This morning started out with a fail. Last night, before I went to my ballet class, I made a Quinoa Breakfast pudding. It’s in the Eat to Live cookbook, and I am trying to cook my way through all the recipes, or at least most of them. There are a few where I don’t know if I want cold soup, etc. We were low on the Apple Blueberry Oatmeal I made earlier in the week and I was going to see if I could get my kids to eat it.

Anyways, I made it, pulled it out of the oven to cool, and left the house about 5:00 pm. Well, I get home at 7:40 or so, my husband has gotten the kids in bed, I hide on the couch quietly, so they don’t call me in or wake up and ask him to grab my laptop to work on yesterday’s post. I hammer that out, battery on the laptop is dying, and I rushed off to bed just before 10:00 pm. 

My lovely husband, around 5:30 this morning, comes into the room and asks what I left on the stove. Initially I am thinking I left something ON on the stove, and my confusion is clear on my face. He elaborates and says it’s in the casserole dish. I realize that I left the breakfast pudding out! Total disappointment in myself at that moment. I can’t believe I completely forgot about it. It was intended to be my kid’s breakfast. Lucky for us, there was just enough oatmeal left over from the rest of the week plus some sliced strawberries to make it work today. 

I have decided to give myself some grace. I won’t let the feelings of disappointment over the mistake derail my progress. I am bummed I have to make it again, and I might end up actually just making oatmeal again this evening as its quicker and doesn’t have any greens in it. Though now that I type that, I may actually try to add some greens into their breakfast of oats. I wonder…. 

Back to my personal journey-

I am including what I ate today so you can see how much I am getting and see that I am not really missing out on any volume of food. Last week was week 1, but I wasn’t 100% solid and committed, so this week is week one and Sunday will start week 2. Last week, I had potato pancakes out with my husband on Thursday and I also had pretzels a bit. I didn’t budge on the scale a single ounce, in fact, I actually increased a bit over the week. 

As of this morning, I am down about 5.5 pounds since this time last week and solidly sitting at 169 pounds. My starting point for this commitment is lower then maybe expected from my first post, but between a month of low eating and forcing myself because I had no appetite from anxiety, followed by Influenza B, I dropped quite quickly. But that’s not healthy. The great thing is, I’m not worried that I lost 5 pounds in a week, and would you like to know why? I am fully confident that I am nourishing my body with high quality foods and safely and healthfully losing weight. I am also getting adequate protein. Maybe I’ll post more on plant protein or link an article or blog post from Dr. Fuhrman at a later date. It’s actually really eye opening. 

The nice thing about this way of eating is that you learn what your body needs, as well as how much you want to eat. You can feel those signals so much better and more clearly than any other style of eating. Downside for today, I’m not there yet. Dr. Fuhrman talks about toxic hunger. Anyone who eats a standard American diet likely feels this. Its hunger that starts in your stomach, gurgles, or pain, twinges, whatever it might be. True hunger is in your mouth or throat. I felt it before when I was eating Nutritarian, but it takes some time to get there. So today, I can still feel the toxic hunger and I was battling a small headache and anxious feeling this morning, all likely tied to detoxing. Sugar, salt, the processed foods and lack of a dopamine hit from something high in calories. Before, I would have gone and grabbed some pretzels or something that made my emotions feel better. But I know I will feel far superior in a couple weeks, and I won’t feel the emotional need to eat.

On to the food portion. Below is a smoothie I made as breakfast. It was called an Oatberry smoothie. I opted for it since it wasn’t cold, and I was a little cold this morning. It’s from the Eat to Live Cookbook as well. It had a whole small cucumber in it, and you wouldn’t even know, I mostly tasted the strawberry. The nice thing about a cucumber also, is the color is solid with whatever fruit I put in, so it wasn’t green in color like when I use Kale or Spinach. Along with the above, I also used super food seeds, hemp, chia, and ground flax, and some raw unsalted cashew pieces since I don’t currently have any pine nuts. 

On to lunch! This is where you can really pack in the nutrients. I start with a medium bowl; I use my mixing bowls. I put in pre-chopped greens. I haven’t been too complex on this while I get my feet under me, but I am doing Romaine for now. I also chop it up TINY! The smaller the pieces the easier it is to eat and less chewing. I do this for most of my veggies, actually. I am also planning on making a post about what tips I have for making prep easier. I am still learning as I go, but I have the salad process down pat. I always include cruciferous veggies, and mine is usually red cabbage. I top it with a homemade, oil, sugar, and salt free dressing. Right now, my all-time favorite for years really is the No Oil Walnut dressing. I will see if I can find it free anywhere, and if not, I’ll let you know where I pulled it from, book wise, or a website link. Then I always put in some chopped fruit and top with some seeds. Today I actually put in some sprouts. I wasn’t too sure about that choice as they felt a little stringy. So maybe I will see what I can do about growing some of my own. I actually was super stuffed from this today when I finished, but I was feeling that toxic hunger about 15 minutes later. But as you can see, the salad is huge, so there is no chance I was still hungry.

Dinner was leftovers. I like to batch cook dinner as we are the busiest in the evening. It was a tofu peanut curry out of the Eat to Live cookbook as well. I put a little brown rice in the bottom of my bowl and top it with a hefty scoop of the curry, and Willis, my husband, had made some steamed broccoli last night, and I chopped up some of the broccoli and put it on top. I actually really liked this and when I make the curry again, I may intentionally make steamed broccoli and chop it up to put on it. I really enjoy tofu dishes. 

Another win, beyond successfully completing another day, was when I asked what my kids what they wanted after dinner, they initially said a pack of microwave popcorn, but I mentioned I was going to make chocolate cherry nice cream, they were super excited and so I blended frozen cherries, cocoa powder, some macadamia nuts, 1 date, split four ways, and almond milk. All four of us enjoyed a small amount, and I have to say, it was the perfect end to the day. Now my two kids are in bed, and I get to share some of my day with you.