Quinoa with Pear, Grapes & Almonds

Basic Vegan Recipe: Quinoa with Pear, Grapes & Almonds

This recipe is so easy and delicious and can be an easy breakfast, lunch or snack. Mix cooked quinoa with diced pear, green grapes, sliced almonds (or other chopped nuts), and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, or even a little apple butter). This can be eaten immediately or can be taken as a to-go meal for later. Click here for a Printable Recipe.

Before and After...So Far

Before and After

Since today is the first day of a new year, January 1, 2014, I thought I would reflect on the progress that I have made since beginning my weight-loss journey. It has now been 11 months since I decided to tackle my weight and health issues head-on. Below you will see a few "before and after" comparison photographs to see where I currently am in my journey.

You can see not only reduced weight, but a more youthful appearance. Without the added burden of carrying around 40+ extra pounds, daily heartburn, major joint pain, and overall fatigue, I do feel younger. And I feel that I have more energy to put into the tasks of daily living. Thinking that I have several decades of "dragging that weight along with me" was more that I could bear. So I promised myself that during 2013 I would lose at least 40 pounds. I did have a few stipulations though. I wasn't willing to: be hungry, go to weekly meetings, count anything, not eat fresh foods (don't take away my potatoes), and have to exercise for an ungodly number of hours to burn fat. I have accomplished that goal and now am moving on toward more goals. Yesterday I registered to become certified in Plant-Based Nutrition. I have many goals related to accomplishing that one. I will blog about that it future posts. What I would like to say today is that becoming a plant-based (vegan) eater has been the best decision I have made in years. I only wished I had known the truth earlier (or that my doctors had). I will give you this advice: Don't count on your physician to know more about nutrition than you do (or that you can learn with a little bit of time and effort). They haven't been trained. They don't even know how little they don't know (which is a sad truth). And please don't count on your health insurance (or prescription meds) to help you solve the problems that only eating healthy can solve.
     My advice is summed up in this quote:

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." --Hippocrates 

     Let's have a happy and healthy 2014 (and many happy more years to follow)!

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Basic Vegan Breakfast #1: Raisin-Walnut Toast

This blog is about making plant-based eating easy for anyone who wants to give it a try. I am going to be posting some of the basic things that I eat throughout my "vegan days" (which are ALL of my days). So, here we are on January 1, 2014, and this is today's breakfast. As you can see, this breakfast looks good, is made in less than 5 minutes, and is really satisfying. You can have one or two slices of toast. If you don't have weight to lose, or if you are really hungry, smear some peanut butter on the toast instead of apple butter. Don't have bananas today? Substitute with any other fruit. Don't have fresh fruit? Thaw some frozen fruit (my favorite is frozen peaches). Microwave until thawed and add that to your toast. Click here for a printable recipe.