A Personal Best

Before I get to my good news, let me put it in context. I have never been athletic. Growing up, I tried almost every sport out there but nothing ever clicked for me and I was never any good.

As years past, being athletic seemed to matter less, which was fine by me.

I had my "Aha" moment in May 2010 -- made a number of changes nutritionally and started to exercise. It wasn’t until January 2011, however, that I started running. I ran often and, strangely, enjoyed it. I found myself competing with just myself -- trying each day to run longer or faster than the day previous. At my fastest, I had been running an 8:30 mile. I was proud of that.

This past December, Matt started to read about heart rate training and how it greatly assists endurance runners (he recently blogged about it here). He shared with me his learnings, along with his belief that this type of training would better prepare us for our first full marathon this September. I was in.

I started running with a monitor on Jan. 2. Two years of cardiovascular fitness under my belt and a whole-food, plant-based diet fueling my body, I was ready to rock-n-roll. What I quickly discovered was that my aerobic base wasn’t as strong as I had thought. For two years, I had been training in my anaerobic zone (versus aerobic), which meant my body had always been exceeding my target aerobic heart rate of 137. This meant I had to slow down my pace -- a lot -- to get in my aerobic zone.

This is when I needed to check my ego at the door because overnight I went from running an approximate 9:00 pace down to a 12:46 pace. It was humbling for sure, but I was determined to see it though (once something makes sense in my head, I’m in it for the long haul).

My wins since Jan. 2 have been small and few, but I keep running and steadily increasing my time. I try to run every day between 60-100 minutes, but at the very least I make sure to work in five runs per week each at a minimum of 60-minutes.

Today was my biggest win to date. I ran 5 miles in 57-minutes. That’s an 8-minute improvement since Jan. 2 when I ran 5 miles in 65-minutes. In just one month, my pace per mile has improved by 1:20.

While I’m happy with my progress so far, I recognize that running a 9:00 pace (or faster) at my target aerobic zone is going to take months. Still, today was absolute inspiration to keep pushing forward and running longer. I have a 2-hour run planned for next weekend.

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Plant-Empowered Breakfast or Brunch

Since Matt and I adopted a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle, nothing has changed (with the exception of what we put in our shopping cart). We still enjoy food and we love going out to eat. We have generally found that most restaurants accommodate our dietary preferences, particularly for lunch and dinner. Breakfast and brunch can be challenging since most dishes are egg- and milk-based.

We did find Lovin’ Oven, a quaint little restaurant in Frenchtown, NJ, that’s “vegan and vegetarian friendly,” and we frequent it on occasion. It’s a lovely 40-minute drive along the Delaware River. Once you get there, it’s impossible to not be completely drawn in by all the wonderful little shops that line the streets, including author of Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert’s store Two Buttons (in fact, Lovin’ Oven shares real estate with it).

When we don’t visit Frenchtown, we generally eat breakfast at home. The funny thing is when I did eat meat, breakfast was probably my most favorite meal to eat out -- so giving it up for the most part definitely took some getting used to.

While I still miss it at times, I’ve discovered that I really like whipping up vegan breakfast and brunch dishes at home. I also love that I control the ingredients -- sugar content, flour type, non-dairy versus dairy milk, whole grain bread versus that dreadful white stuff. Eating at home absolutely has its perks!

Tofu scrambles are Matt’s favorite and we have some fun by adding different ethnic flairs -- think Mexican, Mediterranean and Indian. Matt is so open to anything and everything that cooking for every meal is oftentimes one big creative experiment!

Dylan, Ryan and Sienna gravitate towards pancakes and french toast. And I am all too happy to accommodate. Two or three different meals at a time is very common for breakfast in our home.

What I’ve most enjoyed is watching our kids make the transition from sweetening their dishes with pure maple syrup to fresh fruit such as bananas and apples. I can’t wait until we’re into berry season.

If you’re looking to dazzle friends and family with a plant-empowered breakfast or brunch -- or just want to whip up something quick, easy and delicious for yourself -- I highly recommend the following recipes. Tried-and-true and absolutely loved!

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French Toast

Ingredients:

2-3 ripe bananas

3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (If you like cinnamon as much as we do, increase it!)

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon vanilla

Bread (We use Ezekiel Sprouted Whole Grain Bread)

Blend bananas, non-dairy milk, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla in blender or food processor and pour mixture into pie plate or wide dish. Gently dip bread slices into the mix, coating both sides (TIP: After I dip the bread, I use a knife to scrape off the excess mix on both sides of the bread). Fry in medium-hot skillet until golden brown (you can use a bit of nonstick spray to prevent sticking). Serve with pure maple syrup or fresh sliced fruit.

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes by Roberto Martin (Ellen & Portia’s chef)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)

1 cup quick oats

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup flour (We use Spelt)

2 bananas, chopped

Frozen blueberries (optional)

Nonstick spray

Blend non-dairy milk and oatmeal. Add baking powder, salt, flour and bananas. Blend until smooth. Let sit for about 10 minutes. Heat a pan or griddle and keep on very low heat. Spray the cooking surface, then measure about 1/4 cup batter per pancake. Drop in a few blueberries, if using. Cook about five minutes per side, flipping when air bubbles form. Serve with pure maple syrup or fresh fruit.

Tofu Scramble

I picked up this recipe from Oprah when she and her staff went vegan for a week. It’s super easy and sooo good.

For pretty much a solid year, I was anti-tofu. I didn’t want to try it or cook with it. It seemed too slimy. Once I got over my mental hang-up, I became hooked. The key is to drain the tofu really well. Tofu is a culinary chameleon. You can use it in almost any dish and it picks up perfectly the flavors and marinades of whatever it is you are cooking with.

Helpful hint: Cut the block into fours. Line a cutting board or large plate with several sheets of paper towel. Place the tofu blocks down and line several paper towels on top of the four blocks. Place a heavy cookie sheet (or two -- heavier the better) on top of the blocks and leave for about 10-15 minutes. It comes out soooo dry and ready to cook!

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1 sweet onion, cut into chunks

5 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/2 yellow or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 cup sliced mushrooms

4 Roma tomatoes , chopped

1lb. firm tofu , drained well and cut into bite-size pieces

Tamari to taste (We use Bragg’s Liquid Aminos)

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet and sauté the onion for 5 minutes, until softened.

Add the garlic, nutritional yeast and spices, stir and cook for 1 minute. Add the pepper and mushrooms, stir-frying until tender and crisp.

Add the tomatoes and tofu. Gently stir-fry for 3 to 4 minutes. Sprinkle with the tamari sauce and season with fresh pepper.

Calorie Counting vs. Calorie Conscience

My favorite guest blogger is back with a post about that one word that makes us all crazy -- calories! Without further ado, here's Matt ...

By now it’s no secret that Kellie and I eat a whole-food, plant-based diet. We’re also very conscious of not eating foods that are processed or that have added sugar. By eating this way there isn’t any need for us to count calories because the foods we eat are simply not high in calories. They are nutrient-dense, but not calorically-dense. 

As a result, we’re fond of saying that we don’t count calories. This is true. We are, however, very conscious of calories. What do I mean by that?  At the recent Democratic Convention, former President Bill Clinton used the phrase “It’s arithmetic” when discussing tax and spending. The same can be said of weight management, “It’s arithmetic!”

Simple math:

To lose 1lb., you need to expend 3500 more calories that you eat. If you wanted to lose 1 lb. every week, you’d have to consistently expend 500 calories more than you eat per day. Sounds simple, right? To accomplish this, you can either exercise so that you burn an additional 500 calories per day and not change your eating habits; or you can not exercise at all and eat 500 calories less per day than you normally would; or you can do a combination of both.

What does 500 calories look like? To burn that much in a day, you could:

• Walk briskly for 1hr., 30 min., or
• Walk leisurely for 2hrs., 30 min., or
• Run for 50 minutes

The exercise plan seems like the way to go because you can eat as you previously did as long as you add daily (yet significant) exercise to your life.

The biggest challenge for most people; however, is being conscious of the calories in and out. Many “overestimate” how many calories they burn during exercise and will eat more than they burned fairly soon after exercise -- sometimes because of increased appetite or as a reward.

Consider the following calories in some of our more common go-to foods:

• Two Dunkin Donut Donuts: 740 calories
• Dunkin Donut Bacon, Egg & Cheese on Bagel: 520 calories
• Dunkin Donut Chocolate Chip Muffin: 550 calories
• Big Mac and Large Fries: 1030 calories
• Chili’s Bacon Cheeseburger & Fries: 1330 calories
• Panera Sierra Turkey on Focaccia Bread: 920 calories
• Outback Alice Springs Chicken: 759 calories

And this is just an accounting of calories. We haven't even touched on sugar, fat, cholesterol, etc.

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to not just negate the positive effects of exercise, but to eat entirely more than you burned, which results in weight gain.

My point is that it takes a hell of a lot of effort and commitment to exercise, yet it’s so easy to eat something unhealthful that’s full of calories. All diets are predicated on calorie restriction to lose weight. Therefore, all diets can result in people losing weight. However, it’s proven that most people not only regain the weight they lost on fad diets, they actually gain more weight than when they started. Relying on willpower to restrict caloric intake is flawed. It’s asking A LOT to continually say NO. That’s why popular fad diets don’t work long-term.

Do you want to break out of the diet-regain-diet-regain cycle? Then you MUST change your approach to food. 

Eating a whole-food, plant-based diet is a great path forward. It’s a lifestyle change rather than a temporary diet, and by making it, you become a person who eats healthful foods -- fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans/legumes, good fats (seeds, nuts, avocado, et al) -- that optimize your health. You no longer have to test your willpower at every meal. You can’t eat overeat this way. That’s why this lifestyle is proven to help people lose weight, improve their health and reverse and prevent diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

Takeaways:

1. Exercise is important for being healthy, but it can’t be solely relied upon to lose weight.
2. Read ingredients and nutritional information when making your food selections: look for whole-food.
3. Consider making a lifestyle change so you’re not burdened by so many food choices each day. You’ve made your choice already! Now it’s simply a matter of making a great recipe.
4. Remember this simple fact: You need to run 50 minutes or walk 2 hours to burn off 500 calories of food.
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Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!

I subscribe to several health and wellness pages on Facebook, all of which advocate eating a diet rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

Oftentimes what’s more interesting to me than a topic a page author may cover are the comments that follow.

I’m always amazed by the resistance of many -- regardless of the scientific data presented -- to even consider the possibility that their current dietary lifestyle (i.e., the Western diet) may be the root cause of death and disease. One woman actually wrote, “I don’t care what the research says. I’d rather take my chances and go through chemotherapy than adopt a vegan diet.” (I’m willing to bet she’d reconsider if life actually handed her a cancer diagnosis.)

I also had a woman write me in response to my post Our Flexitarian Kids to say the conversation between our children was “disturbing” to her and that it struck her as odd that it made me feel good. Further, she described me as being “over the top.”

I found her last comment especially amusing considering Matt and I have only reduced our children’s intake of meat, dairy and processed food. Imagine what she’d think if they were full-on vegan -- our ultimate goal.

But I get it -- change is hard. For some, it’s downright scary. I also recognize that it’s very difficult for people to put aside everything they know and have been taught in favor of something new that may also seem radically different. To quote Gloria Steinam for the hundredth time, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn.”

As early as the 1960s, cigarettes were marketed on television and in print ads as cool, hip and refreshing. People bought into that, disregarding the mountains of scientific evidence that proved otherwise. Look how far we’ve come 50+ years later. Today you’d find it difficult to locate a smoking section in an outdoor amusement park!

People also like to hang on to those little anecdotes -- someone or something that validates their lifestyle.

Case in point -- recently, I had been reading comments on Food Inc. (great page to like on Facebook, by the way).The subject was sugar toxicity. The article shared research linking added sugar to obesity, Type II Diabetes, cancer, etc.

Many who commented suggested the research was wrong, citing as evidence a great-grandparent or grandparent who had lived to be in their 80s or 90s, having consumed pounds of butter, eggs, bacon and sugar.

This always grabs my attention because I hear it so often -- people defending something with an anecdote.

My grandmother lived to be 96. She smoked cigarettes until she was well into her late-50s. Based on that can we throw out the science linking Marlboros to lung cancer? Imagine the ridicule I'd face if I seriously suggested that in any sort of forum.

You can’t debunk decades of scientific evidence with one-off cases -- period. If we gave anecdotes any sort of credibility, we couldn’t rely on science for anything because every finding could be easily diminished by an exception.

Unfortunately, many of the people who comment in this way are generally not open to any sort of meaningful dialogue. I suspect, as I wrote up top, that fear of change is a driver, along with an unwillingness to reduce or eliminate the foods we have grown to love.

I comment regardless and my response is almost always the same, "Educate yourself. Start reading ingredients. Eliminate processed food. Adopt a whole-food approach to living. Start incorporating plant-based dishes into your weekly menu. Try it all for a month. What's a month! Your body will thank you and the results will be well worth what may seem today as a sacrifice."

1953 Arthur Godfrey Chesterfield Cigarette Milder Ad

NOW…Scientific Evidence on Effects of Smoking! A MEDICAL SPECIALIST is making regular monthly examinations of a group of people from various walks of life. Forty-five percent of this group has smoked Chesterfield for an average of over 10 years. After 10 months, the medical specialist reports that he observed… No adverse effects on the nose, throat and sinuses of the group from smoking Chesterfield.

MUCH MILDER CHESTERFIELD IS BEST FOR YOUR

90-Minute Runs and Lovin' It ... Seriously

I haven’t written a training blog in a while. So how’s it going? Great! I worked in a 90-minute run yesterday and then a 95-minute run today. I’m down seven pounds. Life is beautiful!

Running slower allows me to run more and run longer, which I love. The biggest challenge for me has been keeping my focus on staying in my heart-rate zone. My natural tendency is to push myself and run harder. So even though the treadmill is only going 5.3 MPH, I need to maintain a laser-like focus on adapting my form (gait/stride) to that pace.

But I'm doing it and I’m seeing progress.

I’m grateful to the treadmill because I think it would be so much more difficult to run the slower speed outdoors. I’m hoping that once the nicer weather arrives and I'm back on the pavement, I’ll instinctively know where my heart rate is at and can adjust easily without having to check my watch every 10 seconds.

One thing I have noticed is when I'm fully on with running, weight lifting takes a back seat.  I try to target 60-minute runs every day, though as I wrote up top I’ve been increasing that. As a result, I haven’t lifted. I need to strike a better balance.

My other observation is that heart rate training requires consistency. (Doesn’t everything?) For example, I didn’t run this past Saturday thru Monday. That translated into an even slower start pace on Tuesday -- dislike! All the more reason to make sure I stick to daily running, even if it means running in the evenings, which I hate (I’m a morning girl).

In terms of diet, Matt and l are still off sugar and loving the payoff -- weight loss and increased energy (case in point: 60-95 minute runs). Our kids continue to adapt too, with the exception of Dylan. If we can get him fully in our camp, that’ll be some win. We keep working him. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

What have your wins and challenges been since the New Year?

These days he's what I imagine

I look like on the treadmill!

Littlest Wok-n-Rollers

Today I returned to The Natural Gourmet Institute in Manhattan, this time with two of our children in tow (while I “rolled” with Sienna and Ryan, Matt and Dylan took in the Chelsea neighborhood).

The class, “Vegetarian Sushi for Kids,” was one with which I was familiar. Many of you may recall that Matt and I attended Vegan Sushi there in December. We enjoyed our class so much that we thought our two younger children would like it as well. We also saw it as an excellent opportunity for Ryan and Sienna to expand their “likes” a bit. We’ve read that children are more likely to try new foods if they prepare it themselves.

We had the same teacher -- a little vegan spitfire whose energy and enthusiasm are absolutely contagious. She bounces around the room (literally, she wears springs on her shoes) with such grace and speed. She’s excellent with kids too -- very hands-on, patient and encouraging. She comes with an extensive and highly impressive resume. Most noteworthy was beginning her career as one of just a handful of female sous chefs in Japan.

Ryan and Sienna took to the art of sushi making immediately -- and they were quite good. In fact, the teacher kept referring to Ryan as the “Sushi Monster” because he turned out rolls quickly and with great ease.

The kids made Spring Rolls with Edamame, Tomato, Red Cabbage, Scallion and Cilantro; as well as Sushi, Hand and Dragon Rolls with Avocado and Cucumber.

The books were right too because they tried everything and with the exception of the Spring Rolls enjoyed it all. They also begged me to let them make sushi at home this coming weekend.

Sienna gave the class her highest praise calling it, “More fun than school.”  In Sienna’s world, there isn’t anything better than the second grade. And when the teacher mentioned a cupcake decorating class in May/June, they both turned to me immediately and asked if I would take them.

I love that they have an interest in cooking and nutrition. As I shared in an earlier post, while they may not fully embrace the optimal dietary lifestyle today, they are well aware of what to eat, what to avoid and why. They read ingredients and nutritional information constantly. They are open to learning and, well … unlearning. They are on their way. I love that.

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Little sushi makers

Making the Hand Rolls

Rolling away

Ryan's works of art ...

and Sienna's

Yum!

Did I mention the Vegan Chocolate Mousse, courtesy

of our very talented teacher!

Buh-Bye Sugar!

I was absolutely wild this morning. I stepped on the scale and to my surprise I had lost seven pounds since Jan. 1. I knew I had a bit of weight to lose (clothes were tighter) but I never expected it to come off this quickly.

I was wild because I didn’t think I had been doing anything that significant to warrant it. I’m running a lot, but I’ve always worked out. In fact, I completed a 30-consecutive day workout streak in December and hadn’t lost a pound.

So what’s different, I wondered.

When it hit me -- the elimination of added sugar. Could Matt and I have really been consuming that much? He stepped on the scale on Monday and was down six pounds.

I guess we were.

I think most of you know of my love affair with Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Soy Latte.  I gave that up, so a calorie and sugar saver right there -- obvious.

Some, though, had not been so obvious, because when you really start looking for sugar, you find it in everything -- things we never even thought to check.

For example, Matt’s “PLAIN” soy yogurt -- lots of sugar. Our favorite tofu sushi roll we’d sometimes enjoy at Wegmans -- added sugar. Each of us had also been guilty of grabbing handfuls of Kashi cereal here and there as a snack. Once we began taking a hard look at sugar in ingredients, all of this had to go.

The other BIG guilty pleasure for us was bread. I make soup a lot during the winter. And every time I'd make it, I would also buy a loaf of Wegmans bakery organic multigrain baguette bread. Healthy, right? Not when you eat the whole thing in a day (a little bit as I cooked, a little bit when we ate and one, two, sometimes three walk by's after dinner -- we love our bread, I guess). Now if we want bread to accompany a meal, we turn to Ezekiel tortillas -- one each. (By the way, though one of the better breads from which to choose, the Wegmans multigrain baguette also has added sugar.)

Because neither of us was really 100 percent tuned in, our consumption of added sugar/processed food seemed little and insignificant. It obviously wasn’t.

Every bite we take matters.

How do we feel? More energetic than ever. We feel CLEAN! Our meals are still incredibly satisfying and we’re thriving fitness-wise. I also love that I’m thisclose to being comfortably back into that pair of pants I couldn’t get over my thighs on Thanksgiving morning.

The “moral” of today’s post?

Drastically reduce/eliminate added sugar and processed food. Start reading ingredients/nutritional info. Let THAT versus what the package promises determine what you put in your cart.


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