Cheese is totally that guy

This is a bad idea on many levels.

You know the guy, the one who you know is no good for you. The one you're so glad to be rid of until you have a few too many glasses of red wine. And then it's on. You're all, "Oh yeah, I've missed you, too. Everything about you that's wrong suddenly seems so right. You're dirty and I like it!"

For anyone who has given up dairy, cheese is totally that guy. It makes sense. Cheese has a high concentration of casomorphines, the opiates in milk that help mothers and babies bond. Combine that with all the fat in cheese, and the reward centers in our brains go crazy for the stuff. The beautiful thing I'm discovering about a plant-based diet, though, is that it's self-correcting. Cheese may win a battle every once in a while, but it won't win the war.

I was seduced by that bad boy last weekend. We ordered pizza, and through a series of justifications that seem like total nonsense to me in retrospect, I decided to order my veggie supreme with cheese on only one side and no cheese on the other.

Having gone without my old friend for four weeks, I expected an ecstatic reunion. Instead, I found that my tastes had changed. The cheese was much more buttery and greasy than I remember. It was good, but I missed the bright flavors of tomato and onion that I've gotten used to with no-cheese pizza. I can't believe I'm writing this, but it was really just OK.

Will I ever have a grilled cheese sandwich or margaritas and queso again? Can't say, but I'm into this limey guacamole now and have been making some righteous sandwiches thickly layered with hummus, sprouts, cucumber, lettuce, tomato and avocado. As a result, I'm not too worried about it. And this is the real difference between this time and every other time I've tried to lose weight.

Yours in good health,
Summer

Best thing: big breakfast bowl

The best thing this week, and really since I first discovered it two weeks ago, has been Rip's Big Bowl. It's a breakfast recipe from hunky Austin firefighter Rip Esselstyn, author of the Engine 2 Diet. He had it posted on his page during the Vegan Kickstart. The recipe is a crazy combination of cereals and fruits that doesn't really sound like they go together. Also, cold cereal gives me heartburn for some reason, even as a kid. So when I saw the recipe, I thought I'd never try it, but Rip's blue eyes eventually wore me down, and I've been addicted ever since. Here's my only slightly different version.

The big bowl starts with one-quarter cup of three different kinds of cereal: rolled oats, Grape Nuts and Uncle Sam. Rip also uses a quarter cup of shredded wheat, but I thought it got too soggy. Anyway, to your cereals, which you've put in a big bowl of course, you add one tablespoon each of ground flax, walnuts and raisins. Rip uses a little more dried fruit and nuts, but then he's a firefighter and I'm a writer, so I think our calorie needs are a little different. Now the crazy starts. To the cereal, add a sliced banana, sliced kiwi and sliced mango or grapefruit with all the juice. Trust me, trust Rip, kiwi, mango and grapefruit with the juice are all totally amazing in cereal. To this you add three-quarters of a cup of plant milk. Rice or soy is what I've usually got. Get your big spoon and dig into the best bowl of cereal you've ever had. It's really more of a big fruit salad with granola than it is cereal. Whatever you call it, I love it!

Rip says he eats this almost every day for breakfast, too. And we both went to UT Austin. And we're both triathletes, although I only did one, and like to swim. I think we might be soulmates.

Yours in good health,
Summer

p.s. - a new Vegan Kickstart will start April 2. It's free and awesome, so why not sign up right now!

Weigh in: first 3 weeks

On Jan. 2, I started the Vegan Kickstart. It's a great, free program from the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine. I didn't follow the meal plans, I just tried to eat as close to an unrefined, plant-based diet at possible. On most days, I ate my pound of salad and avoided oils. Of course, I was also strictly vegan. Lo and behold, at the end of the three-week kickstart, I've lost seven pounds!

The best part is that I haven't paid attention to portion size, calories, carbs or anything like that. I've just eaten. And my menu has included mac 'n' cheese (faux cheese of course), brownies with all the fat replaced by silken tofu, chocolate chip cookies with all the fat replaced by mashed banana, and no-cheese veggie pizza from a chain pizza place. All these things have been completely delicious. I won't lie, the first week was rough, especially the first five days. You've got this nauseating toxic hunger from food withdrawl, low blood sugar because your body is used to easy-to-digest processed food, and you miss your old standbys because the new standbys don't taste right. But by the second week, my taste buds were changing, and I was finding some good recipes. By the third week, I swear that mac 'n' cheese tasted like the real deal to me.

If you're wondering how this is possible, how a person can eat all these foods, not pay attention to portion size and still lose weight, see this post for some theories. Of course, this is all one big experiment for me. I'm eager to see how my weight loss progresses over the next three weeks.

Yours in good health,
Summer

Best thing: sweet potato wedges and garlicky greens

The best thing this week is a classic health food combination, sweet potato wedges and garlicky greens. When I worked the chef's case at Whole Foods for a few months while I was getting my journalism degree at UT-Austin, I tasted this dish for the first time. Talk about a revelation. The sweet creaminess of the potatoes, the fragrant bite of the garlic and the salty umami of the soy sauce that you must use to season this makes the ideal meal for anyone who loves salty-sweet combinations.

I've been chasing the high of my first time with this dish for years, but only this month have I really figured it out. From vegan athlete Scott Jurek's recipe at Vegan Kickstart, I learned that the best way to do the sweet potatoes is to cut them vertically into four wedges. Then you don't have to flip them and they turn out so creamy and good. Drizzle them with oil. I don't like to use too much oil, but it can't be helped in this recipe. Then season with salt and whatever. Scott uses paprika and rosemary. I like that, too. I've also done Creole seasoning or herbes de Provence or cardamom and cumin. Put skin side down on cookie sheet and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes. I'm at high altitude, so mine ended up baking for 45 minutes.

For the greens, I think you really need four cloves of garlic. But I'm not a chef, just someone who loves food. Saute the garlic in broth or water. You can use oil if you want, but that's just pure fat so think about it. What I usually do is toss the wedges with oil and seasonings in the pan that I'm going to use to saute the greens. So I get a little bit of an oily coating on the pan. Anyway, saute the garlic for about three minutes. You want it to have a chance to mellow and flavor the broth or water (or oil, you dilletante), but do not let it start to burn. Turn down your heat if you need to. When the kitchen gods tell you it's time, throw your greens in. I've used any and every combination of greens and they're all good. But this dish isn't really satisfying to me unless there's some kale in there. I don't know why, but I love it. I guess it's because it reminds me of my first time. If you find yourself pushing more greens out of the pan than you're keeping in the pan as you try to get it to wilt, you may want to get a metal tong (set of tongs? idk). This has become one of my favorite cooking utensils and makes me feel totally pro. So after the greens have wilted but before they're totally collapsed, splash in some soy sauce. Not too much, not more than a tablespoon. You can always add more later.

You can just have this for dinner and nothing else. Or you can add some beans, tofu, a random veggie burger. That's the great thing about eating whole, unrefined plant foods. You don't have to get all crazy worrying about the composition of a single meal. As long as you're eating veg, fruits, beans and grains all the time, you're good!

Yours in good health,
Summer

Enough with the eat less and exercise already

Two fascinating pieces of information came to me today through the magic of cyberspace. Both carried the message that the key to successful weight loss is food choice, not eating less and exercising more.

I've been suspicious of the eat-less-exercise-more-ohm mantra ever since I trained for and completed a triathlon and remained overweight. And then I trained for a marathon and remained overweight. And then I became a yoga teacher and remained overweight. I have lost weight by calorie counting, eating low-carb, eating nothing and drinking all my nutrition, eating nothing but what was delivered to my front door in boxes -- you know, all the usual methods. But the weight has never stayed off.

Further adding to the mystery of why I've continued to gain weight over the years despite all this is what happened when I did a whole foods cleanse last summer. I wasn't trying to lose weight. I was trying to get my body ready to have a baby, so I stuffed myself with all the greens, sweet potatoes, lentils and brown rice I could stand and lost 12 pounds in a week. Twelve pounds! All of this begs the question, "WTF?!?!"

So the first clue to what may be going on came in the form of a survey at Peer Trainer that looked at what their members who lost weight in 2011 did and what the members who didn't lose weight did. The members who lost weight most often cited eating different foods and eliminating, as opposed to moderating, some foods. In contrast, the members who didn't lose weight usually expressed that their plans for 2012 involved more focus on eating less food overall and exercising more. Interesting.

Now we come to the second clue, a talk by Dr. Doug Lisle at the Forks Over Knives You Tube channel. This is quite a long talk, about an hour, but it presents a fascinating perspective that may just change your life. I sincerely urge you to give it a look. In short, he says our bodies are designed to perfectly monitor our caloric intake, just like the bodies of all the millions of species on the planet. So why, out of all the millions of species, are there only three species struggling with their weight?: us, our dogs and our cats.

Dr. Lisle certainly had my attention at this point. The reason, he says, is that many foods we're eating now are unnaturally concentrated in calories and our bodies aren't able to accurately keep tabs on our intake. So let's say I eat a bowl of rice and vegetables that's 500 calories. My body has receptors in the stomach, and there's something about the hypothalamus, and then through evolutionary perfection my body is able to say, "Hey, thanks for the 500 calories." But, if I eat that same bowl of food with two tablespoons of oil added, my body will most likely say, "Hey thanks for the 500 calories," even though it just had 700 calories. He cites some good studies that have me totally convinced that this is an idea worth looking into. If you can cut down the concentrated sources of calories in your diet, then you'll naturally eat the optimum number of calories without even thinking about it. Just like every gazelle, crocodile and hawk out there.

Of course, you'll still have to fight with your biology to choose the less calorically dense foods over the high-reward foods like ice cream. But that's totally different than ignoring your hunger drive completely and just not eating, which is what most diets put people through. I know I've certainly cried at the end of a day because I've used up all my Weight Watchers points and was still hungry. There's just no way that's ever going to be sustainable.

I'll let you know how my experiment goes. I'm thinking of posting a weigh-in soon. Let me know how your path to optimum health and fitness is unfolding.

Yours in good health,
Summer

How to eat spinach leaves like potato chips

My daily pound of green goodness.

I have a new habit. A good habit for a change. This single new habit has transformed my eating, turning me into the kind of person who eats spinach leaves like they're potato chips. Am I weird? Am I making this up like so much reality tv romance? No, I swear, it's totally true.

Inspired by Joel Fuhrman's recommendation in his book "Eat to Live" that a good nutrition goal is to try and eat one lb of raw vegetables a day, I decided to measure that out one day and see just how much 1 pound is. I mean, is that even realistic? I had filled a container with about 1/2 a head of romaine lettuce, a couple handfuls of spinach, a handful of shredded cabbage, 1/4 green bell pepper, five carrtos, and five grape tomatoes when the scale hit one pound. It looked about the size of a salad for a family of four. Big, but really not impossible.

I put the lid on the container, grabbing a leaf of romaine that was preventing the lid from closing and eating it right there, without dressing or anything, as if it were actually something delicious. A few hours later, I got the 1/4 bell pepper, a couple of carrots and tomatoes and some hummus for a snack. When lunch came, it was so easy to make a little salad to go along with my leftover veggie enchiladas. The big payoff came at dinner, though, when I realized that if I made a big salad, I would have eaten all the veggies in the container and met the heroic one pound goal.

You'll have to try it for yourself to feel how great eating an entire pound of raw veg is. It's strangely liberating. You know that no person can remain unhealthy eating like that. You know that this time, you're going to be successful. I measure out my one pound almost every day now. Sometimes, when I'm munchy, I'll just stand in the kitchen mindlessly eating spinach leaves while I try to figure out what's for dinner. Can you imagine that?

I think the reason this has turned me into a plant-munching machine is the same principal that measuring out 8 cups of water for the day turns people into water-guzzling machines. It's just there. So, get out your biggest food storage container and that old food scale and try it. You'll need some healthy dressings for your salads, too. If you need ideas, there's an awesome list of no-oil salad dressings over at Healthy Girl's Kitchen.

Yours in good health,
Summer

Best thing: veggies and tofu with brown rice

The best thing this week has been making the Steamed Veggies and Tofu with Brown Rice from the "Skinny Bitch in the Kitch" cookbook. I know it sounds too bland to be allowed to exist, but there's a sauce that goes with it that you will crave and want to bathe in.

The genius thing about this recipe is that you can put some frozen veg in the steamer basket, slice some tofu and lay it on top and then make the sauce. Dinner will be ready in about 8 minutes! What about the brown rice, you say? Well, I always make a big batch of that on the weekend. You should, too. It's great for breakfast, you can put all kinds of crazy leftovers on it for lunch and then this dish is effortless.

What about pressing the tofu, you ask? Isn't it gross just steamed like that? That's where this awesome sauce comes in. It's tahini, Bragg's liquid aminos and a touch of sesame oil thinned with water. First, I'm crazy about Bragg's. I don't know why. It just tastes like health food circa 1974. Second, I don't follow the amounts that Skinny Bitch uses because they're too high in fat for my purposes.

This is something you should know about the Skinny Bitch cookbook. While it's great for transitioning and for that crazy craving that won't go away, it uses lots of processed foods and oils. But the book is a a totally fun read and the cookbook has some gems, like this recipe and the Green Goddess Pasta, which ranks right up there with comfort foods like fettucine alfredo and mac 'n' cheese as far as I'm concerned.

 What I love about this recipe even more than the sauce, though, is that it's something easy to do with frozen vegetables that tastes great. Most of my old tricks for frozen vegetables involved butter. Swapping tahini (aka sesame butter) for dairy butter is a good thing. Check it out:

    Butter - 1 tablespoon                                          Tahini - 1 tablespoon
              100 calories                                                        85 calories
              calories from fat 100                                          calories from fat 66
              11 g fat                                                               8 g fat
              7 g saturated fat                                                 1 g saturated fat
              30 mg cholesterol                                               0 mg cholesterol
              81 mg sodium                                                     0 mg sodium
              0 g carb                                                              3 g carb
              0 g fiber                                                              1 g fiber
              0 g sugar                                                            0 g sugar
              0 g protein                                                          3 g protein
              7 percent vitamin A                                            0 percent vitamin A
              0 percent vitamin C                                            0 percent vitamin C
              0 percent calcium                                               2 percent calcium
              0 percent iron                                                     5 percent iron

Notice how the tahini is more than just pure fat? Look it up yourself, and you'll see all the extra vitamins and minerals that tahini has that a pure fat food like butter doesn't have.

Yours in good health,
Summer

Why plants are rad and meat is boring

This is rad. Don't act like it's not.

I first realized that plants are rad and meat is boring on the day after Thanksgiving, 2006. The night before, after feasting all day, I had made myself a plate of spiral-sliced ham and cheddar cheese with a roll. Even while I was eating it, I just wasn't that into it. I'd been eating heavily all day, and this final snack seemed pointless.The next morning I woke up vegetarian. Seriously, that salty sweet ham and opiate-filled cheese (yes, cheese really does have opiates. more on that later) just sent me over the edge. I was done. My diet had become completely boring, narrowly focused on meat, cheese and flour products like bread and crackers. See, I was in love with a man, and he had seduced me into following his meat-heavy ways. Yes, my darling husband, I'm blaming you.

So, on that fateful day, I downloaded a vegetarian starter kit from PETA and read over what my first vegetarian meal would be: stuffed acorn squash with coleslaw. That sounded so delicious to me, like the greatest thing a person could ever eat. I believe my body was starving for vegetables at that point. I was a strict vegetarian for an entire year after that. I made lots of mistakes, like refusing to eat the beans and rice my mom made for me during a visit because it had chicken broth in it. And letting my love affair with cheese get out of control. I actually gained weight that year, which was pretty crazy because I was planning my wedding during that time and trying to lose weight.

My year of being vegetarian ended at an office Christmas party in 2007. Without even thinking about it, I grabbed one of those little smokey sausages that's been siting in a crockpot with grape jelly and bbq sauce and put it in my mouth. The spell was broken. I started eating meat again and went on a low-carb diet to try to lose the weight I'd gained being vegetarian. Of course that didn't work. I was more confused than ever about nutrition and what to feed my body.

Today, I am so many pounds overweight I don't have the courage to share it with you ... yet. I am also 10 days into eating a low-fat, vegan diet based on unrefined plant foods and feel better than I have in years. This blog will tell the story of everything I've learned from my past dieting attempts and how I'm putting all that knowledge to use this year to lose all the extra weight I've gained for good. I hope what I write here is entertaining, inspiring and, most of all, helpful.

Yours in good health,

Summer