My diet has changed to whole-food plant-based diet/vegan.
How did I get here, what made me want to change? It all started with my cholesterol levels. In 2015 it was 225, in 2016 it was 236. My health care provider in CA didn't get upset at those numbers-they get excited when it gets above 240. I thought that was odd because I thought the "magic" number to stay below was 200. So here is it 2017 and I'm sure that if I don't change anything my numbers will be above 240. And now that I have a different health care provider, I'm sure the normal number will be closer to 200. What to do...change my diet. My decision to become vegan is based on my health. I didn't want to take medication to control my cholesterol so I decided to change my diet. For me, being a vegan is a dietary decision, I'm not out to make an ethical or environmental statement. I'm just trying to eat healthy for me. About 98% of the time I eat vegan. I find when I eat out, especially at a restaurant, it is harder to stay vegan.
Every November I get my blood work done so I wanted to start on this diet at least 2 months before my lab appointment. In August I started changing over my breakfasts. That wasn't very hard because I usually have just oatmeal for breakfast. Then I started on my lunches. That wasn't too hard either. Dinners were more of a challenge. It has been a fun challenge. My resources have been plentiful: blogs and cookbooks. It doesn't sound like much but there is so much information out there. Some of my books are Forks Over Knives and America's Test Kitchen's Vegetarian Cookbook. Blogs include kitchentreaty.com, cearaskitchen.com. Now I know that in this paragraph I've mentioned 3 different diets, vegan, vegetarian, and whole-food plant-based diet. My aim is whole-food plant-based diet. Every once in a while I'll use oil in something or butter or put a sprinkle of cheese on something. But for the most part I stay away from dairy, oils and processed foods.
My cholesterol numbers for this November's blood work came back with better numbers. It was 219-on it's way down!!! And I feel better too. I don't have that "bloaty" feeling, my head is clearer, my arthritis in my hands is better. In addition to changing my diet I need to keep up on my physical activities. The combination is important to keeping the cholesterol numbers down. I find that I need to plan my physical activity more now that I'm retired. So I'm working on that too...subject for another blog. In 2+ months my cholesterol numbers were down, next year with a whole years worth of dietary change and workouts I'm hoping that my numbers will be below 200. By the way, my protein numbers and calcium numbers were more that fine.
I'm sure some of you are wondering how Mr WAU is handling this. He has been a very supportive spouse. He eats what he wants for breakfast and lunch. Dinners are meatless. We like to try new recipes a few times a week. Some of them are so-so, only a few have been bad. Most of them are pretty good. There are times that I just have to break out the chicken for him, but he bravely tries all that I set before him. We now have our favorite recipes. I'm getting more confident in my abilities and are willing to share with family and friends now.
So if you have any favorite sites for recipes let me know and I'm sure I'll be sharing more here as time goes on.
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