Hey kids! I'm still alive over here, and haven't fallen off the healthy wagon in the least (just the blogging wagon). So here's what I've been doing when I wasn't here:

We've continued to transform our pantry, habits, and lifestyle and are feeling really great! We've completely adopted the "plant strong" diet at home: no meat, dairy or oil and very little processed food. We're also juicing once a day.

Chop, chop.

Banana "Ice Cream"

Our mindset has slowly changed through this whole process and it's amazing to me that the more I know and eat this way, the easier it's been. We initially started out thinking we would try to incorporate healthy foods into our current diet and bargaining with ourselves like "ok well maybe we'll just limit meat to 1 or 2 meals a week and try to cut back on dairy". But as we started making changes, we just haven't missed those other things yet.  And the more we learn, the more those things don't even appeal to us. Granted, we'd probably feel differently if I went out to eat or something, but we don't do that very often. Family parties will be hard though. We're having a birthday party for our son this weekend and planning on ordering pizzas and having cake. It's going to be a little weird to serve "regular food" and not eat any of it. :/ But most of our family won't understand how we could choose to eat this way, so we're really not ready to go there yet. 

I've told several people that I think this whole thing is certainly one of those "ignorance is bliss" sort of things. The more I know, the harder I think it would be to go back to my old lifestyle. Husband mentioned cooking some of the meat in the freezer to get rid of it and I was completely unenthusiastic about the idea. (Actually I said he could cook it if it wanted, but I wasn't eating it). And I was all set to treat myself with a cookie the other day because the ingredients weren't half bad and then I read the tiny print that it contained eggs. I was no longer tempted at all. It's not a matter of "I can't eat that", but instead "I don't eat that." 

Southwestern Twice Baked Potatoes

We've gotten 2 new cookbooks in the last couple weeks. One is from the Forks Over Knives documentary and the other is from a blogger that writes The Happy Herbivore. They are both fantastic! We've been making all kinds of delicious food that is both filling and nutritious! There is more prep time cooking this way, but most of the meals provide us with lots of leftovers. We made Southwestern Twice Baked Potatoes on Saturday and then I didn't have to cook on Sunday or Monday because we ate leftovers both days. We actually had leftover filling for the potatoes, so one of those days we put the filling inside corn tortillas and had burritos. It was delicious! Even the kids loved it! 

Forks Over Knives Cookbook

One especially great thing is that of all the times we've tried to "diet" and even lost weight (usually counting calories and just trying to eat what we thought was healthy), we've always felt deprived and hungry. We've gotten to the end of the day and been at our "calorie limit" for the day and just wanted to EAT something and went to bed feeling unsatisfied. However, with a plant strong diet, we are never hungry and we don't really worry about portions. I don't have to measure out a half a cup of pasta noodles or weigh my portions (I've done this a lot in the past). We eat super delicious meals that fill us up for hours and if we do feel the need for a snack, we eat one, and yet we are still losing weight. How amazing is that?!  The other night I made whole wheat pasta with stir-fried mushrooms, green peppers, onions, banana peppers, and garlic. I didn't use oil, and instead used Bragg's Liquid Aminos and a little seasoning, and it was delicious! I think we all had at least 2 helpings, even the kids. 

My Delicious Pasta Creation!

Overall, I'm really happy with the way things are going and thus far, I think this is something I could continue to do for the long haul. Husband agrees. This week we finally started sprouting our seeds to grow our wheat grass and also plan to try our hand at bread making. I'll post more about those activities when the excitement happens. We are currently on our THIRD batch of home-grown alfalfa sprouts and loving them! They are so, so easy to grow! 

 G'night folks.