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Posted on August 13, 2019 at 8:25 PM
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My daughter figured it out! She successfully influenced me to make changes in my life all the while I was thinking it was my idea. That's mastery if you ask me. She long ago stopped telling me what I should do and every so often subtly offered me vegan nuggets of wisdom; once she gave me some vegan butter, another time, a substitute for Parmesan cheese, another time a book, and recently some samples of her vegan cooking. Everything she has given me over time, I have adopted into my eating habits. I tried them while still eating whatever I was into at the time and slowly the items replaced what I was used to using. The book was the most life changing as I have written about already. Today, I went to the grocery store with my son who is also vegan and he mentioned her vegan chili, so it was decided on the spot that's what I would make too. You see, a few weeks ago she told me about a cookbook, the cookbook with the recipe for this chili with a pumpkin base. So I only had to open my Kindle app and read the recipe at the store. Bottom line: I made the chili and it is amazing!!! As I was unpacking my groceries in preparation to make the chili, I automatically cut some vegetable tortilla into triangles and baked them- spritzed with lemon and salt (just like she taught me maybe a week ago.) I snacked on my baked chips and salsa while I cut up vegetables, strained beans, and scooped out pureed pumpkin. It was then, in that moment, that I realized how effective she was at influencing me to change my life. I love that I make my own tortilla chips now. I love that I made a vegan banana bread type thing for breakfast. I love that I am reading and sharing vegan books. I love that my kitchen is full of organic plant based foods. I love that I use a cutting board every day and have stacks of dishes in constant rotation through the dishwasher. Thank you Alison and Alex and Brandon for influencing me to be the person I am today. I am so happy to share this journey with you.
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Posted on August 2, 2019 at 6:35 PM
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I have lost 45 pounds so far in 4 months and it has been easy! Yes, I said easy because I am eating such a diverse selection of food, creatively prepared and deliciously pleasing to the taste buds. Three months of keto-style and now a month of vegan style eating. I think more than the ideas of what I'm eating, the thoughts of why I'm eating what I eat is what makes a difference on the difficulty level. I have been doing these not-diet-diets as a self-challenge. The first one was to see if I could go without tortilla chips and also to see if I could even handle eating meat, cheese, etc. I thought I was going to have a devastating physical reaction to eating heavy foods but amazingly I didn't. I lost weight quickly and continuously, eating bacon, cream cheese, meat, olives, salads, and cheddar cheese, along with other foods. It was fun and effective. It worked! 35 pounds of fat fell off me to my surprise. Then I challenged myself to give up meat and dairy for oats and fruit. It has been wonderful eating fresh fruits again and grains. I've lost an additional 10 pounds in July. I am going to keep challenging myself along the way, refining the food choices in order to get a variety of vitamins and nutrients into my body and in order not to create any lazy habits. Once some more weight comes off, I am confident that I will then challenge myself in the area of exercise. I have no doubt that I have changed my lifestyle not just tried a couple of diets. It's the mindset that makes you win. I don't feel like I've given up anything. I feel like I'm taking back my life for the first time in my life.
