Thriving on Greens

Well, it looks like it's been a while since anyone has posted! Seems like I have the floor to myself, so I'm going to do a shameless plug for a project that Marilyn and I are working on. We want to help as many people start eating a plant based diet as possible! So we're building a website that will have meal plans, shopping lists, fun nutritional articles, and anything motivating people to go vegan! Until the website is up, our platform is on Instagram, Facebook, and Medium. If you or anyone you know wants to go vegan but doesn't quite know how, check out Thriving On Greens. We are tailor making this for plant based beginners!

Here are some links to our instagram and facebook. I also attached some articles that we've posted to Medium about the following:

Living in a van as a vegan
How vegans get their protein
How I became Vic the Vegan Loser
Why you shouldn't blame yourself for your crappy eating habits

Enjoy!

https://www.instagram.com/thriving.on.greens/

https://www.facebook.com/thriving.on.greens/

   

https://medium.com/@greenthrivers/what-living-in-a-van-in-mexico-can-teach-you-about-being-vegan-its-possible-493ee7bfa7cf

https://medium.com/@greenthrivers/but-how-do-you-get-your-protein-7e2472f5f50d

https://medium.com/@greenthrivers/vic-the-vegan-loser-af530f8e7e15

https://medium.com/@greenthrivers/why-you-shouldnt-blame-yourself-for-your-crappy-eating-habits-b763ec9cef80

{ WHOLE FOODS and GLUTEN FREE }

Back in April, I finally made the commitment to myself to start eating (even) better, to get back on track exercising, and to lose all of my leftover baby weight. Inspired by my sisters, I made a checklist and set some goals. What it turned into for me was eating a primarily whole foods diet, avoiding processed foods, including processed grains (whole wheat bread, etc.), added oils, and sugar. I realized after a few weeks of doing this that it also meant my diet was essentially gluten free. (I did eat some wheat berries in a salad and for breakfast once.)

I've had so many people say it's close to impossible to eat vegan and gluten free. Now I can say I've done it, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. (And I've lost 20 lbs and have almost met my end goals.)

At the beginning, I took some pictures of some of the fun meal conversions I did to replace processed grains with whole foods. I thought I'd share:
Mike found me a great deal on a spiral cutter. I made a lot of zucchini noodles.

When my family had roasted garlic brocolli pizza, I had all the toppings with zucchini noodles. Delicious!!

Beanburgers with all the fixings on lettuce. Amazing!

I replaced the noodles in this frog-eye salad with millet. So good!

This zucchini lasagna was out of this world! I actually liked it better than with whole wheat lasagna noodles. I sliced the zucchini ahead of time and salted it to make it sweat. Then rinsed and dried, so it didn't turn to mush in the lasagna. Loved it! (It's this recipe, with tofu ricotta instead of the tofu and toffuti cream cheese.)

This was one of my very favorites: barbecue pizza toppings over brown rice.

Alfredo and peas over zucchini noodles.

When my family had pancakes, hashbrowns, and field roast sausage, I subbed in pan seared mushrooms.

My portion of mac and cheez had cauliflower instead of whole wheat noodles.

I stopped taking pictures after the first few weeks, but I've had a lot of fun getting creative with my whole foods.

Here are some other recipes that work great:

• basil pasta sauce over brocolli and/or cauliflower
• sloppy jo lettuce wraps
• mango salsa over hashbrowns instead of corn waffles

I've learned not only is it possible to be vegan and gluten free, but I actually enjoy more variety than before. I guess my point is, if you're scared of a vegan diet because you also have a gluten intolerance (or soy, or really any other food), it's possible and can be fun to get what you need eating a whole foods, plant based diet.

{A VEGAN THANKSGIVING}

When people find out we're vegan, they often ask, "What do you eat for Thanksgiving?"  Our answer:  "Everything!"

My girls and I are at Marian's.  (Mike has Dental Boards on Saturday; we left him this week so he could study in peace.)   This was our menu:

Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Stuffing
Carrots
Peas
Candied Yams
Rolls
Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry Jello
Wassail
Apple Pie with Coconut Cream
Cheesecake with Blueberry Sauce

Here's the Spread:

And here's my plate:

Everything was delicious!  And I absolutely love eating a Thanksgiving Feast and not feeling that rock-in-my-stomach fullness afterward!

{MAXIMUM WEIGHT LOSS AND OTHER MCDOUGALL RECIPES}

I was so excited to find these links! Dr. McDougall has great articles and recipes, but his website is not very user friendly (in my opinion). These are links to clickable lists of his Maximum Weight Loss recipes and one for his normal vegan recipes that he sends out with his newsletters. I don't know if the lists are all inclusive so you may still be able to find more recipes on his website, but there are tons on here and it's so much more convenient. I think I'll be using them a lot more now!

McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss recipes

McDougall's normal vegan recipes

*You can read about McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss program here. It's a strict plan to make the pounds come off fast and to get to your optimal weight goal.

PCRM 21-Day Vegan Kickstart Program: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 21-Day Vegan Kickstart

This looks like a fun program to try whether you are already vegan and just looking for new recipes and ideas to get excited about what you're doing, or if you are wanting to try something new to improve your health. It starts September 8th but you can sign up now. I like the PCRM site (www.pcrm.org) and they have a lot of good information, but keep in mind that they do get pretty political on some stuff, so if that bothers you just ignore it!

PCRM 21-Day Vegan Kickstart Program: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 21-Day Vegan Kickstart

Shared via AddThis