because my 26s are getting loose, and 28s fall right off. Soon I’ll be ready for 24s. Yay!

We are still moving, unpacking, organizing, sorting, and all that jazz, and I have not yet started a fitness routine of any kind…but I intend to by next week. I’m thinking of actually popping in an aerobic dance or yoga video every morning, or playing Dance Dance Revolution on my PS2. Or figuring out how to turn on the treadmill. Something.

Food-wise, I’m learning fun new things.

I’ve been researching raw-foodism off and on, just for more ideas of ways to prepare yummy, healthy food. I’m not sold on the “science” of raw-foodism that I’ve read so far. That’s a whole other entry, though.

Today I want to write about zucchini pasta and raw marinara, which tasted way awesome. This coming from someone who hated tomatoes for nearly 30 years, before suddenly realizing that  now I can bear to eat them.

The video that inspired me can be found here.

First, I went to Publix and got organic grape tomatoes on sale, organic red peppers not on sale, and organic onions, which I forgot to use. *facepalm

I also got sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, which are far more pricey than I expected. Will be going easy on them. And I couldn’t find them organic. Poop.

Then, I got out my ninja blender, missed the Good ‘Ole Days when I had a Vitamix, and dumped in the pint of grape tomatoes, four small red peppers ripped to bite size pieces, a handful of sun dried tomatoes with about a tablespoon of oil from the jar, probably a cup of water, half a hass avocado, and pulsed until it was a sauce.

Then I remembered that I was supposed to season the stuff, so I ground some three pepper blend, ground some Italian herb blend, sprinkled some garlic, remembered some onion, a few dashes of garlic salt, and pulsed some more.

Then I peeled and shaved the zucchini into fettuccine, tasting a piece to verify that it was, in fact, next to flavorless on its own.

I combined the two in a bowl, and at first bite decided it was edible. Then my alarm went off, so it was a few minutes before I could have another bite, as I was rushing to the car to pick up Jayme.

The second bite was pretty good. The third bite was freakin’ heaven. And I gobbled up the bowl at every stoplight and considered licking the bowl clean, but figured I’d just make a big mess.

So…totally satisfying, decadent tasting lunch that was highly nutritious and low in calories for the win!

Twice this week, eleven-year-old Beth has sat with me at the dinner table, happily piling food on her plate, and exclaiming, “I’m eating vegan!”

Both times I was startled by the realization that I was too. I never dreamed it could be so easy! All I had to do was devote a couple of weeks to learning how to cook grains, beans, and vegetables, how seasonings work together, when to use salt and how much, and how to make from scratch healthy versions of former junky favorites. For example, my roasted potatoes, which are a million times better than any french fry. Or my chickpea patties, so much yummier than the morningstar or any other version! Mixing ingredients to make an awesome potato and bean stew that I didn’t get to have seconds on because all these omnivores gobbled it up before I had a chance! Accidental Indian food, to which I added some roasted cauliflower, which turned out amazing even though I was trying to make a Tex-Mex dish!

Here’s dinner from the other night: roasted cauliflower, roasted potatoes, organic pasta sauce with tempeh meatless balls, and veggie rotini. The potatoes are always gone first, even though six-year old Jayme hasn’t tried them yet. When he does, I may never get to eat any again…lol

A man came by yesterday trying to sell me beef in bulk. When I told him I was vegan, he asked if I ate seafood. When I said no, he looked confused. “Well, what DO you eat?” I laughed and told him, “Lot’s of stuff!”

A lot of people don’t realize that protein is only supposed to be 25% of what we eat, and the animal protein should only be consumed once or twice a week for optimal health, especially red meat – more than that taxes the kidneys and liver!

But anyway, I wanted to show my weight loss, not go on forever about how much I love my new menu!

This picture is me two years ago, wearing my three month old son. I was somewhere around 333 pounds, size 4x, possibly more since stopped weighing myself the first month of my son’s life, and I was eating poorly, sleeping poorly, stressed the hell out, and suffering from postpartum depression. This picture is from the happiest weekend of that whole year, while I was camping at FPG Beltaine 2009:

This picture is me on New Year’s Day 2011. I had already begun losing weight at that point, on the “can’t afford to eat out” diet. I was probably 320, and a size 32:

This is me this week, around 280 pounds, and a size 26. I’m no longer losing a pound a day, but I think I will after I start exercising daily. We’re in the middle of moving, and next week I’ll be staff at FPG Beltaine 2011, so it’ll be a couple of weeks before I can start a new routine. Still, I’m loving being able to see results, just from learning to cook nutritious, organic, plant-based meals:

I am still reaping the rewards of a stable, good mood, and way more energy than I can remember feeling ever before. Even when I don’t get enough sleep (most nights,) I still have energy to get me through the day all day, every day. And I rarely lose my temper or feel stressed out anymore, and when I do, it’s because I’m trying to do too much at once, and not because my hormones are going nuts. Except during my moon time…I still get irritable then. Maybe that’ll change over time too. 🙂