Burger and Fries

Who doesn’t love burgers and fries? Isn’t it great to be able to eat these guilt free? Just made these and they were yummy!

Ingredients:

– 1 can black beans (drained and rinsed). Optionally use red kidney beans.
– 1/3 cup rolled oats
– 1 tsp onion powder
– 1 tsp garlic powder
– 1/2 shredded carrot
– 2 tbsp ketchup
– 1 tbsp mustard
– 1/4 tsp sriracha sauce (optional: caution hot and spicy!)

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400F. Put beans in a bowl and mash with a fork, add the oats and other ingredients and mix. Press mixture into 4 patties and put on a baking tray lined with parchment paper or Silpat baking sheet. These burgers tend to break apart so be careful. Bake for 10 minutes then carefully flip and bake for another 10. I use a spatula. Make sure they’re cooked to your liking and getting crispy as oven times can vary. I put them on Ezekiel whole grain sprouted bread with lots of toppings (pickles, tomatoes, onion, mustard, ketchup)

The fries are my crispy herb fries

If you’d like to learn more and try different burgers check out Jeff Novick’s Burger and Fries DVD.

Vegan Problems No Good Fruit What can I Eat?

Tony Robson from Thriving Vegan asks me some questions about starches in this YouTube video for people that can’t find quality fruit or are short of funds.

Grilled Tofu

OMG this was so good.

Ingredients:

-1 package extra-firm tofu
–Sweet thai chili sauce

Instructions:

I pressed out the water, sliced the tofu, marinated it with some thai sweet chili sauce bought from the store in a jar (enough to coat the tofu) and a bit extra for basting, and sugar (sorry I didn’t measure), then grilled with my Cuisinart 5-in-1 indoor griddler, which is also great for pancakes and grilled vegetables. Love the grill marks!

Still need to work on a good sauce for the cellophane noodles but I enjoyed this.

Plant-Based Diet – Weight Loss Results Update

Items mentioned in the video:

The Starch Solution
Omron Body Fat Monitor
Stamina Power Tower

These are my results so far. I’m super happy and trying to inspire you to try this plant-based lifestyle!

Weighted Chin Ups Demo – Plant-based Diet

I started doing bodyweight exercises back in October and decided to order the Stamina Power Tower from Amazon. I went from zero chin ups to over 12 for multiple sets. Now I can do chin ups and pull ups with added weight. Since I lost 27 lbs it gets easier to do more chin ups as well so the added weight helps. It’s a lightweight tower that was quick and easy to to put together with a few bolts and the included wrench. I really hate putting stuff together but this was a breeze.

The reason I like bodyweight exercises is that they use compound muscle groups, they are more fun than slugging barbells around and there is some research that shows it’s better to move your body through space than move an object towards you. A wider back also helps your shoulders looking wider and waist look smaller. As we age we tend to lose muscle so it’s nice to at least keep what we have!

In this video I demonstrate how I do chinups off of a Bowflex home gym which is not the purpose of the machine and could be dangerous if it breaks. The Stamina Power Tower also has dip handles and push up handles and won’t interfere with your legs. The Bowflex machine is a classic that they no longer sell so I’ve linked to a better one, plus the one we own quickly becomes inadequate as you gain strength.

Avocado Bean Dip – Plant-Based Diet

I don’t eat this too often but it is so tasty with a layer of no oil guacamole and baked no fat nacho chips.

Plant-Based Diet – Organic Blue Corn Tortillas

I order from http://www.latortilleria.ca They ship to many countries.

Calorie Density

One of the core concepts that I like to talk about when losing fat or maintaining a lean, healthy physique is the concept of calorie density. It vastly simplifies things as the complexities of trying to figure out what you should be eating.

Each food item has a certain amount of calories per pound. See diagram below, taken from Doug Lisle’s talk on The Pleasure Trap.

If you eat food at the left side of the graph you get to eat a larger volume of tasty food than you do if you eat foods on the right side of the graph. Volume, or stomach stretching is an important component of feeling satiated. See diagram below, also taken from Doug Lisle’s talk on The Pleasure Trap. Someone noted that this photo may have originated from the book Eat to Live by Dr. Furhman.

So this would be salads, fruit, vegetables, legumes (beans) and whole grains (rice, quinoa). Things to be careful of, even as a plant-based eater is flour and anything higher – crackers, meat, dairy, nuts, oil.

You can hopefully see from the picture that lower calorie dense foods fill up the stomach more than higher dense foods like oil and fatty foods. So the bottom line is that for a given amount of calories you can eat more lower calorie dense foods or less higher calorie dense foods.

Our bodies have an ability similar to animals (who don’t tend to be obese unless they live with humans) to detect the caloric content of whole foods, but when they are processed and higher in density it becomes more difficult.

We are also set up to seek high calorie foods and can get addicted to salt, sugar and fat. So a lot of the products that we see in the stores have just the right amount of these items to keep us hooked.

I’ve had a lot of success focusing on caloric density and satiety via starches so I recommend you check out The Starch Solution by Dr. McDougall, The Pleasure Trap by Doug Lisle and Calorie Density by Jeff Novick to fully grasp this concept.

Finally, an amazing benefit of this method aside from losing fat and getting healthy is that you don’t have to count calories anymore! This is incredibly freeing and a stress-free way to eat!

Ripe Bananas for Weight Loss – In Discount Bin!

Ziploc containers from video.

Huge No Fat Salads For Weight Loss

Here’s a balsamic vinegar from Amazon. Leafy greens can help prevent and reverse heart disease which is a book by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.