Challenge

Today I was going to give some background as to how I began my ETL journey but that will have to wait. I am tired again tonight. I guess I need to do this earlier. Maybe I'll begin doing this in the morning. Today we have a challenge going on. Some E2L friends are doing a challenge through the holidays and I am joining in. The picture to the left is a field of "kale." Kale is king of the greens. It is the most nutritious.

Ok here is what I have decided to do. Nicole came up with this and I tweaked mine a little but it basically is close to hers. It is just a fun graph to help us continuing with E2L and enjoy it in the process.

10 - Kale -NOTHING NON E2L- 1T. Flax, 1 starch serving if desired, and take my vitamins and 1 oz of nuts and 1 oz of avocado.
9 - Broccoli - Snacked on E2L food.
8 - Eggplant - Ate something non E2L that was within the 10%.
7 - Lentil - Ate E2L except used oil, sugar, or salt in a recipe.
6 - Blueberry - eating bad non-ETL food for one meal.
5 - Potato - eating bad half the day and then turning it around, or eating well in the morning and then saying "screw it" after lunch
4 - Brown Rice - eating a good breakfast or dinner but then messing up the rest of the day
3 - Cashew - eating badly all day except for two parts of meals i.e. eating a vegetable at dinner and a piece of fruit at breakfast
2 - Cheese - eating badly all day except for one part of a meal
1 - Cookie - no ETL food

We will decide to give the money collected to a charity, that is if any of us go off the wagon. We'll see how it goes and will report on how well we all do.

Kale days cost nothing
Broccoli days cost $1
Eggplant days - $2
Lentil days - $3
Blueberry days - $4
Potato days - $5
Brown rice - $6
Cashew - $7
Cheese - $8
Cookie - $9

Ok, here is what I ate today.

Breakfast - Blended Salad Smoothie - took vitamins

4 kale leaves
1 large handful of spinach
1 heaping Tbl of ground flax seed
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 frozen banana
.5 dha purity

Lunch
Vindaloo Vegetables

Supper
Huge salad with romaine, tomatoes, cucumber, apple, celery, carrot, avocado
Dessert Strawberry sorbet

Exercise Walked two miles.

Verdict - Kale Day Tab $0.00

A Good Day

This morning I had a blended salad made in my vitamix.

Breakfast
4 kale leaves
1 large hand full of fresh spinach
1 cup of frozen strawberries
1 cup of frozen blueberries
1/2 frozen banana
1/2 cup soy milk unsweetened
1/2 cup water
1 heaping teaspoon of ground flax seed
.5 DHA

Lunch
Salad with romaine lettuce
cucumber
carrot
apple
tomato

I didn't make a large enough salad and couldn't make it to supper so I had some nut butter and a banana right before supper.

Supper
I made a recipe called Vindaloo Vegetables. It is one of my favorite recipes. It can be found at fatfreevegan.com. There is a crockpot version that I used. I love crockpot dishes. Right after supper I had a fresh fruit salad.

Excercise
Walked 2 miles today. Wish I had done more but I didn't sleep well last night. Hopefully tomorrow I'll walk 3 miles.

The only thing not 100% is that we are to have 1 oz of nuts and I probably ate 2 oz. It is okay for those of us who don't need to loose weight but I still need to loose 9 pounds.

Today's post was going to be my introduction into E2L and why I decided to begin this new way of life, but I will post that when I have more energy. I am tired tonight.

Eat to Live is not only a diet, but also a way of life as I relearn how to eat.

It has been four months since I began this new diet. My reason for eating this way is for health reasons. The added benefit is that I lost a few pounds also. I will write about my health issues in another post.

I needed to loose around 18 pounds according to Dr. Fuhrman's recommendations and have lost 11 of those pounds. I guess I should be more serious about loosing the weight, but I know that the holidays will be a challenge for me and I will get more serious in January.

Overall I have been following the diet at least 90% . My challenges have been nut butters and dates. I am almost getting to the point where I don't want to buy cashew butter anymore because I love it so much. And it is difficult to stop at one or two tablespoons.

Thanksgiving I gave myself permisson to indulge some off diet foods. We call these SAD (standard american diet) foods. We traveled 6 hours to my daughter's home and enjoyed visting with them and went around the table thanking God for what we were grateful for.

My daughter cooked a marvelous meal and I did partake of some of the food but ate a very large salad so that I wouldn't eat very much of the Thanksgiving meal. My challenge was more in the sweets department and did indulge. Since we are allowed 10% of non "Eat To Live" food, I saved up my calories for the holiday.

This was my first Thanksgiving while following "Eat To Live" and have decided that next year I will make some pies that are healthy according to what is allowed in the E2L (eat to live) diet. I'll also make a couple of dishes that are healthy so that I won't have just salad to eat. Overall I am happy with my choices. I ate salad each day. I had my morning blended salad smoothie or some fruit so I mostly followed E2L.