changing habits

Neat post by Geoffrey on changing habits:
http://www.geoffreylevens.com/2011/10/12/changing-habits-it-aint-easy/

some tips I learned this week

I'm skimming/reading/listening to a few different books and learned some useful things from them.  Note that I've only just started some of them so there may be more discussion in future posts.

From Mark Hyman's books (Blood sugar solution and Ultrametabolism), you can get very good discussions about how bad sugar and refined grains are for you.  I think I mentioned this already in a previous post.  Another thing I learned this week is that high-quality fats contribute to weight loss by regulating insulin, as well as contributing to satiation.  I guess that's where that phrase "you have to eat fat to burn fat" comes from.  They also increase your metabolism which helps burn fat.  However, his definition of healthy fats is different from mine.  I'm pretty convinced that oils of any kind are not heart healthy and I want my heart to be as healthy as possible as I am prone to several heart ailments without a high-quality diet.   In my view, stick with nuts, seeds, and avocados for your healthy fats.  Also, in a departure from Dr. Fuhrman's recommendations, I actually like his idea to not get too hungry between meals but allowing a snack or two.  This week, my eating schedule was breakfast at 8 am, lunch at noon, snack at 3-4 pm (berries), and dinner at 8 pm.  It was liberating to tell the truth.  I didn't felt compelled to overeat to get to my next meal.

I started reading Brendan Frazier's Thrive.  I like how his first chapter is about stress.  Stress contributes to carb burning more than fat burning because of the well-known fight-or-flight syndrome that results from stress.  So limiting stress is good for weight loss.   He argues that the biggest stresses on most people is an unhealthy diet.  I don't know if that's correct but it's an interesting conjecture.  He is an athlete so seeks optimal physical performance.  The faster you can recover from exercise, the more you can train, and the better your performance.  A healthy diet leads to faster recovery times.  This is very motivating for me because I love to exercise and the more the better.  It's ironic that I love exercising because I have so little natural talent in sports!   I am slow slow slow.  But wait a minute, even though I was slow on the mountain bike trail today, I made it up a steep rocky/rooted hill that had the two guys in front of me walking and the guy behind me walking.  Ha! Of course, they passed me once we got to the top (with nary a nod to my awesome performance).  On a cautionary note, Frazier's recipes are appropriate for ironman athletes burning 10,000 calories per day.  I tried one out today with about 1/10 th recommended seeds and it was still very high-calorie.  However, it was useful because I went 7 hours between breakfast and lunch, with a 2.5 hour mountain bike ride in between.  

I'm listening to Psycho-cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz--I'm not too far along but I already learned something useful.  Motivational books don't work too well with me because I have a low self-image and can't convince myself that I can succeed if I believe I won't.  The tool (or maybe just one tool) in this book is visualization and imagination.  Now that I can do.  I fantasize all the time that I'm a fast swimmer and awesome mountain biker knowing well and good that I'm the slowest one on the course.  That's what's great about fantasy, it's all pretend.  So I can definitely see the value of fantasizing about my success with healthy eating.  The idea is to pick a goal and imagine in great detail what it would be like if you were there right now.  Like for example, say you want to lose 4 lbs in the next 2 weeks.  Imagine 2 weeks from now how you will feel and what you are doing.

Motivation tool

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately.   distracted I guess.   Anyway, this video showing what happens to your blood cells after eating fatty foods is pretty amazing.  It makes even a rare cheat meal unappealing.  The effects last for several hours at least.  yikes!

Inspirations from this week

I managed to find motivation and inspirations from a lot of sources this week:

• I was reminded by Linda Spangle in her books (100 days of weightless, Life is Hard, Food is Easy) that Motivation is a choice.  And that reminded me of something Sarah Taylor said which is, motivation doesn't just come to you, you have to make it happen, every day.   So think "I'm going to do this!"  not, "I'll give it a try."  Of course, whatever it is you are planning, make sure it's realistic:  e.g., I'm going to ride my exercise bike 1 minute per day.  Hey, you gotta start somewhere!   And by the way, I think these Linda Spangler books are great.  I'm going through them with my good friend.  We are really enjoying connecting with each other through this venue.  We started just after Thanksgiving and it really helped me get through the holidays.  Even though I don't have much if any weight to lose, I have some emotional eating issues, for example in how I handle social situations and celebrations.  What I'm realizing is that I really do prefer my own food, so that makes those feelings of deprivation and being different fade away more and more.  This is a very positive development for me.
• In my meditation class, we watched a video by Mingyur Rinpoche, and one of his lines struck me in a lovely way:  "You can be happy anytime, anywhere, no matter what your circumstances."  That just makes me feel good--it's like he's giving me permission I didn't give myself!  And that got me thinking, don't wait until you reach your goals to be happy!   Because if you do, you might now know how to be happy then!   Not only that, if you can be happy now, it might make it easier to reach your goals!   So start learning now how to be happy.  
• From listening to my Buddhism lectures, I learned about the religious beliefs at the time of the Buddha and how reincarnation was not viewed as a good thing like we westerners might view it (regardless of if you believe it or not).   The end of suffering is the end of this cycle.  It gave me just a little more insight into the point of Buddhism and meditation.  I am a total newbie, but I can glimpse how letting go of both your past failures and accomplishments can be freeing.  I have to admit, it gives me stress to attach to either of those too strongly.  I see glimpses of how letting go of "I" could be a good thing.  I only have glimpses here and there but it's enough to keep me wanting to find out more.
• I worked hard this week at my job, one of my goals for this year.  So I'm off to a good start.  I think it's a good idea to have a passion other than your eating/exercise plan, a passion that really engages you.  It could be work or a hobby.  For me, when I first became vegan and nutritarian, that was my passion--there was so much to learn and I was loving all of it.  Now that I have learned it, it's time for me to find another passion.  Food/health/exercise is now a vehicle that allows me to perform my other passions.  Also, if you are wondering how to be happy (previous bullet), having something you really sink your teeth into is a great start.
• I'm listening to Rob Lowe's autobiography on audiobooks.  I listen to audiobooks while preparing food or exercising and saw this was highly rated, and thought it would be fun light listening.  Well, I see why it was highly rated as it is very interesting and entertaining, even while jogging on the treadmill, which is saying a lot (ha).  This week, I was inspired by his approach to his alcohol rehab.  He approached it with the same ambition and competitiveness that he previously approached his acting career, his partying, his friendships and conquests.   That is, he was going to be the best abstainer you've ever seen.  I like his hutzpah.   

What motivated or inspired you this week?   If the answer is not much, well, there's always next week!

meetups and thoughts

My two nutritarian friends came into town on Friday and we had quite the feast:

I made sweet potatoes topped with black beans and greens etc and a dollop of soy yogurt (a recipe from the Fuhrman site).  We made salad from Holly's lettuce and pear, my red pepper and a yummy salad dressing from the Fuhrman site.  Holly made delicious stuffed mushrooms.   Suz brought curried squash on brown rice.   I got full eating all this great food.   After our feast, we went on a walk at Olbrich community gardens, and then went, where else, to the co-op.  That was interesting as we shared many food tips about all our favorite foods, as well as the ones we have to avoid (the cowgirl cookies are sometimes a challenge for me).  I got a lot of new ideas from our discussions as we strolled through the store.

Some quotable quotes were "I'm an unethical vegan" and "I'm a vegan on weekdays."

Today I heard a great quote:  "The best way to bring someone over to your cause is to have more fun than them."   For me, the biggest difficulty about eating healthy is sometimes thinking that I'm missing out on what everyone else is eating.  It's all in how you look at it.  I just need to think of it as I'm the lucky one, having the most fun eating the best food.   Along those lines, last weekend I was out on a walk at a conservancy and a group was roasting marshmallows over a fire and making s'mores.  Well, you know how those nostalgic feelings can make you wish you were joining them.   Today I was meditating in front of my fireplace (wow, is that ever easy to meditate in front of a fire!) and I was thinking about our ancestors roasting winter squash in their fire.  Then I realized, our difficulties in eating healthy usually arise from nostalgia for eating the things we used to eat and drink with our family and friends.   Maybe we just need to go back further in time.  The last 50 years are a blip on the history of our people.  Go back further, and we are talking sweets only on very special occasions.   So just let your nostalgia go a little further back in time and you can imagine roasting squash instead of marshmallows, and relishing a good fruit instead of ice cream.

Day 32 of the Challenge, and Napoleon Hill

I got home from vacation and the vita-mix is here!  I wish I didn't have to open the box but there is probably a receipt I'll want to keep.   Now I realize most of you won't win it and I'm sorry about that.  But as you make continuous improvements to your health, you will be winning the most valuable award of all!  And for those struggling, I've been inspired by this audiobook called "Napoleon Hills Keys to Success."   I'm actually surprised by how much I like this.  It's kind of old-fashioned in values and a bit "American-centric" so non-Americans might be a bit put off sometimes (but only sometimes I hope).  and yet, well, I did grow up with these values so it does speak to me.  Plus it presents some very positive values that were missing in my upbringing and that makes it much more appealing to me and adds some healing to some old feelings.   Anyway, getting to my point, here is a quote from the audio tape: "Every adversity carries a seed of an equivalent or greater benefit....Defeat may be a stepping stone or benefit."   Look at your obstacles and defeats, not as failures, but as the seeds of even greater success!  Seriously.  This is absolutely true.  You will learn more, you will have more insight, and by solving your problems, you will discover new things.  So if you have not done so well on this challenge, take that as an opportunity to benefit, yes, benefit from this experience and sow the seeds of success.  (Plus, you can do better on the next challenge!).

In fact I will have some learning and future successes to sow based on my modest overeating today.   On weekends I tend to let myself eat in a less ordered way to provide contrast with my more structured weekday meals.  I think that's okay, though perhaps I should revisit that.  

This morning I had yummy oatmeal wtih oats and raisins soaked overnight, heated in the microwave, let sit while showering, then added frozen cherries and blueberries and heated again.  Yum!  

Then I just ate haphazardly from about 11 am until 5 pm.  I was doing major food prep, 6 frozen smoothies for housemate, freezing lots of garden collards, and fixing tomorrow's meals for me and housemate.  oh, I did make a nice salad:

This had fresh local spinach and cabbage, really good local red sweet pepper, edamame, nuts and seeds, and D'angou pear vinegar.  Just a simple salad but very yummy because of all the fresh local ingredients.

Then I ate a ton of carrots, and also went crazy with the frozen mango which I love, and nibbled on the smoothies.  I also had some kiwi berries.  Those were yummy.   and some sugar snap peas.  Those were not great.  They haven't been great for a while.  It's not the prime season for them I guess and I should stop getting them.  I did keep track of everything I put in my mouth and it came up to more than my usual amount of calories.  But tomorrow's meals will be less than my usual amount--not on purpose but my fruit isn't ripe yet so tomorrow is lacking in fruit.  Today made up for that so I guess it just averages out.  I will go shopping tomorrow at a store with lots of fruit samples so I plan to score some there.   I will post tomorrow's food tomorrow so I don't confuse myself or you.  Here's today's summary:

Total calories 1762,  protein 52 g (10%), fat 28 g (14%), carbs 359 g (76%), fiber 74 g.

How to lose a lot of Weight

Just got this email from PeerTrainer on what to do when you need to lose 50 or more lbs.  Might be useful to some of you.

A Helpful Realization for Me

I hope that I learned something useful about myself recently.  I could wait six months to verify that it works and then post it if it's successful, but I'll go ahead and share now and then if it doesn't work, I'll have to submit a correction post.

This year, on the occasions that I strayed from healthy eating and then came back, I wondered: why was it so easy for me to be a vegan for the last 6 years but it is sometimes difficult to be a nutritarian?  Both involve denying myself a category of foods.  In fact, being vegan involved a complete 100% abstinence from certain foods whereas being a nutritarian just involves mostly abstaining (that turned out to be a clue).   Interestingly, this year, I strayed for the first time in 5.5 years from veganism, about 3 times.  That's because I gave myself permission, since Dr. Fuhrman allows for a small amount of animal products.  I didn't follow his advice as he intended since I ate ice cream, one of the worst foods you could eat.  But that straying clued me in to something.

Before I strayed from veganism (first time Nov. 2010), my vegan logic when choosing food was, 1) is it vegan?  2) if not, what's something vegan I can eat?  I have a clever clever brain (as do you) and all of my cleverness was applied to finding something vegan to eat.

As a nutritarian, because there is some leeway and you can eat an occasional cookie and still be healthy, sometimes my clever clever brain, which loves sugar, will go all out to argue why it's justified.  It is a powerful force when my clever clever brain goes all out to convince me of something.  It is too smart for me.  It will just keep on arguing until I am convinced.

If I were to decide that for me being a nutritarian means eating only health-promoting food, then maybe my decision process will be like the vegan one.  1)  Is it nutritarian?  2) if not, what's something nutritarian I can eat.  no arguments.  And then my clever clever brain, which is a powerful force, can go all out applying itself to finding me good nutritarian food to eat.

So I decided I want to be vegan and nutritarian, which for me means, no animal products, and no disease-promoting foods (that is, 100% healthy foods instead of 90, 95, 98%).  It's just easier that way.

I'm not saying I'll always be vegan and nutritarian but I want to be now and I hope I will be forever.

Forks over Knives

This movie is good for motivation even if you've read all the books and know it all.  It makes you say I wanna be on this team!   that's the plant-based whole foods diet team.  yes!  This is the cool team.  This is the team everyone will want to join eventually and we are at the forefront.  Say yes to transforming your health and life.

Challenge motivation

Hi everyone, The 6-week challenge starts in 2 hours.  Here are some motivational thoughts that help keep me on track:

1) I live in my food universe.  There is infinite variety of delicious foods to choose from in this universe.  I will be satisfied and happy if I stay in this universe.   Today I watched a friend eat a big ole' burger and fries.   It did not compute.  :)

2)  Now is as good a time as any to get started, regardless of our current circumstances.  Once you are healthy and thin, you will have circumstances too and that won't stop you from continuing to be healthy and thin (I hope).  I'm happy to see a lot of people doing the challenge even though circumstances during the 6 weeks are not ideal (vacation, parties, restaurant plans, hanging out with old buddies).  That is life!

3) I am most likely to stray and overeat when I'm tired.  Maybe I should just go to bed early if I'm tired.  I consider that a luxury!  more satisfying than eating!

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off.  When I get back in the evening, I'll post the challenge participants and brief goals--unless there is objection to the latter.  I'll also post my food logs since some people like to see an example.

I think I will go experience the luxuriousness of bed now.

PeerTrainer

Someone I respect told me that they use PeerTrainer to help them with their eating/fitness program, so I got on their email list to find out more.  It is led by Jackie Wicks, who promotes a relatively healthy eating program, similar to Dr. Fuhrman.   Her emails sometimes include some interesting articles, like this one about 7 steps to overcoming emotional eating.  If you want further support, they have a emotional eating mini course.  I have no idea if this is good or not, I'm just pointing it out since it was in the email I received yesterday.  She also linked to another program they do called Point of No Return, for dealing with the psychological barriers of dieting.  If any of you have ever tried these programs, I'd be interested to hear what you thought of them.

Another great DVD by Douglas Lisle

I think Douglas Lisle is my new hero.  There are several heroes in the healthy eating community:  Drs. Fuhrman, McDougall, Esselstyn, Campbell, Ornish, and Barnard.  I have to add Dr. Douglas Lisle to this list.  He's a psychotherapist who works at the True North Health Center.   You can read some of his articles here.  He has lectured at a few McDougall conferences and I think the DVDs are taped from these events.  This one I just watched is called "Losing Weight Without Losing Your Mind."   He talks about 3 major obstacles to losing weight:  1) the pleasure trap, 2) the ego trap, and 3)  the pull of other's demands.

1)  He's talked about the pleasure trap in a few other lectures, DVDs and a book.  I highly recommend the book or DVD.  Very briefly (and hopefully somewhat correct), the pleasure trap is about how it is perfectly normal to prefer chocolate candy to an apple. We evolved in an environment of scarcity of high-caloric food and we are hard-wired to prefer it.  If you can abstain from the artificial food for a while, for example, with a fast, your taste buds re-adapt and you can enjoy the healthy food just as much.  But it aint always easy to say not to that high calorie-dense food.

2) The ego trap.  I loved this because he described me.  The ego trap is where you or others have high expectations of you, perhaps because of a previous success, and you know deep down you can't live up to those expectations so you quit before you fail.  In your mind, quitting is preferable to failing.   This is what sometimes happens to me with healthy eating.  I achieved success sort of accidentally, just experimenting with this.  Then I joined the Fuhrman forums and started a blog and became something of a role model.   I didn't feel comfortable being a role model and started doubting myself and suddenly eating healthy became harder than it was before, and the temptations, which were almost non-existent before, became greater.  Dr. Lisle says the solution to this is to lower your expectations.  Pick a goal that is better than where you are, and achievable, something you are pretty confident you can do.  You can even pick a goal that is insulting to you so you say, of course I can do that, in fact I can do better than that, I'll show you.  He described working with kids and saying, do you think you can get B/C grades?  and the kid says, yes, I can do even better than that!

3)  other people's demands.  He described how we evolved in an environment of 30 people where everyone knew what everyone else was doing so they couldn't demand too much because they already saw everything you are doing.  Nowadays, our spheres are so separated, your boss doesn't know what you home/community demands are; your spouse and kids don't know your work/community/friend responsibilities, etc.  So everyone wants the most out of you and this situation benefits naturally pushy people and hurts naturally nice people.  You have to learn to say no and you don't have to say why.  You say, "I've got something else I have to do."  "I made a promise and have to take care of something else."  And you don't say what and it becomes clear that it's none of their business and they don't have a right to know.  You have to be able to say no so you can make priorities for yourself.  If you are going to change your diet and develop and exercise program you need time to commit to this.  It IS high priority.

I'd be curious to know what other people think of this lecture.

Motivation recommendations

I was asked what my latest book recommendations are for motivation and positive psychology/happiness.  I have the books listed in my "Recommended books" section at right.   At the top of the list are the why and how-to books on eating for health, then cookbooks, and at the bottom are motivation/positive pyschology books.  I just updated that list with a new one, Get off Your But, by Sean Stephenson and Anthony Robbins.    So now what do I recommend in what order?

If you don't want to read any and just want a 3-sentence summary it is this (see below for another useful take-home point #4):  1)  There are no excuses.  2) Just do it.  3)  Happiness comes from overcoming challenges, not from pleasure-giving activities (such as watching tv or eating ice cream).   Regarding point #1,  Get off your but has lots of inspirational stories.  Regarding point #2, You can read all the books you want but it finally has to come from you.  Regarding point #3, you will be very happy when you do make the changes.  It is very hard, no doubt about it, but you will overcome and that will bring you GREAT satisfaction and ultimately happiness.

If you want to read just one, I think I recommend Get off Your But.  It is very inspirational and has lots of activities to help you on your journey.

If you want to read more, I have them ordered by how I liked them but it is very personal, so you may not agree with my ordering.  I also would like to point out The Pleasure Trap, which is more science and psychology but it shows why we desire processed foods and why we should avoid them (this is available in both book and DVD).  It helps you understand that this isn't about you being weak and bad, but about the food being bad and dangerous.  Let me emphasize this as take-home point #4)  The food is bad, not you!

If you like to learn and to stay motivated, then I recommend all of these books.  What I do is buy the audio versions and listen to them on my ipod while doing my food prep.  I think this is fun.  And then I save my other enjoyable books for my night-time reading.

more on the Douglas Lisle DVD

I was thinking more about the first talk on the Douglas Lisle DVD called "The Continuum of Evil." (see yesterday's post for a recap). So the first talk was about not trying to be perfect, but aiming for eating A+ foods most of the time and letting yourself have some A, B, and C foods here and there, and averaging an A overall. This is a lot like Dr. Fuhrman's 10% plan. Dr. Lisle emphasized that the most important thing is getting right back on track when you eat the C (sugar,oil), D (dairy), and F (meat) foods. He follows the McDougall program which is a little more relaxed about salt and sugar than Dr. Fuhrman's program. Having followed Dr. Fuhrman's program for a while, I do prefer going without salt and sugar because the salt makes my fingers swell up, and it's even worse after breaking my elbow; and your taste buds get much more sensitive without salt and sugar, and then fruit and vegetables taste really good.

But the problem is that makes me an extremist or darn close to a perfectionist. It means any food prepared by a restaurant or grocery store is off limits, unless it's just plain raw or steamed veggies special ordered. There's a good side to this: it's easy in some ways, because the boundaries are really simple--no to salt, sugar, oil, or processed food, yes to everything in the produce section and whole grains and nuts and seeds. It's easy to remember, and it really is possible to eat on the go even with these restrictions.

Dr. Lisle says we want to average an A. Well, then you have to keep track. Today the co-op had some samples of this treat that is peanut butter, sesame seeds, cashews, honey and salt. Well, I thought, I don't have to be perfect, and this has no added oils! (somehow my brain ignored the salt and honey). So I had two pieces. Is that okay? Well, it had more salt than I would like. My hand was already swollen and now it will get worse. I think it's easier for me to have boundaries, like no salt. Then I just say no to the samples.

I do understand how these boundaries can lead to the perfection problem. When you go off-plan, you can end up in a binge and a promise to come back to perfection some day. I guess you have to remind yourself it's always a choice: "Yes, I can eat those samples. But I don't want them right now because I prefer not to eat salt and sugar. I think I'll try to make something like this at home without the salt and with dates instead of honey." And when you go offplan, you just dust yourself off and jump right back on. because you want to.

Darn it all, I don't understand this any better than when I started. I think I'll just get back to living my life.

Practice makes Perfect

Here is a post I made today on the Fuhrman forums expressing my view on learning, practicing and putting your stumbles into perspective:

Learning to eat healthy is like learning to play a music instrument or a sport--I mean really learning, not dabbling. When you are really learning a musical instrument, you practice every day. Practice consists of repeating exercises and songs over and over until to get it right. Making mistakes is expected---practicing over and over until you get it right is the solution. You don't apply moral judgments to yourself when you get the song wrong---rather, you expect to get it wrong until you practice enough to get it right. Now, the mistakes can be frustrating in both cases, but that's different from applying moral judgments to yourself. Anyway, my point is, as long as you are practicing daily and working to get it right, you are making progress! Each mistake should be thought of as a learning opportunity: how do I manage a similar situation next time? What you don't want to do is drop out for 3 months and go on an unhealthy food binge. In that case, just like if you don't practice your instrument for 3 months, not only do you not learn, you unlearn and have to relearn when you start up again. So if you blew it yesterday, you just need to keep practicing, like the rest of us. We're all practicing every day!

The Pleasure Trap

I’ve been reading “The Pleasure Trap” by Douglas Lisle and Alan Goldhamer, as part of my study material for the Nutritional Excellence Trainer exam. This is an excellent book. Dr. Fuhrman describes the concept in this post. I highly recommend this book if you want to understand why we eat the way we do, why we shouldn’t, and how you can be happier and still find pleasure by eating healthy food. They distinguish between happiness and pleasure: “Pleasure responses are the endpoints. The moods of happiness are the subtle reinforcing experiences along the way…Animals, like people, experience the moods of happiness when making progress toward worthwhile goals…”

The pleasure trap is essentially an adaptation to the pleasure inducer, usually an addictive substance that your body adapts to and then you feel normal when you get it, and sick when you don’t. The sensation of pleasure in getting your first cup of coffee is just the cessation of feeling awful right before you have it. It’s no longer an elation, but is more a cessation of pain. To recover from the pleasure trap requires the pain of withdrawal, but then you return to the feeling of normalness that you originally had before ingesting the drugs (including processed food) in the first place. Then you discover that healthy foods can give you pleasure (like pomegranates!), and a healthy lifestyle can make you happy.

on being a nutritarian

Here is something Darryl from the Fuhrman forums wrote.  I liked it so got his permission to post it here:

I like to think of being a nutritarian as simply choosing to live in a better food universe than most people. SAD foods taste good, but they do not taste better than nutritarian food. SAD foods are preferred by our society at large because people are habituated to them. They are habituated to them because those are the foods that are marketed.  Those are the foods that are marketed because they are very cheap (in price per calorie, not price per nutrient) and easy to ship, store, and prepare. To ensure that people remain habituated, food companies load them up with taste triggers like salt, sugar, and fat. When you change your food universe to nutrient-dense, health-promoting foods, it will probably take a long time to truly recalibrate your tastes until you truly enjoy them just as much, or more. But it will happen. I love my nutritarian food. My SAD-eating friends love their SAD food. The difference is that I get to eat three times more food than they do. And I don't get sick. So why in the world would I eat SAD foods now?

changing the world

I was talking to a friend about healthy eating, and in that conversation it got reinforced to me how of all the things you can do to change the world for the better, changing your eating habits probably has the biggest impact. What can most of us do to change the world? vote? go to church, help your neighbors and your church; volunteer in the community. All great things. bash politicians? no, that's not doing a darn thing. But adopting a healthy plant-strong lifestyle, that can change the world if enough people do it. First there is your health---for the vast majority of us, all our ailments would be cured with this eating style, no exaggeration; read the books, try it for 3 weeks and you will be convinced. Medical costs would be so much lower, the government could cover the cost for a small amount. Doctors would be out of business but they are smart, they can adapt. Then there is your happiness. When you are healthy, and your close friends and relatives aren't suffering either, you might be a little happier. Then wouldn't it be nice if 10 billion animals in this country alone weren't killed every year? Then there is the environmental impact of all those animals, both from feeding them, and their waste. You contribute much more to global warming by eating meat than by commuting in your car. So, by adopting a healthy lifestyle, you can cure your health, become happier, save the economy, save the animals, and save the environment. Wow! That's something to aim for, isn't it?

allergies?

Today as I rode my bike home from exercise class, the maple trees were raining seeds or whatever they are on me, the magnolias were flowering, flowers were blooming, trees were sprouting leaves.  It was spring at its peak.  See my biking blog for pictures.  It occurred to me that I can't remember the last time I sneezed!   I get a daily allergy forecast on email which tells me allergy levels and what it's due to.  I started subscribing a few years ago when I had seasonal allergies, before I became a crazy healthy vegan.  Right now, the pollen levels are high every day.  I have had not a symptom.  I guess I can unsubscribe to this allergy alert email!

An argument people put forth about why they don't want to eat healthy is that they want to enjoy life.  Well, maybe they should try eating healthy.   I'm totally enjoying not having allergies!

Side Benefits of Eating Healthy

1.  Clean up of dishes is easy when you don't cook with animal products or oil.   Doesn't even require soap.   This makes camping trips much easier.

2.  Without animal products, the kitchen and refrigerator are now cleaner than your toilet!  (meat and dairy and eggs are the biggest source of bacteria and viruses in your house by far).

3.  On a similar note, so you leave out your leftovers for a few hours, no big deal when it's all plant food, which makes it easier to travel with too.

4.  If you are feeling lazy, don't even bother to cook your vegetables, just call it a salad and congratulate yourself on your healthy raw meal.

5.  My arms look good in a tank top.   It's kind of fun for a 48 year old.

Well, so far this is kind of boring.  Hopefully I'll think of something else to add.