Weight: 179.0 lbs.

Exercise: Managed my son’s baseball team, pitching to their team for 4 innings.

Breakfast: Last bowl of Grape Nuts with almond milk.

AM Snack: Half a sweet potato topped with cheese sauce #2 and salsa roja (from Plant Purity).

Lunch: Reheated Aloo Palak (original recipe was Aloo Gobi from Happy Herbivore Abroad).

PM Snack: Two corn tortillas with cheese sauce #2 and salsa roja.

Dinner: Four sweet potato and black bean burritos (in corn tortillas) with cheese sauce #2 and salsa roja.

Synopsis: The report on Grape Nuts “new formula” is discouraging, but after checking Raley’s I noticed their formula had not changed and was void of Isolated Soy Protein. Hopefully this remains unchanged, as Raley’s had only 1 box of Nutty Nuggets, which I bought. Planning on transitioning back to oatmeal for my morning breakfast when I get to work.

Overall it was a good day eating, then again every day has been good since making the decision to stop eating meat, dairy and added oil in October, 2011. Meal planning the last few days hasn’t been too impressive, still eating reheated sweet potatoes. I didn’t have much time getting home from work to prepare dinner before having to leave for baseball. I did make some more cheese sauce #2. The great thing about this sauce is that it’s base is made with white beans and not nuts, while removes the fat! This cheese sauce also used roasted red bell pepper and nutritional yeast. Probably the best tasting non-nut sauce I have made yet. I also made a double batch of Julie Marie’s salsa roja. I did add a jalapeno pepper to the food processor and it kicked up the spice a notch.

I have seen a few comments on Facebook regarding “hacks” in order to lose weight. As I mentioned prior to starting this, weight loss was not my main goal. For others and their hack it might be, but I have been very happy weighing in at 178 pounds (+/- 2 lbs.) daily. With that said, my weight has been fairly consistent the past few days hovering around 179 lbs. If I were eating dinner earlier instead of later followed by going to bed I might see more weight loss.

For me this is more about resetting myself mentally. I had been too caught up in fancy recipes requiring those fatty plant foods that we are told to limit if we are at our desired weight or remove if we are trying to lose weight. I wanted to head back to the kitchen eating recipes without those fatty plant foods, of which nuts were probably the biggest culprit. This doesn’t mean I will be cutting out indefinitely, but for the remaining 14 days I will continue to focus on eating those non-fat plant foods and trying similar recipes.

I am coming up on my second week of not giving in to the desire to purchase beer. This is probably a better more health wise than eating the nuts and other fatty plant foods. During my last 3 blood tests in 2012, I continued to struggle with my triglyceride number, a number that I originally thought was because of the weight loss I was experience. When that weight loss slowed after 10 months, the number only dropped an addition 2 points in 4 months, which lead me to further investigation. In the end I fingered all the beer I drank as the reason why the triglycerides remained high. As a test, I stopped drinking my tall, cold ones about 30 days prior to my upcoming blood test and saw a drop of 40+ points on my triglycerides. I returned to my habit but limited myself to 1 beer on my days off (what do they say about moderation?), but that eventually led to more beer being consumed on all days of the week. Most of this I am responsible for, but will finger my wife’s health issues as a contributing factor, as the stress of the ongoing recovery and further health issues were unresolved and frustrating.

With 3 days off coming up I will be delving into cookbooks and searching plant-based web sites for some meals I can prepare. I have a strong start to my 20 day potato hack and believe it will only get better the longer I go towards my goal.