(Forks Over Knives) - Week #1

We've made it more than a week now on this "plant-based" vegan diet, and it's going more or less well, although we've eaten few dinners that have been truly yummy. I've barely "cheated" - I did use about a tablespoon of cow's milk in my coffee yesterday when the rice milk was all gone, and I did eat some kind of a Kind granola bar that likely had some milk product in the chocolate drizzle. And while it's certainly not "cheating," I have been indulging in daily dark chocolate (no milk) and am currently addicted to the "no sulfur, no sugar added" dried mangos from Trader Joe's. I do indeed miss my daily iced lattes with 2% milk, so this week has been an experimentation in how to best get my caffeine. I have added more tea to my daily regimen, and have been somewhat satisfied by soy milk lattes or coconut milk mochas. At home I've been drinking the Toddy cold-pressed coffee with rice milk and honey. For breakfast I've been eating homemade granola from a recipe in the F/K book with rice or almond milk, or toast with peanut butter, or maybe steel cut oatmeal with blueberries. For lunch I've brought leftovers or eaten pita and veggies with hummus. For snacks I've eaten my go-to favorite, apple with peanut butter, or some nuts or dried fruit. For dinner we've made: whole wheat pasta with sweet potato sauce (a "mac and cheese" of sorts, which sucked); a BBQ bean cornbread dish (which mostly sucked); my dad made a bulgar wheat and veggie stiryfry (actually good); white bean spread with veggies and pita (bland spread, store-bought hummus is better); and my dad made a vegan cassoulet last night, which was decent. We recently watched the Engine 2 documentary on Netflix, which was informative in terms of actual meal ideas and how to grocery shop. This next week I think we might try to eat more Asian-style foods, which are naturally vegan, and try roasting some veggies on the new BBQ to make pizza.

As for the numbers - if I was a good data keeper, I would have kept track of our ratings for several weeks before starting the F/K, so we could better see what our general trends are. But anyway, here's a snapshot after Week #1.

Alex:
Energy Level = 7
Sleep Quality =  4
Exercise = 4
Time Management = 7
Adherence to F/K Plan = 9
Ease of F/K Plan = 5
Participation in Cooking = 6
Joy of Cooking = 5
Joy from Food = 2
Self Image = 1
"Life Snapshot" = 5

Comments: fat and bloated, aka "gassy as a mother fucker"; difficulty managing blood sugar; food isn't bad, but isn't good either; bored of talking about food too much

Jo:
Energy Level =  7
Sleep Quality =  7
Exercise = 7
Time Management = 7
Adherence to F/K Plan = 9.5
Ease of F/K Plan =  5
Participation in Cooking = 5
Joy of Cooking = 5
Joy from Food = 5
Self Image = 6
"Life Snapshot" =  7

Comments: I've been good about exercising this week; I have been able to employ some "mindfulness" in my parenthood this week; I appreciate having to think about what food I'm going to put in my body, and not feeling very tempted by what I'm not eating; I could be better about my sugar intake, but am not willing to sacrifice honey or agave or sugar in dried fruit at this point; I'm motivated to keep eating this way, even without any immediate results, if nothing other than just restructuring some of our eating habits at home