veggies, the down-side

so, I'm down 32 pounds.  :)  That's a new number.  Yay for that!!

Now let's talk about this diet we've been on for a week now.  I haven't had any caffeine, no coffee or anything for an ENTIRE week.  This, from a coffee lover since college.  And if I did have the headache it would have been on the night my cat died and I was already feeling like crap so I just let it go.  We've been eating plant based foods and beans and fruit, basically a very vegetarian diet for a week and if I do say so we did a helluvajob for just going cold turkey at this.  A week ago I was all about bread for sandwiches and cheese for cheese.  But this last week I had 2 pieces of bread the whole week and zero cheese until today.  Every day I had fruit and oatmeal for breakfast and beans and some sort of vegetables for lunch.  Dinner was usually a big salad (and I mean BIG) and some sort of veggies and tofu.

The downsides of this diet aren't too many, we both feel quite good after a week of this.  Things smell better when you're not using salt of any kind and trying to find low to no-salt foods to eat.  You get the real tastes of the foods this way.  However I scared the crud out of the new hubby on Friday morning when I woke up at 1:30am with a horrendous leg cramp that lasted at least 2 minutes!  The next day my lower back started to really hurt me and so on Saturday we went and bought some vitamins and now in addition to my multi-vitamin I am taking a calcium pill and a vitamin D pill.  Both things that I probably got at least some in all that cheese I was used to consuming.

The other downside?  There's just no nice way to put it - you can call it gas, flatus, flatulence but it's a fart.  And I'm sorry but I do NOT understand why food that is supposedly so great for us would cause our bodies to expel these noxious vapors.  I'm telling you that where it not for the magical pill called Beano (as in "take Beano and there'll be no gas".  No I am not making that up.) we would be single-handedly responsible for depleting the ozone layer around our house.  Good LORD.  OK, TMI.  I know but I'm sharing this with you so that if you too decide to join this very good-for-you diet regime you will please, for the love of all of those that must sit near you, go to the store and stock up on these things.  Calcium and Vitamin D help fend off those horrible Charlie horses that seem to come always in the middle of the night (and cause mild heart-attacks in those that are trying to sleep nearby) and Beano.  Well Beano does it's job.

So, today we decided that we were hungry enough that we'd try to eat something that was decidedly NOT on our newly espoused diet.  Papa Murphy's veggie gourmet delight thin crust pizza.  We usually get one of these (not the thin crust) once or twice a month.  And I can tell you that while it was still really cheesy and good, it still didn't taste and feel as great as the home-made Pho' that we had first. (no broth, just the fresh ingredients)  For dessert we took some frozen berries that I'd bought oh about a YEAR ago to make smoothies out of and added silken tofu and put them in my new Magic Bullet blender system with some freshly squeezed orange juice and made yummy shakes.  I know it sounds kinda like we're turning into hippies.  But we both want to be healthy and honestly?  I haven't been hungry or really craved anything except for cheese and that pizza tonight was too heavy for me (and it was very thin).

And that's where we stand about 6 months in, I'm down 32 pounds and trying new stuff.  I'll always be taking it

One day.  One pound.  One step at a time.
~N