Snow Fun & Karlito’s Sweet n’ Salty Cereal Snack Mix

We got a lot of snow in Kansas City last Wednesday, and I had a blast playing with my dogs while the snow was still coming down and it was so bright that it was nearly daylight. Me and Mikey the Wonder Dog had a snowball fight … I won. He can’t make snowballs for beans! Then we played chase … He won. I can’t run and chase for beans! Then I made a snow angel. I haven’t made a snow angel in thirty years at least. I hesitated at the thought and then I just went for it! I dropped down into the snow and I was 10 years old again! Fantastic! Mikey the Wonder Dog jumped on my head!

It's amazing the difference in my ability to shovel, workout and play since I've been eating a plant-based diet and getting regular workouts. I enjoyed shoveling the drive as my workout on both Wednesday and Thursday. The air was crisp, the snow was pretty light, and it felt great to be outdoors. I shoveled the drive, the walks and the patio and still wasn't ready to go indoors, hence the doggy play.

On Thursday I got another snow day, and after shoveling again, I curled up on my chair, snuggled under a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate and watched Amelie, a movie that’s charming and beautiful. If you live near me, I'll gladly loan you my copy.

And my movie snack? Karlito’s Sweet n’ Salty Cereal Snack Mix! I cop to the fact that Karlito’s recipe is different, but mine is a gluten free version and totally delicious! Here’s the recipe: 3c Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise cereal, 3c Nature’s Path WholeO’s, 1c-1½c salted peanuts, mixed together and sprinkled with stevia to sweeten to taste. I mix and store it in a plastic bag and 1c = 1 serving. Yum! The Mesa Sunrise is a multi-grain flake-style cereal with corn, amaranth, quinoa, flax and buckwheat. WholeO's are a brown rice and corn Cheerio-style cereal that's gluten free. You can use flake and O-style cereals of your choice.

Switching gears: Sad that the Bears didn’t pulverize the Packers, but as the old Chicago saying goes, “There’s always next year!” I joined a group at Tower Tavern to watch the action and totally forgot (Absolut will do that to you!) that pita bread is definitely not gluten free and ate some of that along with, not dairy free, artichoke dip. What can I say? The trauma of the 1^st half took over!

Go Blackhawks!!!

Monday Morning Ramblings

A gluten free vegan journey is a different trip. I’m not sure what to call this blog since I still occasionally eat seafood. It’s not vegan, although my intent is still to eat a vegan diet. So, I’m leaving the name and working through the confusion and difficulties that surround food choices. That’s the purpose of my blog; to work through the challenges publicly in support of anyone trying to improve their health, animals’ lives and the health of the planet.

The conversion to gluten free is one of those challenges. The reduction in allowable foods has left me with little variety although I recall feeling the same way when I quit eating meat, dairy and eggs. My goal is to follow through on making new recipes each week.

I rarely ate potatoes and now they are a staple making their appearance on my plate at least twice a day. Saturday I made a pot of blackeyed pea soup in my slow cooker and I decided to throw in a few whole russets to let them cook along with the soup. They were delicious! I’ve eaten all four (they were small) topped with a teaspoon of Earth Balance and coarse ground salt and pepper. Yum!

Another favorite that I can still enjoy is my morning smoothie. Combine a half to three-quarters of a cup of cranberry juice with one peeled and quartered orange, two frozen peach slices, three or four frozen strawberries, a couple of chunks of frozen bananas and a small handful of frozen blueberries. After you make it a couple of times you’ll know exactly what quantity works best for the thickness you desire and for the strength of your blender.

If you’re trying the new Weight Watchers Points program, the only thing you have to count is the juice. Use light cranberry juice for very low points!

The smoothie is easy to change depending on what you have available. When I have fresh spinach on hand I like to throw a handful in, and often throw in a few carrots. You don’t taste the spinach or carrots at all. If you have kids who resist healthy eating, make them a green shake, put on a Shrek video and tell them it’s all Shrek will drink for breakfast! A healthy way to start their day!

This weekend friends and I went to JC Wyatt’s in Saint Joseph, Missouri for dinner. The restaurant is owned by two guys from New York, Jim (front of the house) and Jeff (chef), who go out of their way to please. This place is magnificent! It is a restored Victorian home that’s so beautiful it takes your breath away. I gazed at the ceilings all night. Jim created wonderful designs out of period-correct wallpaper.

We had an email discussion relating to diet a few weeks before our reservation, but since the addition of the gluten free happened rather quickly I decided to have the maple glazed salmon rather than ask them to prepare a gluten free vegan meal at the last minute. The food was divine!

The table is asked to limit their choices to two entrées from their menu of the day. They keep it small so that everything is prepared to perfection. The entrée price includes a first course, (ours was a choice of soup or salad), dessert, iced tea and coffee. You are welcome to bring in your own wine or beer. It is so worth the drive to St. Joe’s!

Since we have plenty of snow on the ground, I am going to forgo the gym and workout by shoveling snow. I love shoveling snow when I don’t have to do it right away to get to work. I can pick the time and enjoy the beauty of nature while working up a sweat! Even snow haters have to admit that the first day of a snowfall is beautiful.

Am I? Hungry? Really?

One of the instructions in the Mission Biggest Weight Loss Challenge plan is to rate your hunger on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being “empty” and 10 being, “take me to the hospital and have my stomach pumped” (not really, but you get my drift). We were given a list of factors that make you hungry, one of which is: Defending your set point. Several years ago there was a diet philosophy that centered on a person having a weight set point; a weight that your body naturally gravitates to, and that’s what I thought the Challenge information was referring to. It well might be, but yesterday I discovered that it meant something entirely different to me.

I was struggling with the amount of food I had eaten, rather than whether or not I was hungry. I ate a good breakfast at 8:00 (satisfied), and at 1:30 I had a small salad with hummus on the side (not satisfied), then ate a Larabar at 3:00 (satisfied). At 3:45 I went to the rec center and swam for 40 minutes, stretched out in the steam room for about five, then headed to the showers. Walking to my car at 5:10 I was hungry and decided to have a leftover baked potato at home.

Driving home I got to thinking about whether or not I was actually hungry, much less starving, and I discovered that physically I wasn’t hungry, but mentally I was famished. I fought it for awhile, but gave in and ate a handful of roasted butternut squash seeds and a small bowl of brown rice. It was this morning that I realized I do have a set point and it has to do with volume and density, not weight or hunger. There is a certain volume/density of food that is a subconscious need rather than a physical one.

So even if gluten isn’t an issue for me this test has been enormously beneficial. The absence of dense volume has brought me a new level of awareness and is responsible for the set point epiphany. I can look at my hunger with new eyes and when it’s volume/density related deal with it differently. That might not alleviate the feeling that something is missing, but it gives me an opportunity to discover what is actually physically necessary.

I wonder if the lower density of the food is why a lot of people who have grown up with a predictable food volume/density at meals and snacks feel deprived when eating healthy, lower calorie foods.

This brings me to another factor relating to my volume/density set point and that’s my sense of the volume of food that will prevent future hunger. I often eat based on when I think I’ll eat again. As an example, one of the factors in eating the seeds and rice last night was that I was going to go out and walk my dogs. Ummmm … Okay. What’s that about? Was I going to pass out from lack of food in the next hour? I don’t think so. Remember, I wasn't even physically hungry!

I can’t imagine many situations when I wouldn’t be able to find something to eat in a timely manner. I’ve never been so broke that I didn’t have food (thank you, universe!) and it’s not like I live in the middle of nowhere and find my cupboards bare on a regular basis with the nearest convenience store twenty miles down a lonely country road; Awareness.

Redefining hunger is going to be enormously helpful to me. Gaining insight into an issue gives me information to change it. Recognizing the absence of density is another piece of information on the journey.