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My Weight Loss Progress – Need New Jeans!
Had a thought to take a picture like this after wearing these to the grocery store. They slip right off my hips without undoing the button and it’s hard to cinch them up with the belt as they want to fall off. A great problem to have!
Making Lasting Dietary Change
Humans are hardwired to avoid pain and seek pleasure in the present moment. So most of the time we choose instant pleasure (unhealthy food) over future pain (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc). It’s hard to initiate a ‘fight or flight’ response to something 30 years in the future.
The way to deal with this before you experience actual physical pain is two-fold:
1. Associate pain with your present unhealthy eating habits. Learn what food does to your arteries, imagine having a heart attack or getting a scary disease. Really feel what this would be like. Go to the cardiac ward of a hospital. Watch videos of the animal abuse and death involved in the meat and dairy industries (if you already haven’t – no need to keep re-traumatizing yourself). Learn about the environmental impacts of meat and dairy.
2. Associate pleasure with your new eating habits. By going 100% plant-based your taste buds will adjust instead of always being tempted by the unhealthy foods. Develop a taste for healthy foods and you will experience pleasure eating these new foods. You will get ‘cravings’ for potatoes or the sweet juiciness of a grapefruit, or a spicy curry or a hot salsa.
People don’t make the required changes because they experience more pleasure with their current eating habits than pain. Even being overweight and having health issues can be dealt with by medication. And being uncomfortable in clothes is not enough pain for many people to make changes to their habits.
Also, you may need to revisit these associations over time because they can weaken. For example there is such a disconnect between food and animals that buying certain fast foods can seem harmless enough if you don’t think about it too much. There are often no visual cues that you are eating an animal. Keeping strong associations with the health and animal issues can help keep you on track especially during the maintenance phase (after you’ve lost the fat).
This is a great video by Tony Robbins that explains the pain and pleasure principle.
How to Lower Your Blood Pressure With Food
I’ve had amazing results switching to a starch-based diet. Watch this video below and for the science please see this link by Dr. McDougall and blood pressure.
Maximum Weight Loss on a Starch-Based Diet
Some helpful tips for maximum weight loss via a starch-based diet from questions I get and observations.
Chicken-style Low Fat Gravy
Made my own single portion quick gravy mix, like the store bought packets, since I eat a lot of potatoes.
2 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 square of ‘chicken style’ all-vegetable bouillon. Try to find lower sodium, no oil versions or use this spice combo from Fat Free vegan.
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 cup water (add more water if it’s too thick)
I blend in Magic Bullet, bring to boil then simmer. Gravy will thicken as it simmers. I like this one! Adjust to taste.
Make a big batch of this mix without the water then just grab it whenever you need gravy instead of the store bought gravy packs which are usually $1-2 a pack!
Super Quick and Easy No Fry Chick Pea Curry on Basmati Rice
A lot of vegan recipes have a number of ingredients that I usually don’t have, or require all sorts of frying and pots and pans. Or they say quick and easy but it’s really not!
This recipe is quick when you want to get some veggies but don’t feel like cooking. I find regular stir fries to be pretty bland and I don’t like soy sauce that much, so when I want some rice this tomato based recipe does the trick. As usual feel free to tweak with other spices, and add/remove veggies (peas, etc), etc. If you have leftover quartered potatoes and rice this is when to make this recipe!
Ingredients:
1 can chick peas (aka garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
1 can tomato paste
1-2 cups of water (depending on thickness desired)
1/2 tbsp curry powder
1 cup diced cooked potatoes (leftovers or microwave 2 potatoes). Amounts are totally up to you.
1 cup of cauliflower (frozen) – microwave as per directions
Directions
Put tomato paste, water, curry powder, chick peas and potatoes (if leftover) in a microwaveable bowl and mix together. I just kept adding water until it was more of a sauce, so I didn’t measure but it was at least a cup.
Microwave as long as required to be hot. For me it was at least 4 minutes.
Microwave the cauliflower from frozen as per directions if using. Microwave frozen peas if using. Microwave potatoes if you don’t have leftovers.
Microwave the leftover basmati rice or make a new batch while you’re doing this. Basmati cooks in about 15 minutes.
Put microwaved veggies together with curry mixture, pour on rice and eat!