6/30/13

Well, I managed to walk a marathon today.   It was a beautiful day, a good walk (could have done without the last 6 miles but managed okay), and I had a few friends accompany me during part of it.  Foodwise, I had just a few strawberries at breakfast.  I was timing myself for bathrooms, and the first one was 6 miles away so I didn't want to eat much, heh heh  (this wasn't an official marathon, just a walk I planned for myself).  I brought 4 baked yams and a bunch of sugar snap peas.  And there were tons of mulberry trees to supply me with fresh berries--very good!  I ate the yams every 6 miles or so.  At mile 22.5 was the co-op, where I got some mission figs (fresh, not dried).   They were the perfect energy food (well, anything would have been perfect at that point).   When I got home I ate some brown rice and peas.  I love brown rice and peas.   I have simple tastes, ha.   Here are a few pictures:

I got good at picking the best berries.   The ones that fall into your hand when you touch them are best.  If you have to pull, they aren't ready.

milkweed.  smells really good!

our fair city.

Japanese lilacs.   Also smell really good!   And they are quite abundance in our city.

I took lots more but I won't bore you!   Saw sandhill cranes, lots of lovely big ole' trees, lakes.  It's a favorite 27 mile bike ride of mine and I decided to walk it.  Took nearly 12 hours!

6/29/13

B:  quinoa and "chin-dripping" peach.  Delicious!   Sadly, I'm out of peaches now.
  

L:  1/2 lb strawberries, 1/2 lb blueberries.  both were really fresh and delicious.  a smallish bowl of watermelon.  a whole bunch of fresh, local sugar snap peas.   (have I mentioned I love this time of year???!!!).

Snack and dinner:  small baked sweet potato, gigantic salad made from head of romaine, large fresh local seedless cucumber (really good), some balsamic vinegar.  This time I actually cut up the lettuce and made a real salad instead of just eating lettuce leaves, ha.   a large raw kohlrabi (too lazy to cook).  some more sugar snap peas.  cooked zucchini and mushrooms.

E:  no exercise except for helping someone haul boxes up some stairs.  I'm trying to rest up for my attempted walking marathon tomorrow (my own, not an official event).  I doubt I'll finish but if not, I'll just consider it a training run.  I cooked up four oriental yams for energy, and have some more sugar snap peas to take.  If I make it around to the co-op I'll feast on some more fantastic berries before I do the final 4 miles.  and if I don't make it to the co-op, I'll get a ride there and still plan to feast on berries. 

6/28/13

B:  quinoa and spinach seasoned with curry, cumin, onion and garlic powder.  

for lunch and dinner I cooked up same as yesterday without asparagus, and with kale instead of collards, oh and sweet potato instead of plantain.  

L:  "chin-dripping" peach plus a bunch of samples of other fruits at a favorite produce shop.  the veggies I cooked up.  some sugar snap peas

D:  "chin-dripping" nectarine and the cooked veggies.  and a head of romaine.  and 1/2 orange.

E:  forced rest day.  I have a hard time resting but I am going to attempt to walk a marathon on Sunday so am trying to rest today and tomorrow.   Meditated 30 minutes.  

6/27/13

B:  1 lb strawberries.  some spinach.

For lunch and dinner I cooked up:  onion, kohrabi, plantain, asparagus, collards, then added black beans, lime juice, cilantro, cumin.   It was great.

I snacked on garden lettuce while cooking lunch and dinner.   That was really good.

I ate my lunch with housemate at a burger/frozen custard place.  I had cherries for dessert while she enjoyed her frozen custard (it's a rich soft serve ice cream).  I chuckled about today's flavor of the day, which was coffee chocolate chip.  I thought, that's 4 pleasure traps!  There's the sugar and fat, and caffeine and chocolate.  In the old days, I totally would have gone for that, heh heh.

snack:  lots of sugar snap peas, snow peas.

Almost all this food is local and fresh.  I love this time of year!

Exercise:  swim 1 mile, walk 1 mile.

6/26/13

B: quinoa and spinach seasoned with curry, cumin, onion and garlic powder.  good!

L&D:  my usual veggies cooked up together:  onion, oriental yam, kohlrabi, collards, asparagus,zucchini and herbs from the garden.

S:  sugar snap peas, peas, mulberries (picked a bunch from various trees in my neighborhood.

extra dessert:  was celebrating so had some frozen mangos and cherries.  I was briefly tempted to buy much worse.  I'm so glad I didn't!   The mangos and cherries were delicious.

E: walked about 1.5 miles.  biked about 3.  light day.

6/25/13 food

B: nothing, wasn't hungry (see yesterday).  I estimate I ate about 3 oz of nuts and 2 oz of figs last night.  That's probably about 700 calories on top of a full day's food.  I didn't sleep well after all that.

I cooked up a bunch of food for lunch and dinner.  I met a friend for lunch and he had asked me to bring enough food for him (he's drooled over my food many times in the past).  I cooked up my usual whatever veggies are in the fridge:  onion, oriental yam, kohlrabi, kale, asparagus, zucchini, brown and black rice, and added at the end fresh dill, parsley, cilantro, rosemary from the garden.   The only rhyme and reason with all this is, what is fresh and local from the co-op and my garden.  My friend was all ga-ga about how it tasted and how he just can't get the hang of cooking.  and the weird thing is, I'm not doing anything special, just throwing it all together in a big pot.  

So that was lunch and dinner, plus a whole bunch of really good sugar snap peas, and a nighttime snack of a head of romaine lettuce, and half an orange.   Summer eating is so wonderful in Wisconsin.  I think today the only thing that wasn't local or from the garden was the rice and yam and orange.

I have a slight bit of arthritis in my hands and I've been looking into what Drs. McDougall and Barnard have to say about what foods are triggers.  I'm tempted to go on an elimination diet for a week but I don't want to miss out on the summer produce.   the other option is to give up one food at a time.  According to these guys, some possible trigger foods are oats, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, citrus fruits, strawberries, nuts.  The timing might be good right now before the sweet corn and tomatoes and new potatoes come into season.  I could freeze the strawberries.  

6/24/13 food

I slipped off that rails a bit today.  Last night after I made today's food I checked and saw that tempeh is not a part of the Captain's plan (on the E2X website).  So then this evening I thought, since I went off a little, why not a little more?   That is a problem of mine, the slippery slope.  I wasn't toooo bad, but I had some macadamia nuts and some turkish figs (not too much) and a peanut butter sesame seed honey bar from our co-op (no oil anyway...).   Funny thing is, it wasn't so great.  I was going, this is all I'm missing?   also I like not being stimulated.   just the little honey and peanut butter and salt in that bar was more stimulating than I like.  so, I'll hop back on tomorrow.

B: a couple of small sweet potatoes

L:  the food I cooked last night:  onion, mushroom, sweet potato, asparagus.

S: a small sweet potato and strawberries

D: same food as lunch.  + the nuts and figs and peanut butter thing and some cherries.

I'm fulllllll.   oh yeah, that's the other great thing about not eating nuts and dried fruit.  It's hard to get that overfull feeling.

E: walked 3 miles.   no meditation.  hope to get back on track with that tomorrow.

June 23 and 23

6/23/13

B:  oats and grits and cumin and curry.

L & D:  Stopped at Whole Foods on my way out of town, got boxes to go.  Their Health Starts Here bar is great:  it has plain cooked (no salt!) veggies and grains and fruit and lettuce!   Where I live, the HSH has dishes that almost all have salt, dried fruit, and/or nuts.  I like this one much better.  I loaded up on potatoes, sweet potatoes, lots of different veggies, fruit and lettuce.  just threw them all in boxes.   

Then when I got home I went grocery shopping and our co-op is now loaded with fresh local veggies, so I ate some sugar snap peas, snow peas, strawberries.  and I couldn't resist a small baked sweet potato when I was cooking up food for tomorrow.  So I did overeat...

no exercise for the 2nd day in a row!   or meditating.

6/22/13

same as yesterday,

B: cabbage, oats and grits and onion powder and garlic powder and cumin and curry.  I love cumin and curry.

L:  food cooked up yesterday

S:  found a banana at a snack shop

D:  food cooked up yesterday

Oh, I heard the restaurants are really crowded.  I don't think I'm missing out on much!

June 21 logs

still in a hotel for a few more days...

B:  cooked up some cabbage, added oats and grits and Mexican spices (was in the mood for cumin after some chatting last night).

L:  cooked up the food as I described yesterday

D:  more of the same.

E:  walked about 4-5 miles.

notes:

1) I'm going to run out of food after tomorrow.  But I can stop at Whole Foods on my way out of town.  Maybe I'll get some "health starts here" hot food, if they have some.  otherwise, fruit will get me home on Sunday.

2) Yesterday I was at a workshop on food-justice.  It was about how crappy restaurant workers are treated, how low-paid and exploited they are.  wow, shocking.   And it's not like restaurants have a low profit margin---it's quite high compared to other industries.  They are just screwing their employees.  One of the speakers wrote a book "Behind the Restaurant Door."  I'm planning to read it.  It makes me more comfortable with the fact that I hardly ever eat at restaurants.  Some people are good at getting good plant strong meals at restaurants.  I'm not.   

3) Along those lines, cooking in your hotel room like I do is definitely not for everyone.  I'm not suggesting it's the way to go, especially if you are good at getting what you want at restaurants.  But if you do cook/eat in your room, I suggest you be discreet about it and clean up your messes so no one knows you did it.  That way, hotels won't start instituting "no cooking in the room" policies.  :)

June 20 logs

I'm on a trip until Sunday, staying in a hotel.   I have an electric burner for cooking and an electric cooler for keeping the food fresh.  

I found this great produce stand today!  I had found it on the web and combined going there with getting some exercise from a walk.  I bought food to cook up tomorrow:  broccoli, kale, green onions, sweet potatoes, potatoes, tomatoes.  I'll add 4 cans of beans and some spices and hope that lasts me until Sunday.  I also bought some raspberries and blueberries.  and some cabbage to go in my breakfast oats and grits (why not?).   so fun!  and it was a nice walk through Louisville, KY.

B:  cooked oats and grits (mixed) and cinnamon and banana.

L:  banana, raspberries, blueberries

D:  the last of the food I made on Tuesday, the beans and veggies.  and a head of lettuce.

E:  walk about 6-7 miles

June 19 logs

Road trip today.  I ate two sweet potatoes, 2 baked potatoes, a banana, and a head of lettuce throughout the day in the car.  Then had some beans and veggies (onion, kale, asparagus, tomatoes, herbs) and another banana for dinner.    I ate more than I needed to, maybe out of boredom while driving...

Here's a realization I had today.  I've been noticing the last few months that I like to eat most of my leftovers from the fridge without warming them up, and it's not just out of laziness (maybe started that way).   We tend to think of most cooked foods as hot-eating foods, not cold.  I never used to make soup in the summer because it was too hot.  Now I just eat it cold (after the initial bowl).  I just realized why that is so natural with this way of eating:  because our food doesn't have grease and oil in it!   that stuff is kind of gross when it's cold.   Does anyone else enjoy cold leftovers?   

June 18 log

Today's lesson learned (hopefully) is, don't nibble on fruit while cooking up 2 days worth of food.  Nibbling on anything is like filling up a bucket of water with a dripping faucet.  It still fills up!  So, I overate on fruit today.  I rationalized it because I'm going out of town tomorrow and not expecting to get good fruit.  However, I just checked the web and it looks like there is a really good grocery store 2 miles from my hotel.  that is great, and my excuse was out the window.  

For my trip I'm eating out of my hotel room.  I just don't do well in restaurants and don't expect to have any social obligations at dinner, though if there is one, I can still go and sneak in my food and dump it on top of a plain salad I order.   I'm bringing my electric cooler and an electric burner and a couple of pots and some beans and various spices, etc.  I was planning to buy frozen veggies but this grocery store might be really good so maybe I'll get fresh.  

Here are today's logs:

B:  wonderful baked oats and fruit.   a bunch of spinach

L:  baked sweet potato, a lb of strawberries, half a head of lettuce

SSSSSS (snack overload):  "nibbled" on fruit

D:  baked potato, jicama, and kohlrabi.  a bunch more spinach

S:  (not hungry!) more fruit, some peas and corn.

I definitely overate today.  oh well, at least it wasn't on nuts and dates...:)

E:  biked 23 miles.  Meditated 40 minutes.

June 17 log

B:   two small bowls of my frozen fruit mix.   baked plantain--this time peeled and sliced it like a banana, wrapped it in parchment paper, sealed with a twist tie, threw it in the oven with all the other things I baked today (potatoes, oriental yam, small kohlrabi).  I think this was the best yet.  But that may be because I'm just liking it more as it becomes a more familiar food.  I also had that small kohlrabi a little later and decided I need to do the same thing:  peel and slice and cook in parchment paper---tomorrow's experiment if I remember to buy some (forgot today). 

After breakfast, I cooked up a bunch of kale and an onion for lunch and dinner.  I started with the onion, went on Facebook, came back to find it burned, er, very caramelized.  I was curious, just how much can you burn an onion and have it still taste good, so I added water and kale and cooked up the kale.   It turned out quite good.  So the lesson to stay away from Facebook while cooking was not learned today.

 

S:  a bunch of lettuce leaves

L:  Kale and baked oriental yam

S:  small baked potato

D:  sugar snap peas, kale and 2 small baked potatoes, some grapes, then I just kept small eating bowls of fruit from the freezer, and a small bowl of frozen peas and corn.  Fortunately these are really small bowls, and I don't feel overly full but I ate more fruit than I needed to.

I think I'll make some beans for tomorrow.

E:  biked 14 miles.  meditate 40 minutes.

June 16 log

I'm just copying my food logs from my E2X blog.   Readers (the 1 or 2 of you), do you want food logs?  I have other ideas for posts but haven't had time to compose them.  I'll get to it.

B: baked oatmeal and fruit.  love this.

L:  sugar snap peas at the co-op.  then stopped at the bakery to get bread and brownies for housemate and a friend coming over.   I ate my baked sweet potato while friend ate brownie and coffee.  We had a nice time on the deck on a beautiful day.   One thing I'm trying to learn is not feeling like I have to have a treat when others do.   I don't need a "treat" like nuts and dried fruit (or worse, much worse) just because they are having one.  I happened to be hungry so ate my sweet potato, and actually that did feel like a treat because it's so sweet (I go for the oriental yams, with the yellow flesh and purple skins, love them! I eat them like a burrito).

spread out dinner:  I went on a 12 mile walk (training for a marathon, maybe a little too ambitious), ate a baked potato at the 6 mile mark while sitting on a bench overlooking the lake and city--I love potatoes as energy food on a hike or bike ride.   then I ate some sugar snap peas at the co-op, about 8.5 miles.  then when I got home, another baked potato, small kohlrabi, a bunch of asparagus, and a small bowl of frozen peas and corn.  yes, you heard that right.  Housemate was eating ice cream.  I didn't plan it that way but thought afterwards that my peas and corn are kind of like ice cream, frozen and sweet.   I like this sugar free life because normal foods start tasting very sweet on their own.   now if I can just continue with this attitude for the long term...

June 15 log

B:  peaches and rice.  half a head of romaine

Snack:  small baked potato.

L:  at a potluck, I brought the mango-bean-rice salad I made last night.  It was a hit and I had something to eat.  A friend who knew of my eating ways brought a giant watermelon.   She said it was because it was really easy but later said she was thinking of me.  That was really sweet.  I told her she could bring that anytime.  So lunch was my salad and her watermelon.  excellent!   

S:  sugar snap peas

D:  half a head of romaine, baked plantain, kale and garlic (keep forgetting to buy onions).  fruit from the freezer:  strawberrries, banana, blackberries.    this time I cooked the plantain in foil, and it was not as dry.  I think next time I will try roasting them in parchment paper--I'll peel and slice it first. The taste is growing on me.  I heard it's one of the most widely eaten starches in the world.

Exercise:  swam 1 mile.  yoga 30 minutes.   went to a half-day meditation workshop.

June 14 log

I have lots to share about today so brace yourself.

I haven't had rice in a while so made up a batch last night.  I like to mix brown and forbidden (black) rice, just for fun.  In fact, I pour it one cup at a time into my storage bin and make a nice pattern:

The rice came in handy several times today.  First I had it for breakfast instead of oats, with my frozen fruit.  Here's a picture in the morning sunshine.  This was a really quick and easy breakfast.

After breakfast I made my semi-annual order of beans.   I order every available kind of beans from Rancho Gordo.  That came out to 28 lbs and cost $184 (including a whopping $30 for shipping).  It's more expensive than bulk beans to be sure, but I calculated that it's still about 30% cheaper than my favorite canned beans (Eden Organic).  Anyway, I love these beans.  They are all different and it's entertaining to have a different kind of bean every week, or to mix them up (big and small, different colors).

Next I had lunch with friends.  I had some rice and beans and corn and asparagus, and a small baked potato.    The conversation turned to the topic of health and all the medications and supplements they take and the unpleasant side effect; and I just thought to myself how crazy I am when I get jealous of what others eat.  I take my health and diet way too much for granted.  I wish I could get over this and stop occasionally wanting that unhealthy food.  I also was struck by some of their insightful comments:  1)  these medications just act on one mechanism but isn't it more complicated than that?  (that's what T. Colin Campbell says in his new book Whole), and 2) doesn't it seem weird that we have to take all these supplements when our ancestors seemed to do fine without them?  yep.

I stopped at the grocery store and got some more fruit on special to freeze.  I snacked on that while prepping it along with some sugar snap peas.  I ate a small sweet potato as a snack on my bike ride.  Then I fixed something for a potluck tomorrow.  This was inspired by a recipe in the spring E2X book I think, by Ami I think:  mango bean salad, to which I added rice.  So it was rice, beans, frozen mango chopped, lime juice, cilantro and I added a little chipotle powder for some smokey flavor.  It is fast and easy to make, and people love it.   I didn't have enough for tonight's dinner so just had some rice and mango and cilantro, and some of that frozen fruit for dessert.  I poured a wee bit of balsamic vinegar (diluted with water) on top.   

So that rice came in handy today.  

Exercise:  biked 36 miles.  that was unplanned, but first I did my 14 mile commute and then when I got home it was such a nice day that I got out the racing bike and went for a ride.  and I meditated for 30 minutes.   Oh, that reminds me of another thing (see, I had a lot to share today):  I signed up for Plant-Stock (farms 2 forks in Hudson NY).  This was actually a tough decision because I really really really wanted to go to a meditation retreat, but my best friend who I only get to see once a year at most is going to Plant-Stock.  so I had to decide and I decided to go to the meditation retreat, and then I thought but what about Gail??????   And that pretty much sealed it.  So I hope to go to a meditation retreat next year.  In the meantime I'm looking forward to Plant-Stock!

okay, tomorrow will be short, promise.

Interesting website

plantbasedresearch.org.   They link to peer-reviewed journal articles related to plant-based diets.

June 13 food

B: baked oats and peaches.  This was really good. I love toasting the top in the broiler at the end to give a little crisp.

The peaches have been on special all week at the co-op, along with the strawberries and grapes, so I got some more today and cut them up and froze them.

L:  small baked potato, yesterday's beans and veggies, sugar snap peas, grapes.

D:  small oriental yam, yesterday's beans and veggies, small baked potato, nibbled on the fruit as I prepped it for the freezer, small bowl of peas and corn.  did I overeat?  maybe a wee bit.

E:  walk 6 miles, bike 7 miles.  meditate 30 minutes.

June 12 food

B:  2 small baked sweet potatoes

I cooked up all the veggies from the fridge:  onion, mushroom, kale, cabbage, asparagus, arugula, added white beans, can of tomatoes, herbs from the garden (cilantro, chives, parsley, dill).  it was liquidy, so called it soup.  It should last a few days, yea (less cooking).

L:  small baked potato, soup

D:  repeat of lunch

Snack:  salad made from...lettuce.  advantage of a lettuce-only salad:  you can snack on it like chips and it's not messy.

Exercise:  swim 1 mile, bike 7 miles.

Dr. Alan Goldhamer

I love this guy:

http://www.healthpromoting.com/learning-center/truenorth-tv/dr-alan-goldhamer-success-plant-based-sos-free-diet

It's only 4 minutes long, worth it.  Watch him enough and you learn to say "meat, fish, fowl, eggs, and dairy products" really fast, and also "salt, oil, sugar, flour".

Vegan vs. Paleo

Sorry, if you thought I was going to debate this, I'm not.  I've noticed that I don't care about this issue but I didn't realize why until a friend asked me to give my scientific assessment of this critique of the China Study.  Now I realize the reason I have no interest is that I'm vegan for other reasons (animals and environment).  I'm interested to know what the healthiest vegan diet is, not whether it's healthier than a meat diet.  Going vegan improved my health dramatically so I am experientially convinced that the Standard American Diet is unhealthy, and likely it's due to too many animal products and processed foods.   But whether or not the optimal diet includes some animal products doesn't interest me because I'm vegan regardless.  I feel more healthy than I ever have in my whole life, and it seems healthy enough to me.  It's easy to be an unhealthy vegan, and maybe that's why some vegans become ex-vegans.   The books I've linked to at right tell me how to be a healthy vegan.  I'm very happy to be a vegan.

June 11 Food logs

Brekkie:   baked oats and fruit.   This is one of my favorite breakfasts.  I found this really little baking pan that's just the right size for one person.  I put about 2/3 cup fruit in the bottom, sprinkle cinnamon, add 2/3 cup oats and 1 cup water, bake for at 350 for 30-40 minutes while I go meditate, then I turn on the broiler for a few minutes to toast the top.  I buy whatever fruit looks good, and cut it up and freeze it. Today's fruit was strawberries, blackberries and bananas.   Here's the end result dished out in my bowl.  

Now last week I would have added a chopped date to this but I'm on the Captain's challenge.  And you know what, it tasted great.  The date would have covered up the taste of the oats and berries.  So I'm quite pleased about this!

For lunch I tried a baked plantain for the first time.  I just threw it in the oven and baked at 375 for 1 hour because I'm all about taking the easy way.  It was kind of dry.  It had an interesting taste, sweet and...lemony?  New things always take getting used to so I will definitely try this again several times (I'll experiment with cooking methods) and see if it sticks.  I also had the veggies I cooked up last night:  onion, oriental yam, kale, broccoli rabe, asparagus, mushrooms, beans, herbs from the garden, a little singapore seasoning.

Afterwards, I nibbled on some frozen peas and corn and some romaine lettuce leaves.

Early Dinner:  we had family over for their traditional meatloaf dinner.  I had the baked potato topped with a big pile of those veggies from lunch and yesterday, peas and corn, salad.   While others ate their cake and ice cream, I had a little of that frozen fruit which tasted lovely.  Sure it was easy, but it's only day 2.  Temptation doesn't usually hit me until about day 15...

Snack:  small baked potato.  small bowl of peas and corn.

Exercise: walked 4 miles.  meditated 30 minutes.

okay, I promise my future posts won't be so long, because my food is pretty similar day to day.

I'm back, maybe, with a challenge for myself, maybe

By now, no one will be reading this, and yet, I still like blogging even if it's to no one.  Plus I don't have the pressure of worrying that I'm wasting people's time, haha.   I've been thinking about getting back to this for a while--I've been snapping pictures of food to blog about, and I have more time--and just haven't taken the last step.   What got me going this time was a challenge that I thought of after eating a potato yesterday.   It was a cold baked potato that I grabbed from the fridge to to hold me over to a late lunch.   And it was soooo good.  I was thinking, do I like a cold plain baked potato more than my wonderful potato fries topped with seasoning and dipped in home-made soy yogurt (with garden chives and dill) or home-made ketchup?   It's possible!   And I was reminded of some food I made last week that was just cooked veggies and sweet potatoes and beans.  and that was soooo good.  The produce I get is so good, it doesn't need to be overly spiced and sugared and salted and all that stuff.   A lot of recipes and restaurants include sauces and spices and the 3 favorite additives (SOS: salt, oil, sugar), not to mention chemicals, to make up for what are probably low-quality ingredients.  That's true of the food industry, and it was probably true of many traditional recipes, since it's only been recently that high-quality food is available in abundance at low-cost.   

Then I was thinking, our plant-based healthy diets contain a lot of recipes that are imitating our previous unhealthy recipes.  It's understandable.  But often those things make me crave the original unhealthy thing a little too much.  What if I came up with a new paradigm for myself, that's not trying to imitate anything, just making up new dishes from my high-quality produce that doesn't need any additives (SOS)?     

Another thought for me is that I still have a problem with craving sugar, whether it's the so-called healthy things like dates and turkish figs (love those especially), or okay-to-eat-in-small-amount refined sweeteners (maple syrup, mmmmm), or the really bad stuff (SOS baked goods, vegan ice cream).   So what if I dumped the sugar for a while, both refined and dried fruits.   Whole fruit is okay, in modest amounts.
   
Finally, I'm a member at E2X, and haven't been participating for months, and my membership is due to expire and I need to decide if I should renew, and they are doing a 28-day challenge, and the Captain's challenge is pretty much what I'm considering in my new paradigm (they are one step ahead of me) and I really like the coaches there (Natalie and Ami and Char), so why not participate the Captain's challenge?  This will help me decide if I should renew.

I'm especially curious about this sugar thing, so I'm tempted to try to go longer than 28 days.   I heard it takes 12 weeks to break a sugar addiction, which is 84 days.  But I like the number 100.  So I'm going to try a 100-day Captain's challenge.   Don't worry, I know I won't succeed 100% every day for 100 days.   But I am keeping in mind the advice of the E2X coaches:  "Will every day be perfect?  No.  We're not perfect people.  What we want to see is that drive and desire to be the healthiest person you can be."  The most fun part is that there are several people eating the same as me. Where else am I going to find that?  It's lonely out here and it's easy to feel weird and extreme, which is one reason I stopped blogging.  But it's okay to be weird and extreme as long as no one is harmed.

Here's the diet plan I've come up with for myself.  It's very simple. 

When hungry, eat:

• starches and intact whole grains:  potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, oats, rice, corn, quinoa
• non-starch vegetables
• spices
• fruit

When full, stop eating.

How easy is that?   I'll try log my food to see what glorious creations can be made from this.