A Whole Foods and Plant Based Diet

So do you remember in my last post how I told you I just watched the documentary called Forks Over Knives? Well after watching it Scott and I had decided that we wanted to make a change in our diet.  First I must say that Scott and I try hard to eat healthy most of the time.  Our health is extremely important to us. Forks Over Knives shows you the facts about meat in our diets and how it is directly connected to a higher risk of heart disease, cancer and many other things.  It will really change your prospective on what you eat.

Scott and I love animals but have always been meat and dairy eaters.  We stuck to mostly chicken and fish because I am not a huge fan of red meat but don't get me wrong, a juicy fillet or lamb chop every once and a while did sound pretty good.  So making the change to a whole foods plant based diet aka a vegan diet was going to be a pretty big change for us. 

We just started this week! Yesterday to be exact. I love my veggies but Scott is pretty particular on his veggie intake.  Needles to say this is important to him so he is trying harder.  He even had udon noodle soup yesterday with tofu, seaweed and green onions!  I was super proud.

I bought 2 books that were recommended to help me get on the right track. I also made a menu of what we will be eating this week.  I still haven't figured out lunch for Scott yet so he is on his own in the city during lunch break.  He will either have to stick with soups or hunker down and order a salad :)

One of the perks to living in such a big city is that there are a lot of vegans and vegetarians so I was happily surprised when I was at the grocery store to find lots of things I could eat.

We have been good about eating oatmeal or cream of wheat made with Almond milk in the morning and for our first vegan dinner last night we had tostadas. I got the recipe from the book below and just made a couple of adjustments.  It was a delicious dinner followed by grahams and dark chocolate peanut butter (don't worry no dairy.)

Small corn tortillas baked in the oven until crispy
Refried beans
Spinach
Tomato
Avocado
Salsa

I started with 2 and then ate 2 more and some chips.

I eat a lot!

Here are the two books I bought.  Both so far have been very helpful. In the Becoming Vegan book it has a list of the most common questions that vegans are asked and the answers to respond! Very helpful!  And what I love about The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook is that it doesn't require any weird ingredents and all the recipes take around 15 mins to cook.  This is great since I like to only leave myself 30 mins to get dinner ready each night.

Because we are making a huge change in our diets we decided to easy into it and try our best.  Example, we are going to eat Mexican with some friends Friday night.  We may or may not have cheese on something :) We don't want to be difficult and we still want to enjoy going out to dinner with friends etc so we will continue to make the best decisions we can moving forward but not get too upset if there is a road bump.

This weeks dinner menu.
Tuesday- Creamy Spinach Fettuccine (made with silken tofu)
Wednesday- Polenta with Veggies
Thursday- Bowtie pasta with Bean sauce
Friday- Mexican dinner out
Saturday- Spicy Mongolian Noodles

For lunch today I am having a spinach and avocado salad with tempeh and tomatoes.

My workouts.
Yesterday I decided to do NOTHING!  It was great!
Today- Ran 8
Wed- 5-8
Thurs- 8
Friday- Xtrain
Sat 10-12

I am open to new recipes and ideas so if you have any good ones please share!!

XX
Sarah

PS Question: Where are you going to get your protein from???
      Answer:  Soyfoods, Whole Wheat Bread, White Bread, Oatmeal, Lentils, Soybeans, Black, Garbanzo, Kidney and Pinto Beans, and many many other whole food items that are in our new diet!

Oh and has anyone started their Christmas list yet??
I did... I really want a TREADMILL!!  Any recommendations on a good one? I managed to find a nice little spot in my apt where I can put it.

Jumping the Gun

It has been 15 days since I ran the NYC marathon and during this time I have been thinking a lot about what exactly went wrong.  I was positive that the Run Less Run Faster plan was going to help me reach my goal so I was pretty devastated when I came in far from it.  Also I don't want to forget to mention that during these 15 days I have been enjoying myself immensely.  My parents were just here visiting with my Grandma who has not been here since 1946!  We ate, ate, did some sight seeing and ate some more.  It was GREAT!!!

So let me break it down....  One- I chose to use the 3:40 speed work program and then use the 3:30 long distance program.  This was a mistake.  I needed to pick one time and stick with it.  Two- Even though I was using the faster 3:30 program for long distance I was running them even faster than what was given.  Mistake! Three- My arrogance! I thought I knew better than the Run Less Run Faster authors on what I could handle and what I was capable of doing therefore I became EXTREMELY burnt out.  By the time the race hit all I could think about was ugh!  Let's just get this dam race over.  I do not feel like running. Which resulted in a 4:06 marathon.

Now let me get to the point of the title to this post.  If you would like to see the effects of jumping the gun when the race starts... well here it is.  My splits.  As you can see after mile 1(which was uphill) I quickly jumped to a 7:22 pace.  Ahhh not 8:00 which was what I was aiming for. Miles 2-7 were all under 8. So by the time the 8th mile was over I was feeling way tired.  Then as you can see my splits were all over the place.  One of my weaknesses with running is keeping a consistent pace.  I am pretty terrible at it and should have focused more on that during my training.  I also felt like I was going up and down, up and down the entire race so I posted my elevation as well.  As you can see I don't climb a whole lot but it is up and down.  This added to my tiredness in the end.

What have I learned from all this....  STICK TO THE TRAINING PLAN.  

So to redeem myself and have a little fun I signed up for the GOOFY with my sister Jen!  I seriously cannot wait.  I don't even care about what time I am going for, all I want to do is run a fun race.  Enjoy the distance.  Enjoy the scenery and crowds.  Plus is will be so fun to have Jen run with me.  She is an expert when it comes to numbers and time so she will be the perfect pace partner.  Oh and I told her that she can wear her watch and I am not going to. (I may change my mind later tho. Ha!)

What have I been doing for exercise in the mean time?  Well I am back to 4 days a week.  Last week because my family was here I only got in 3 days but this week I am going for 4.

This is an example

Monday- 8

Tuesday- Xtrain

Wednesday - 6-8

Thursday - 8

Friday- Xtrain

Saturday - 10 (I will add 2 miles each Long run getting up to 18 miles two weeks before the race and then I will taper)

I plan to run up the bridge hard for strength and work up to running comfortably 7:45-8:00 miles. Right now I am around 8:20 because I am still recovering from my last race and I don't want to push it to hard.

So that's it! Long post but had a lot to explain!

Here is to Goofy or BUST!! (Ps I better not bust cuz I am seriously considering the RnR marathon in DC this March :) Who's with me?!

XX
Sarah

Oh and I just watched Forks Over Knives.  Post coming soon about my new diet plan. :)