Nuts

I'm realizing this challenge is really about nuts.  All the other things on the list I am always happier doing without no matter what the situation, even if I tell myself differently beforehand.  But I've always had an exception for nuts because they are supposed to be healthy.  The problem is, they are kind of a "gateway drug" for me. They don't have the same drug-like effects and hangovers that sugar and flour do, but I have a hard time regulating their consumption, especially roasted peanuts and cashews.  But even the others:  pecans make me want dates (pecans and dates are just like pecan pie!), almond butter makes me want manna bread, raw cashews make me want grapes.  And all those combinations are very very hard for me to eat in moderation.  Plus after I fill up on this stuff, I get a stomach ache, and despite that, I want to continue to dopamine party so I often move on to the process foods with sugar, flour and oil and salt, and then I'm a goner.

I'm really curious to know if going without nuts will make me feel deprived.  Going a year without them will be a good test of this question!  Is life less enjoyable without them?  I'd like to find out.  Healthwise, I won't deprive myself of the following:  flax, chia, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.  So I will get all the healthy benefits--more actually--as nuts, if I feel I need them.

And the Challenge is back on, lol!

Well I still want to do this.  Like I said in my original post, I'm attracted by the idea of seeing what it's like to get through the variety of situations and holidays and seasons you encounter in a full year.  Here's the challenge again and why it's really not that hard.

1. no nuts.  They give me a stomach ache anyway.  I'd rather eat every other healthy foods than nuts:  beans, starches, veggies, and fruit.  Nuts don't taste all that great and they are high calorie and high fat and I tend to overeat them (which is a bit odd, since they don't taste that great, though the combo of fruit and nuts is tasty to me).   If I need some omega-3, I'll eat flax and chia seeds.  If I feel I need fat, I can add pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds.  
2. almost no added salt.  I'm not going to say no added salt because there are rare occasions when I will consume some.  For example, at UWL potlucks (UWL is Chef AJ's Ultimate Weight Loss program, which I'm following.  I wish it had a different name because I'm not trying to lose weight), sometimes people use small amounts of condiments in their recipes (e.g., mustard) that have salt in them.  And when I backpack in the desert, I might panic and think I need salt (I added 1/8 tsp per day on my Grand Canyon trip but I don't think I needed it).  So I will say:  no added salt most of the time, but occasionally (once a month or less) a few hundred mg is okay (about 1/8 tsp) in a day.  The reasons for very low salt are:  salt makes you overeat, it raises my blood pressure, and it masks the taste of food and my taste buds.
3. no animal products.  duh.
4. no wheat.  I don't know if it is a problem for me, but Chef AJ and Alan Goldhamer don't recommend it, so that's fine by me.  There are lots of good grains and pseudo grains that I can have instead.
5. no flour or sugar.  This was a hard one for me to say never to, because I realized I had this vegan exception:  I still entertained the notion that I would make exceptions at famous vegan restaurants or big veggie festivals or fancy vegan dinner parties when I just want to bond with my awesome vegan friends and the awesome vegan-ness of it all.  But I realized I'm just using communal vegan bonding as an excuse to eat sugar, flour, salt, and oil, and I called bullshit on that, haha.  Nice try though. So once I realized that, then actually, this is easy too. I avoid these most of the time anyway.  I have so many reasons not to eat these foods, mainly that they always come packaged with oil and salt, and the combination of all four of those things just makes me sick when I eat them.  Then when I combine that with chocolate and caffeine and alcohol, because I'm celebrating with my friends and I'll want dessert too, right?,  then I can't sleep and it just totally messes me up.  And then I have cravings for the next few days and want to go off plan again.  It's just not worth it.  Talk about wasting time feeling sick.
6. no chocolate or caffeine or alcohol.   They are drugs and they keep me from sleeping (I think chocolate is the worst for that), and I get a hangover even with small quantities, and again with the chocolate, it gives me a headache the next day.  I don't need any of that. 
7. supplements:  only vitamin B12, and nori sheets for iodine--I don't call that a supplement though, that's food.  Vitamin D is another controversy and I figure the only way to answer it for myself is to do the experiment on myself.  All the studies on vitamin D and nuts are done on people eating the Standard American Diet.  I don't think you can extrapolate to our diet.  So the only way to answer the question for myself is to not take it and see if there are consequences on my health and how I feel.  And I can get my blood tested though I don't know how meaningful the recommended levels are, or how effective supplementation is even if it raises your blood levels.
8. Oh, and since I am following Chef AJ's program, I will avoid foods with a calorie density more than about 700 calories per pound.  So I'll avoid avocados and dried fruit. I'll make an exception for dates that are blended into recipes, like AJ's red lentil chili or bean salad dressings.

Okay, the challenge starts tomorrow April 28.  I did say goodbye to nuts today by eating a few pecans and cashews and peanuts  (I only bought a small amount so I wouldn't overeat them!).  They were not that tasty, I'm glad to say.   Carrots and sugar snap peas are much more appealing to me.   Okay, now I'm looking forward to this.  It's just a fun thing to try.  If I change my mind, that's fine.  

The challenge is off

Wow, that challenge was a huge mistake for me.  I was doing perfectly fine before I did this challenge, eating healthy, following UWL.   I do have this notion that I want to go a whole year just to see what it's like to go through all the seasons and a myriad of social situations.  But I raised the bar too high I guess.  I totally went off plan today and I haven't done that in months.  I'm tempted to delete all these posts but maybe they are a good reminder to me and anyone else.  Just pick a plan, follow it the best you can, and don't raise the bar too high, that's my advice.

That challenge is totally stupid

I can't believe I set up that stupid challenge publicly.  I bet I don't even last a day.  Someone was just talking about peanut butter and I thought, shoot, I should have got some peanut butter before starting up this challenge!  why am I denying myself nuts?  and a little salt occasionally?  I'm setting myself up for failure.  oh well, so far I'm halfway through the day.  it's not hard, I just think it's doomed to failure.

My year-long "ironman" vegan challenge

I would like to try the experiment merging Dr. Goldhamer’s and Chef AJ’s diet and doing it for 1 year.  This is the most strict diet of all the plant-based diets.  It is like the ironman of vegan diets:  no oil, sugar, flour, salt, alcohol, chocolate, and no nuts and seeds either!  It’s essentially Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss program, which I currently follow, but she recommends full abstinence only from sugar, flour and alcohol (and probably chocolate), and leaves some wiggle room for the others.  Oh, and I'm not going to take any supplements either, besides vitamin B12 and some nori when I feel like it (for iodine).  I'm curious to see if I have any adverse effects from lack of supplemental vitamin D and all the others.

Why?  Well, when I eat this way, it’s actually super easy, surprisingly, and the food tastes good—my taste buds really sensitize and I taste so many flavors and sweetness in vegetables and fruit.  And my cravings disappear.  And I can eat as much as I want and my weight doesn’t increase, and if anything I lose weight.  And I can eat all the potatoes and sweet potatoes and squash as I want and those are my favorite foods. 

But what about the salt?  That is really extreme.  I mean, what if I’m at a WFPB potluck and the food is perfectly compliant except it has just a little bit of salt?  Well, it’s just a year.  If it’s too ridiculous, I can change my mind in a year and allow some salt.  What if I’m hiking all day in hot weather in the Grand Canyon or some other desert?  Well, I’ve done that twice and both times I only added about 1/8 tsp of salt each day, which is only about 300 mg.  My dehydrated food has celery and other vegetables and probably has plenty of sodium.  But I always bring salt for emergencies so can use it if I think I need it.

But why no nuts and seeds?  Well, sometimes I overeat them and get a stomach ache.  And I’m curious to see if I can get all those omega-3 fatty acids I need with just my veggies.  I guess I can’t help thinking that all those long-lived healthy blue zone societies didn’t have ready access to daily flax or chia seeds, so maybe I don’t need them either.

I’m curious if life is easier or harder under these rules.  And I’m curious to go a whole year, through all the seasons and special events and to see if there is ever a good reason to eat this stuff.  I’d get a good idea after a year.

What are my chances of success?  Well, I think it’s higher than my chances of completing a real ironman.  But…I don’t have a lot of confidence I can do this.  Hardly any.  The salt is going to be the biggest challenge--it means I will have to say no to a lot of people who offer me food.  But I do love a challenge.  And I’ve always wanted to do an ironman.  So this is my version of an ironman.

When should I start?  I guess I’ll start tomorrow, April 19, 2017.

I know, this is crazy. I shouldn’t even post this.  But here goes…

My Grand Canyon Backpacking Trip was Fantastic!

The title says it all but here are some pictures too.  Everything turned out really well.  It was a geology "class" with the Grand Canyon Field Institute, led by 2 guides and with 8 students.  I prepared my food as described in my previous post.  I had two 16-oz water bottles that I filled with my dehydrated food (75 g each, or about 2.5 oz) and water.  I did this after each meal and then started snacking on the first bottle an hour or two later.  I snacked on the bottles and on my seed mixture (hemp, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin and a touch of salt) all day long.  I probably ate at most 1/8 tsp of salt in a day from the seeds, but I put so little salt on the entire bag I think it was quite a bit less.  So I think most of my salt just came from the natural foods, proving that you don't need to add much, if any salt, even in the desert. Our main guide told us at the beginning that we should eat lots of junk food and salty foods. One of the other students said she wasn't used to all the salt she was eating and I wonder if that's why she had swollen feet during most of the trip.   Everyone else ate those packaged backpacking meals where you boil water and then add it to a foil package.  They generated so much garbage that they had to pack out.  I didn't!  Also their food didn't look appetizing.  They made fun of me but I'm sure my food tasted better than anyone else's.  It was sweet thanks to the butternut squash and sweet potatoes.  And it was cool and refreshing with all the water that was added to it.  And I didn't have to carry the extra weight of a stove.  It was brilliant if I do say so myself.

And the trip was great and I was in great shape and had no trouble.  I was so relieved because I was nervous about how I would do.  I practically bounded up the canyon on the last day, in my excitement to reunite with my partner at the top.  I'd love to do this again and be more relaxed instead of nervous about whether I'd packed the right things and how my food would turn out and how I would do physically.  Here are some pictures:

Heading down from the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail:

Relaxing at Cottonwood Campground on the first night:

The amazing Ribbon Falls, a sacred site for the Zuni Indians.

 Heading into the box Canyon as we approach Phantom Ranch at the bottom.

The mighty Colorado River, where I took a bath

It was cold!

 

Hiking out on Day 4.  We had an awesome hike on Day 3.

Our guide's favorite rock in the entire Grand Canyon:

Our campground on Day 4, the last night.  We huddled around the tree after the first rainstorm, then had another huge one that led to beautiful waterfalls off the Redwall cliffs and a flash flood very close to our campsite!

The start of thunderstorm #2, right when my camera battery died.

Using Dehydrated Food for Travel

I've used this in a number of ways:  1) for backpacking 2) when visiting friends celebrating a graduation where I didn't have control of the food, didn't have a car, and didn't want to be a bother--it was so much better eating my food than trying to make their food work for me, 3) to visit my family in a similar situation--though there I could have gone to the grocery store and used their kitchen but this was still easier.  In all cases, the dehydrated food was perfect:  I made my meals easily and I ate them while others ate their food, whether on the trail, at their homes or in restaurants.  Here's how I do it:

I order a bunch of food from Harmony House.  I'm sure there are other places too, this is just the first place I found.  I started with their Backpacking kit, and then over time learned which foods I like better than others.   Here is what my current supply looks like.   My starches:

These are peas, butternut squash, sweet potato, and sweet corn.  The corn is somewhat crunchy even after rehydration.  Note I don't have potatoes here.  I don't find the dehydrated potatoes to be very tasty, though I suppose I could give it another try.

Beans:

Here I have pinto, black, lentils, kidney, split peas, northern and garbanzos.

Veggies:

Broccoli, cabbage, onion, spinach, celery, and "vegetable soup" which is a mixture of carrots, bell peppers, onion, and other stuff like that, all veggies.

I combine them into a big bowl with 1 part (by weight or measuring cup, doesn't matter) starches, 1 part beans, 1 part veggies.  I just pick at random what I want from the 3 categories, or add some of all in. It doesn't matter much really, just make sure you have enough sweet potatoes and butternut squash because they make it taste really good.  

Now, how much is a serving?  For backpacking I wanted to make sure I'm getting enough calories, so I looked at the nutritional information for all these different dehydrated items.  It turns out it's very similar for all of them, from starches to beans to veggies.  Why?  because all the water is gone.  Veggies are mostly water and that's why they are low calorie.  When you take out the water, they have a similar calorie density to dehydrated beans.  Interesting, huh?  So it turns out they are all about 3-4 calories/gram.  150 grams then gives about 525 calories.  Or if you prefer ounces, it's about 100 calories per ounce of dried food.  So if you want 500 calories per meal, that's 5 oz by weight per meal.  

For my first backpacking trip, I put each meal in a small ziplock back and then packed those in a larger one.  I decided that was wasteful, so now I just put all the food into large ziplock bags. 

To rehydrate, add about 3 times as much water.  You can use heat or not.  If you use heat, bring it to a boil it and it will be ready in 10-15 minutes (I'd let it sit another 15 minutes after that).  If you don't use heat, you can let it soak for 1-24 hours. I prefer at least 2 hours--I think it digests better the longer it soaks. Here is how I usually do it, whether backpacking or day hiking or flying somewhere:  I put about 75-90 g of food into into each of two 16 oz wide mouth bottles and fill them to the top with water.  I've put a mark on the bottle to fill the food so if I don't have a scale, I don't really need it, just fill to the mark and add water.   I use a long tea spoon and eat right out of the bottle.  It is so refreshing when backpacking because of all the liquid.  I don't get dehydrated and thirsty like my companions eating dried fruit and salty snacks.
 This is a very filling meal and it tastes surprisingly good--the reason is that the squash and sweet potatoes make it taste sweet.  So these are key ingredients you don't want to leave out.  And of course you can change the ratio of veggies to starch to beans to whatever you want.  You can of course supplement your meal with any fresh fruit or veggies you can get your hands on, and also nuts and seeds and dried fruit if you eat that.