Day 5?

I had a few busy days so I haven't posted daily as planned. I'll keep it short:

Foods
I'm still eating vegan and I don't have any issues with the foods. The recipes are yummy and easy to prepare. The only thing is: it needs planning and time. I found out that preparing my lunch the evening before works best. I often make a double batch from a dinner and then change it up a bit for lunch by adding some veggies, salad or some carbs. Lots of people believe that eating vegan costs a lot of money. I've noticed that I spent a lot of money on some basics (seeds, nuts, oils, supplements, super foods, etc) but that the weekly costs only consist of veggies and fruits. Furthermore I spend way less on lunch and drinks at work as I don't buy any sandwiches or drinks anymore. I actually think I spend less money on foods than with my previous vegetarian diet. I must say that I am 'freestyling' a bit, I don't just eat recipes from the VFF book. I use the basic principles and mix it up with ingredients that I have in stock. I replace nuts with other nuts, veggies for veggies, etc. But I keep to the principles of eating low carb at night, eating breakfast daily, eating vegan, and not eating after 19.00.

Sports
I went to sport once this week. I'm planning to attend a Zumba class tomorrow night so that's 2 times in one week, my goal :)

Drinks
I drink a lot of matcha shakes, water and green tea. I sometimes spike my water with some fruits, freshly squeezed juice or some organic apple sauce. I always drink tea without sugar so that's not a problem at all. I drank some coke this week, but am quite satisfied with how little. From today on I am sticking to the non-coke plan.

Smoking
Yeah that's hard. I still smoke, but I smoke about 10 cigarets a day, sometimes less, not more. For now I am happy about that, but I still want to reduce it until I quit smoking.

Results
I haven't stepped foot on a scale yet so I don't have any results thus far.

Next few weeks
I like eating this way and hope to continue it for longer as the prescribed 30 days. I am not sure I'll be eating vegan for 100%. I must say I have broken the cycle of eating tons of cheese, and I don't want to go back. I still eat gluten free and I notice so many changes in my body. The stomach aches are gone, I have more energy, etc. So yeah I do want to make these changes for a long time, but I think I'll eat cheese at dinner parties etc., but not at home or work. I haven't quite decided yet, I'll figure it out in the next couple of weeks. I have some dinner parties and in 2 weeks I'll be taking a weekend-trip with some colleagues and I'll see how eating vegan turns out then.

That was my recap of the first few days, time to go make my salad for lunch tomorrow ;)

Vegan for fit and other challenges!

Day 1....
There it goes... it's day one of the VFF Challenge! The book encourages to set goals that are realistic enough and can be achieved in 30 days. Other health challenges are also encouraged, so I am proud to present my list of challenges:

1. Vegan for fit
No sugar, no soda, no carbs after 16hr, all-vegan, all organic. That's the challenge! It also means thoroughly thinking about what you put in your mouth. Theoretically I can munch on vegan cookies all day, but that's not as healthy as it's intended to be. I will use all the recipes in his book, but will adapt them to be gluten free and soy free and I'll use whatever I have in the kitchen. I am not buying white almond butter when I still have brown almond butter etc.

2. No smoking...
I have been trying to quit smoking since I can remember... It costs lots of money, is unhealthy and when I think about it there is no good reason to smoke....other than the fact that I am addicted to it. But how about having a few awful withdrawal-weeks instead of awful years of smoking...sounds logical.. As I have way lower stress-levels as compared to a year ago, I feel up for this challenge. It will also approximately save me 1900 euros a year....! That's a crazy amount of money to blow up in the air... And I'll save about 2 lungs as well ;). So here it goes...no smoking for 30 days but actually for the rest of my life... Somehow it's not logical to eat as healthy as possible, detox your body from all toxins in other foods and than infuse your body with toxins from smoking. Also, I found out that cigarets are not vegan at all! They contain animal products and they perform horrible animal experiments on animals to test their cigarets. So no more cigarets for me!

3. Sports
I have actually been sporting a while now, but lately I have been too occupied with other things. So it's back to doing Zumba twice a week! And of course I'd like to do even more but the challenge is to do sports at least twice a week. I love Zumba, it always makes me smile, it's good for the body and mind!

4. No soda, no caffein!
Well that's actually part of the VFF challenge, but for me it's a separate goal as I am a soda-junkie! Cola, red bull...yummy! But so unhealthy! So according to the VFF challenge I need to drink 2 L of water and 1,5 L of green tea every day. I won't measure it exactly but I'll try to keep up with that. No caffein means no caffein from coke and red bull, matcha tea is also stuffed with caffein but is a superfood. I'll drink that when I can find it somewhere.

The ultimate goal
Is of course to look like one of these (girls then, no sex change operations here ;))

The measurements and goals
Well I'm not going to publish my weight or the width of my hips here... but in 30 days I will publish my results. My goal is to lose 5kg in 30 days, I'd like it to be more but I think 5kg is more realistic. I will not weigh myself daily but try to do it a maximum of once a week. That's actually quit difficult as it's so tempting to weigh myself daily.

So there it is written-in-stone or at least published on the internet... my goals! Now I really need to keep myself to them or otherwise I'll be publicly ashamed ;). Tomorrow (or maybe tonight) I'll publish how my first day went!

So what do I eat?

Hello,

I'll use this post to write about my daily eats since I have decided to eat vegan (about 4 weeks now).

Breakfast
I have never been the type to eat a large breakfast. It's actually a lot of trouble to eat breakfast for me, but since I have turned vegan I haven't missed a breakfast! I wake up at 5am as I have to drive an hour to work and I have to be there at 7:15am. So I usually eat around 5:30am. Lately I have taken up starting the day with lemon water. After that I drink a smoothie (green monster) consisting of spinach, water, agave, and whatever fruit I still have left in the house (usually pears, apples, pine-apple, or frozen berries). After that I have a bowl of fruits with nuts and soy milk. It can occur that I munch on some biological cookies in the car when I don't have the time to eat my bowl of fruit (but then I eat that at work).

Here are some pictures of my breakfast from yesterday:

Lunch

Lunch varies every day for me. I often eat a sandwich with vegan mayonaise with avocado, lettuce and tomatoes. Or I eat leftovers from the previous night. Other times I take a salad with me to work. It all depends on what's left in my refrigerator. Yesterday I ate a sandwich with homemade tapenade (sun dried tomatoes, hazelnuts, walnut oil, and basil blended together, really yummie...), lettuce and cucumber. I really liked it...

Dinner
Well when I said lunch varied... dinner varies even more. I usually whip up something, sometimes I use a cookbookrecipe (my favourite so far is vegan planet, I'll do a book review later when I have tried more recipes). My dinner varies from different stirfries, to salads, to home-made pizza to pastas etc. Lately I prefer to eat grains like quinoa or bulgur. Yesterday I made a curry with cauliflower, carrots, potato, cashew nuts, coconut milk and loads of spices, served with quinoa. Loved it!



Snack time!
For snacks I usually eat biological cookies (way too often, I try to cut back on them...), fruits, or vegetables with a dip. I often don't have time for snacks, that's why I eat fruits for breakfast. Yesterday I went to the Ikea with my boyfriend. While he ate a chocolate pie, I was happy that they started a fruit bar. So I had a cup of yummie fresh (hopefully) fruits.

Drinks
I have had an addiction to coke (the drink...) as long as I can remember. I have always used the excuse: "I drink coke as I don't drink coffee and I need the caffeine!", but I was just a coke-addict. The regular kind, not the diet coke kind. When I just turned vegan I weaned off the coke completely and only drank water, water, tea and tea. Lately I have started drinking Diet Coke, which is bad bad bad as I know it's full of toxins. As a result I drink way less water which then gives me a blinding headache at the end of the day. So as of today it's back to water and herbal teas!

That's the end of my ramblings about my vegan diet.

As I haven't had any reactions yet to my blog (and yes I know I have readers, so reply!), here a question:
What do you want to change in your eating habits?

Love,
Nancy

Welcome!

Hello everybody!

Welcome to my blog! I am Nancy, a nearly-30-year-old woman, living in the Netherlands. I live together with my boyfriend Erik, and our four cats and one dog.

I am a surgeon in training, and love my job! Unfortunately it also means a quite busy and irregular lifestyle, but as they say...that's part of the job!

Why start this blog?
When I was 16 I weighed 60kg and thought that I was overweight. That's when the dieting started. I only gained weight (sounds familiar?). I even went so far as to get a lapband, but that didn't help anything and is one of the biggest regrets of my life. Today I weigh much more than when I was 16, and I am sick of it. Not literally yet, but if I continue this way I will be some day. So two weeks ago I decided I'd had enough of it. I had done my research and read the book 'skinny bitch' which promotes a vegan and toxinfree lifestyle to become slim. I have also read the blog of a vegan here in the Netherlands (http://www.thefruitpursuit.com/), which inspired me a lot. As I have been a vegetarian for years (not recent) it is not such a big change. So I decided to give it a go. As a rule I only eat products that are biological and of course vegan. So why this blog? To document my progress and hopefully to get to know a lot of other vegans that can help me with my new lifestyle.

How is my progress?
Well so far I have really liked the 'diet'. I have lost 6,5kg in two weeks! Every morning I start with a glass of water with lemonjuice to get my body started. Then I drink a green smoothie, usually with spinach and fruit. As breakfast I have fruits with nuts or grains, and my lunch usually consists of a salad or bread with tomatoes/avocado or cucumber (and no I haven't had EHEC yet...). For dinner I have tried a lot of recipes that you can find online. I make sure to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, grains and nuts. I also drink at least 1,5 liter of water per day.

What do I need to change?
My other bad habit that I still need to change is... smoking! It's so contradictory to smoke while I eat so healthy, and I also know what it does to my body. It doesn't only cause cancer, but also breaks down a lot of vitamins. So that's the next step, that I hope to take the next couple of days! I will blog that progress here as well!
Another thing that I need to change is exercise. I don't exercise nearly enough. I had so little energy the last couple of months that I only worked and slept. Thankfully I have so much more energy since I started eating so healthy!

Why blog in English while I am Dutch?
Well, there is a simple answer to this one: I want to get to know other vegan bloggers all over the world!

Will you write everyday?
I'll try to, definetly!

So that's it, my first blogpost in this world. I hope to be read, to be reacted on, and to receive a lot of tips and tricks!

Love,
Nancy