Here we are in September already. It seems like such a short time since
I stood on the scales on January 1st, 2012 and saw the 185 pound
reading. My recent weight information is in the sidebar to the right and you
can see it has been quite erratic. I will say that looking back on the weeks
that showed increases I could easily figure out the reason for the increase.
I have written before of my interest in a plant based diet. I recently
finished reading Forks over Knives: The Plant Based Way to Health. The knives referred to in the title of this book
are ones belonging to surgeons. No doubt we all want to stay away from those.
Currently I am reading Vegan Bite By Bite by Marilyn Peterson. The
focus of this book is how to make the transition to a plant based diet. As the
title implies, it is done bite by bite.
Marilyn comments early in the book that the transition will be easier if
the entire kitchen or house hold is vegan. This caused a light bulb to go off
for me because I realized that since Deb was diagnosed with Celiac disease in June
2008 our kitchen/household has been part gluten free and part not so much
gluten free. Based on this I have
decided to make the switch to a gluten free diet. I do think that, when dining out, if
presented with the choice of an animal based gluten free meal and a plant based
meal containing some gluten, I would opt for the latter.
Marilyn suggests that in the 1st part of the transition to
plant based foods one should merely start looking for plant based substitutes
for the animal based products one already enjoys. To this end, we tried SO Delicious Cultured
Coconut Milk as a replacement for our daily yogurt this weekend. We started out
with a flavored yogurt and added more fruit to it. While the consistency was a
little soupier than the dairy based yogurt that we are used to, the flavor was
fine. Next I will try the SO Delicious brand in an unflavored plain yogurt with
added fruit and see if it will work for me long term. We also have some vegan cheese and tofu to
try. Not sure yet what to do with the tofu. Any suggestions?
Up next on my reading list is The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn.
Rip uses the term “plant strong” to describe his eating program. I’ve had a sneak peak at Rip’s website so I am
very anxious to get to this book. Hopefully I will be able to make some
additional comments about the Engine 2 food plan when I weigh in at Fear No
Scale around the 1st of October.
