kimberly rae's Journal, 27 October 2014

I was TOO LATE to join the challenge. Grr. But I am with you, sis! These days, I pretty much eat vegan for breakfast and lunch and then sometimes have meat or cheese at dinner. Not always, but some of the time. With the no sugar, thing, it has really helped us as a family to lighten up on that during dinner so that we can eat together and not have to use TOO many brain cells for deciding what to eat that has no added sugar AND is vegan! haha. Anyways, I have noticed that cheese is tough on my body. I have also learned that there are a ton of great vegan options out there nowadays. It is way different than it was in the past. Try daiya cheeses and almond milk with no sugar added. Silk makes a great soy creamer that is really good too. If you are just doing vegetarian, it is even easier. Veggies can sub for meat in any dish just about any day of the week! So can beans. Taco meat made with TVP is delish too if you want that meaty texture.  

OH! And you will LOVE the Morningstar Spicy Black Bean burger. That is my favorite. So is their spicy ch'kn vegan patty. Both excellent and taste better or as good as the original meaty options. Just DO NOT, whatever you do, order veggie burgers in any NON-vegetarian restaurants. They are always squishy and gross because nobody knows how to cook them properly (except my dear husband Eric who of course cooks them perfectly on the grill every dang time!) Trust me, it's a big mistake. Order the salad or nachos and ask them to take off the meat. Or order pasta if you can have cheese.  

I haven't eaten an animal product (with the exception of a little bee pollen and honey) for about two and a half years now, and have never felt better in my life! A website that can get you pointed in the right direction for how to eat a healthy whole-food, plant-based diet is nutritionfacts.org and Kaiser Permanente has an online pdf booklet on how to get started on a whole-food plant-based diet, which they are now suggesting for ALL of their patients and doctors! Just do an internet search for "Kaiser Permanente The Plant Based diet" and you should be able to find it. If you steer clear of those processed "fake" cheese/meat products and stick with whole, natural, unprocessed plant foods, you'll be bulletproof in no time!  

I've been doing the 70,000 steps a week (average 10,000 a day) for several weeks now and I'm loving it. I can't have a "I don't feel like it" day because I have to make it up lol. Good luck. Oh, and read the labels on the Morningstar Farms stuff. I love them too but they are kind of high in sodium. 

I watched a cool documentary on going raw last night so I want to eat as much vegie concoctions as possible. It's only a week. A bit of eggs and yogurt and cheese. Probably no processed vegan stuff. I doubt I'll even have tofu. I'm excited about it. The 10000 steps was easy today. Mom's and back about does it. Tomorrow I'll go see Ezell and that will be even more, so like Msbuggirl does, I may let it bleed into another day. 70000/week average is cool. Thanks for the support! Oh Ame, did you want to do the 10000 steps/day with me then? 

I am not doing 10,000 steps exactly. I will try an app to see how many steps I use in a day, but mostly I am just trying to take a long walk at least once a day. Some days, like today, I do other stuff. On Thursdays, I do hot yoga after work so I drive to work (because I don't have enough time after picking up Tatia to walk to work, or else I would!) So I drive to work and then I go straight to hot yoga and that is my workout for the day. On the weekends, I am trying to go for a walk each day but those are more challenging because that is not in my routine yet. I don't really have a "weekend routine" like I do for my weekdays.