However, I have almost immediately encountered the annoyance I always have with healthier approaches to food - when surviving on veggies, fruit and whole grains, it takes so much dang food to make up my minimum calorie allowance that I find I can't eat everything I am supposed to eat in a day. Starving myself won't help matters, so, as has happened in the past, I find myself cramming food in my mouth at bedtime and spending a few hours a day trying to figure out how to balance everything day-long without come up wanting. I also spend much more time in the grocery store reading labels, which tries Dan's patience when he is kind enough to accompany me to the store.
Of course, the one thing I still need to remedy is sodium intake; sodium lurks everywhere - which I will eventually do by replacing some of my favorite packaged foods with home-made, but I figure I can take it one step at a time. I just had to complain about it.
And here, as homage to diet as it was, are pictures of our Thanksgiving feast sans the from-scratch pumpkin and pecan pies Dan made. I was very pleased with the food, overall, and I was even better pleased with the company. Among other things, I was very glad of all the help I had from Heather when it came to making the food and from Jeff and Daniel when it came time for clean-up!
Pictured are the turkey with vegetables and stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries, creamed corn from my Grandfather's recipe, mashed red potatoes, sweet potato casserole with pecan topping, gravy, Dan's freshly canned hot pepper relish, Boston canned brown bread and yeast rolls (and the butter and wine, of course).
6 comments:
At least Dan is supportive of eating what you eat. I have promised 4- bean salad and pumpkin pie bars (made with silken tofu, not custard) for our patronal dinner Dec.7, and I'm waiting to hear someone roar, "Nobody wants to eat that!" because HE doesn't want to eat that.
The girls say,'we outvote you 4 to 1' in these situations. ;)
PS I have no problem with sharing recipes, if you would like them.
Funny, I remember those days. Of feeling hungry when I'd gone "healthy". But it's not like that any more and I'm not sure why. One theory I've always had is that if we eat enough fat in our meal it satiates. Also, raw vegetables. But honestly, those are just theories. All I know is I never eat after 8:00 now, and I never even want to.
Best wishes as you wade through the questions and the strategies. :)
Today was our patronal dinner....and the bean salad nearly disappeared. (I stretched it with tricolor rotelle pasta.) No gripes, Bob ate it, and our choir director wants the recipes. There were too many desserts, or the pumpkin pie bars would have walked out too. :)
Susan,
I am so glad your goodies were a success. The more-or-less vegan cooking challenges that fasts present definitely make the creation of the perfect food to share a bit more of an adventure.
L.L.,
I guess the bottom line is that change always requires some adjustment, hmm? The funny thing is that whether or not I expressed it well, my problem is the opposite of the one you described: reaching the end of the day I am full and have been full and I have only had 3/4 of the target calories. When a serving of veggies offers a whopping 20-40 calories, it takes a lot of servings to get to 2000. I guess healthy food is the antithesis of the "empty calories" of so much of the junk we are offered, so it only makes sense to me! I am enjoying raw veggies and plenty of fats... so perhaps that's why I have been spared the hungry phase. :)
When I was on a no dairy, no wheat, no egg, no nut, no soy, no tomato, and no citrus diet, I experienced the same problem. I was always hungry! Your diet does not sound fun, but it does sound doable and quite healthy. Try making mejadra, mmmmmm! Good luck!
All that Thanksgiving food looks wonderful! Glad you had a good time.
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