Getting Inspired With "Forks Over Knives"

About five days ago my husband and I watched Forks Over Knives (which is available on Netlix), an amazingly informative documentary on the link between meat/dairy-focused diets and the rise of heart disease (and other illnesses). "We are sicker than ever by nearly every measure," states forksoverknives.com, and really, who of us can argue? Two out of three Americans are obese, myself included.

I, personally, have been battling my weight for years - in high school I weighed 135lbs and I thought I was fat (compared to the majority of cheerleader-build peers), but now I would give just about anything to weigh 135lbs again! Years later, weighing about 150ish, I moved out on my own and got engaged and that's when I really started to pack on "Happy Fat." Since then, I've ballooned up about 30lbs - the equivalent of carrying a one-year old child around constantly! - and I have the symptoms that follow weight gain; asthma, acid reflux, back pain, trouble sleeping, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem. Recently I've gotten concerned about heart problems (my family has a history of heart issues) and cholesterol - I had it checked and it could be a bit better.

I'll overeat for taste rather than hunger. I crave fatty, sweet, salty foods, and I have indulged more than I should, and every time I imagine my arteries clogging up - it's scary and anxiety-inducing and I want to stop putting this junk into my body - but the craving is so hard to fight! In Forks Over Knives, they likened this craving for heavily processed, hyperpalatable foods to a drug addiction, and in fact your body responds similarly to the food like a heroine addict would to drugs...pretty soon one hit won't get you high, so you have to eat more for the same fix. I had read about this in other articles such as in First for Woman, but it was really eye-opening for me! Hello, my name is Nicole and I'm addicted to food!  Processed, hyperpalatable foods, specifically...and it's harming my body.

Watching this documentary gave me hope with this message: all this damage can be reversed. The doctors and specialists on the film had heart patients, diabetes patients, cancer patients, ect., some who were on Death's Door, adopt a whole foods diet (with doctor supervision) and just about everyone saw their disease enter remission, completely heal, or become more manageable, and the majority no longer needed their medications for treatment. As Hypocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine...." Weight loss was just a symptom of their healing. I was so relieved watching this documentary that I cried.

In Forks Over Knives, they showed when a person eats meat, it fills the stomach less than vegetables/fruits, so they end up consuming more empty calories in order to feel full. Other graphs showed the rates of coronary heart disease and cancers increased dramatically with the consumption of meat and dairy products, versus nations that had a primarily plant/whole foods diet. Thinking about this, it makes sense...my vegetarian friends look about ten years younger than their meat-eating peers and seem to get sick less often.

So my husband and I been inspired to model our lifestyle change similarly to the Full Plate Diet (recommended to me by a friend), a whole foods diet which focuses on the use of fiber and teaches one how to pack their meal with nutrients, fiber, and protein (yes, all vegetables and fruits have protein, meat is not the only source, nor is it the best). For example, if I'm eating a Caesar salad, the Full Plate Diet would probably suggest amping it up in nutrition by adding tomatoes, cucumber, corn, maybe fruit, or beans, ect. I've done this and the taste is so much better and I feel more satiated for longer. I particularly like that the creators of the Full Plate Diet (doctors and nutritionists) are a non-profit organization, offer free membership, and give you the eBook for free as well as other weight loss tools.

My vege-packed quiche, low fat, low sodium!

If you're a meat and potatoes kind of person and don't think that recipes that call for only vegetables could be satisfying or tasty, I'm here to prove you wrong! I dare you to take a bite of my Vege-Packed Quiche and tell me you don't like it...

Here's the recipe. Feel free to substitute with whatever kind of vegetables you have on hand, and remember that the measurements are approximate (I usually just eye-ball it) and do not have to be exact...

Basic Pie Dough Recipe From Martha Stewart (or you could nix the dough to make it gluten free)

1 medium zucchini

1 medium onion

1/4 of a whole cabbage

3 celery stalks

4-5 kale leaves, stalks removed

2 cups spinach

5 eggs

1 cup Almond Milk

1 cup cottage cheese (you could substitute a vegan cheese for lactose intolerance or nix it completely)

2 tbsp butter (or coconut oil)

2 tsp garlic salt (or sea salt/himalayan salt with fresh herbs)

1 tbsp chia seeds

1 tbsp ground flax

Prepared Pie Crust and roll out for a 13inch pan. Preheat oven to 375 (or 350 if your oven is like mine and runs a little hotter). Mince onion and saute with butter (or coconut oil) in big pan over medium-high heat until translucent. Halve zucchini and celery and dice slightly thin and add to onions (add more butter/oil if necessary), cook on medium for about 10-15 minutes or until tender (alternately, you can boil them ahead of time). Chop cabbage, kale, spinach somewhat finely and add to pan for a couple minutes until well wilted. Season with garlic salt, chia seeds, flax seeds, mix and simmer on low for a few minutes. Then take pan off heat.

Prepare eggs in separate bowl, add almond milk, cottage cheese and mix. Add to vegetables and mix well. Then pour into pie crust and bake for 55 minutes.

Enjoy!

Have any hearty, tasty vegetable dishes to share? Any inspiring weight loss stories?

~Nicole A.

The Cleaning Bug

Photo Courtesy of marthastewart.com

I am queen of procrastination! I confess! It's been - what? - five, six months since I blogged. I suppose I have no excuse as I have had no work or classes for the summer and have just been sitting on my ample bum doing nothing of value. Although I am probably being a little too harsh on myself... I have enjoyed events with friends and even made a little headway on a novel I haven't worked on since I was fifteen. Granted - it needs a lot of work and revision since I have grown and changed, but the basis is there - it's a start. Anyway, I have been yo-yo-ing between inspiration and complete lack of motivation, which accounts for the long interruption between blogs.

The past few days I have been completely waylaid by allergies! Ahhhh! Nasty things, really! Congestion, sore throat, itchy eyes, and not to even mention the exhaustion (at least for me). Of course, it probably doesn't help that my husband and I added another pet to our family (temporarily watching him for my sister), a small but fluffy thing that seems to do nothing but eat, sleep, crap, and shed long white hair all over my dark furniture! Granted it's not his fault, but it doesn't help my predicament.

Amidst the sneezing I caught the Cleaning Bug and decided to tackle our second bedroom (office/craft room) closet. What a challenge! I am seriously evaluating the small hoard of baubles and unused craft objects that have been passed down or that I have acquired, sitting there waiting to be used on some project or other. I keep forgetting they are there or what project I had in mind for them in the first place! Perhaps I have subconsciously held onto them as long as I have because I felt like the full drawers of bits and pieces made me a crafter/artist - which is just absurd. So I am trying to prioritize my projects and discard unfinished/un-started ones - I figure these materials would be much better in the hands of someone who will use them and am therefore going to donate to my local thrift store or post something on Craigslist. I have not yet finished the closet, but I already feel as if a weight has been lifted. I think next I shall start on my kitchen (again) and then my clothes closet (which has been needing some rotation and thinning). I have also taken a leaf out of Bea Johnson's blog and will be donating most of our books to the local library (which I have not yet stepped foot into and it is apparently right across the street!). I love to read, but honestly I have hardly touched my books and I find it much easier to read on the computer (since font can be enlarged and books can be awkward to hold after long periods of time, etc.) and we have been considering investing in a Nook so as to cut down on clutter. Also, and I have not yet brought this up to my husband, but we have an extensive DVD collection - which I am now realizing only 1/6 of which gets watched...I am going to propose that we sell those DVDs that hardly get watched since we have Netflix and can rent them anytime we get the urge to re-watch a movie. I think this would save space and be a valuable use of our money and time.

I look around our house and I see many non-functioning items and art pieces that I have no personal attachment to. Yet I still have this...fear/hesitation, I guess...of letting them go. What will I put in that place then, I ask myself? Can I find something functioning that replaces this aesthetically? I think this will be an interesting way to get the creative juices flowing, challenging but fun!

'Til next time, Dear Reader,
~*Nicole

"Ten Things I Love About You!"

So I've never really liked Valentine's Day - I feel it's a holiday all about commercialism and consumerism. I feel if you really love someone, you should tell them everyday, not just one day. But, this year, since we didn't do anything for our very first anniversary as a married couple, I decided that I would do something this V-day to make up for it. The catch is - he didn't know. See, my husband shares my viewpoint of Valentine's Day - for most it is a depressing show of materialism, reminding one how very single they are - so we have never really celebrated it. Though, to make it as "green" and as heartfelt as possible, I came up with the following idea, inspired by a Christmas gift I received years ago:

When I woke up that 14th, I ran to the grocery store to get my fresh ingredients and two single pink roses (I bypassed the $20 one's in the front of the store, and went to the floral section. They were sitting in a tub in the fridge, without any wrappings, in personal tubes of water that I will save for another use) while my husband still slept. I heated up some pre-home-cooked, frozen pancakes and set the table with one tiny addition - an envelope tied with a black bow. Inside was a "treasure map" that I customized using Gimp (it's like Photoshop, but free!) - specifically it was a "Ten Things I Love About You" Valentine's Hunt map.

I had printed and hidden ten cards around the house with things I love about him, like his smile, his green eyes, etc. On the cards were clues to find the next card, and so on. I hid them in movies and books, in the kitchen, in the car - all over the house. I stretched the hunt over the day, interrupted only by school and a lovely candle-lit, home-cooked Italian meal, my husband's favorite, consisting of lemon-pepper chicken breast, white chedder shells, caesar salad with homemade croutons, Welch's Sparkling Red Grape juice ('cause I don't drink) and personal pink-frosted heart cakes (picture above).

This next idea was inspired by Gifts.com - and sorry if this is TMI, but I thought it was a creative "green" gift for a guy, plus it didn't cost any money - the hunt continued into the candle-lit bedroom where I laid cute, lacy panties with a printed funny, suggestive little clue, surrounded by rose petals in the shape of a heart. He got such a kick out of that!

I apologize for the "lateness" of this edition, but I had to wait 'til after the holiday passed to blog about so as to not spoil my surprise for my honey. We had such a lovely day and he repeatedly thanked me for my thoughtfulness, and saved each of my love clues. I was so happy it all went off without a hitch and I got to spend a special day with the man I love.

How have you made your Valentine's Days "green" or thoughtful? Or do you chose to celebrate a different special day with your loved ones? If you're single, what are some alternate ways to celebrate? I'd love to hear about it!

'Til next time, Dear Reader!
~*Nicole

How The 5 R's Aid The Zero Waste Movement...& You Can, Too!

I read an article in Sunset magazine (January 2011 issue) about the Zero Waste Family. They are amazing - a true inspiration. While the average consumer throws out "1,130 pounds of waste each year," they (The Johnsons) only throw away "a few handfuls of non-recyclable waste." Wow! I went on to read that the matriarch and instigator of this lifestyle change, Bea Johnson, said,

"When we started getting rid of things, it was kind of addictive....[and] Photos are a good way to keep the memory of something without keeping it because of emotional attachment or the guilt of letting it go." Put another way: Hang onto the photo of your grandmother in her fur coat, but if you never wear the coat, it's just taking up space in your closet.

It made so much sense! I investigated further after reading by going onto Bea Johnson's blog - Zero Waste Home. Again, it was an inspirational process of how they came to live like this.

How do they do it? It's easy, when their mantra is "'Refuse, refuse, refuse, and then reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot [compost],' explains Bea. "The first step is to refuse products and packaging that you'll have to dispose of later."

The 5 R’s, if followed in order, can help you on your waste-reduction journey.

1) Refuse most receipts, disposable single-use items, handouts, freebies, and even gifts that don’t fit your lifestyle.

2) Reduce you consumption of disposables, like razors, or single-use water bottles, and prepackages items. Farmer’s Markets and Bulk stores are the best places for finding sticker-free fruits and vegetables, carton-free eggs, plastic/cardboard free staples. Reduce your need to “stay on trend” with ever changing fashion or home décor and opt for a more timeless, simple style. Anything can be reduced if you really put your mind to it.

3) Reuse anything you can think of. That empty cottage cheese container? Use it to store leftovers or to hold supplies. Use your clean mason and jelly jars to get fresh meat/cheese from the deli to avoid its packaging. Old shirt or pillow case on its way out? Turn it into a grocery bag or alternative to wrapping paper.

4) Recycle. We’ve been beaten over the head with this, but if you manage to stick to the above three first, the hope is that you’ll have less to recycle. Plastic/metal/glass can be recycled, but I’d consider donating unused items to thrift stores a form of recycling as well.

5). Rot (Compost). So much food waste and paper/cardboard items can be turned into usable, fertile soil. The food and paper items that end up in landfills, however, have a hard time breaking down since their natural decomposition is slowed by all the different chemicals and toxins from all the different, inorganic materials.

One of the simple ways that the Johnsons succeed in this is by bringing their own jars, totes, and bags to the grocery store and shopping the outer rims of the store, focusing on the bulk sections and they buy fresh at their Farmer's Market. They avoid anything prepacked like the plague.

The part I liked the most in the article was about their two sons' playroom - "In the playroom there are four bins of toys. The rule is simple: if they want something new to them, it needs to fit in the bins."

On birthdays/holidays, family and friends are encouraged to give gifts of experience, like "a weekend of skiing." And I also liked the fact that each family member has a limited number of clothes, for example their sons each have "7 casual tops, 1 dress shirt, 4 bottoms, 3 pairs of shoes, and 1 pair of PJs per season," - it must make laundry a breeze!

As I read, I thought to myself, "Can I do this? How much in my house is unused? How much do I buy and then throw away? Could I sustain something like this?" Well, I'm sure it helps to have money...I was a little discouraged by this fleeting thought since my husband and I are on tight budgets - very tight. Though Bea did say this process took years and she actually shops second hand thrift stores (which I love to do!). In April, 2010, she only spent about "$40 replenishing clothes for her whole family." So the more I thought, the more I was determined to make this work for my budget, too!

The more I thought about it, the more I got excited and I couldn't wait to get home and donate my unused stuff! The tally totaled eight full boxes of stuff! I was originally going to have a yard sale, but the timing was a little last minute, so I just decided to donate it to a local thrift store to get it all out of my living room. I felt cleansed! Bea was right, it is addictive!

My tinted bottles

That article had an impact I hadn't really anticipated. I've started looking at prepackaged things - not necessarily in a new light - but in a renewed light. Though I must admit, that we haven't refused/reduced as much as we could/should, but I have been reusing items in creative and unexpected ways. I've been cleaning and saving our glass and plastic jars when we run out of jelly, or peanut butter, etc. which has come in handy! So far, I've used several peanut butter jars as paint containers for small painting projects and I found a nifty idea for my glass bottles/jelly jars to hang on our balcony garden!

I wish I could shop more bulk foods, but unfortunately there isn't a place in town (that I know of) that has a good selection. However, I have been cooking more with raw foods and I've started bringing my own fabric grocery bags to the store (before we were drowning in plastic bags - however we did use them for kitty litter clean up and for ceramic projects, so it's not like they weren't being used - and then I found out Walmart has a plastic bag recycling program!) and so far I have refused the majority of receipts (a useless waste of paper the majority of the time).

I recently went through all our paperwork, like bills and medical receipts, etc. and filled two huge trash bags with 5+ years worth of unnecessary paperwork to recycle!

For birthdays and Christmas I am going to make fabric totes/bags for gift giving. Last Christmas, 2010, hurt my feelings a little bit when realizing how much pomp and paper and packaging is wasted in this consumerist holiday. Yes, I love a perfectly wrapped present as much as the next person, but if I can wrap in something sustainable and reusable, then, by golly, I'm going to do it! *Update 4/16/17* I pretty much forego wrapping paper as it is unnecessary, like most Europeans do.

I'm excited to see where this journey takes us. I doubt we'll be as hardcore as the Johnson family, but I'd like to be, and I’ve become a lot more conscious about what I bring into my house and what I can prevent contributing to a landfill.

Remember, your dollar is a vote.

~Nicole A.