A plant-based diet...the vegan thing

I met with Chris Brown on Saturday morning for 3 hours...she was a wealth of information. I have been, since speaking on the phone with her about 3+ weeks ago, pretty much trying to do the vegan thing...and I've been pretty successful (with the exception of Italia), having given up meat, fowl, fish, and all dairy, trying to eat green, green, green, working on eating all totally plant based foods. I was able to "get through it", suddenly not having butter on veggies, having a milk substitute on my totally unsweetened oatmeal...it's been pretty sparse, but I did it, though food was tasting bland and boring, no longer a comfort and a joy.

Meeting with Chris totally opened my eyes to the incredible variety of plant based foods available. I was in Burlington, VT over the weekend and we shopped at an incredible store called "Healthy Living" (although, apparently the locals call it "Wealthy Living", since your wallet is pretty much emptied by the time you walk out the door, with very few bags, but a hefty receipt); and started shopping for some of the things that Chris recommended. Today, I continued at Whole Foods, this time with a list put together from her suggestions and recipes. Peg and I were there for two hours, locating things we'd never heard of and didn't really even know their category...it was kind of like shopping when you've moved into your first apartment--starting from scratch. Got home and started cleaning out the cabinets, which I'd done a few weeks ago, giving away and tossing some stuff, but now I'm serious. Pretty much everything that is not vegan, plant based, healthy....is gone. My kitchen is pretty much a disaster at the moment, but this too shall pass.

The diet that Chris suggested for me is vegan--totally plant based, but also based on the fact that I have kidney cancer, so may not necessarily make sense to you if you don't have that culprit in your life. I am totally on board with her recommendations and am off and running. A few of her suggestions: flaxseed oil and flaxseeds every day, at least one brazil nut every day, miso soup or tea every day, greens at every meal, including breakfast, trying to balance alkaline and acidic, leaning much more heavily toward the alkaline, no peanut butter, no raw mushrooms or raw broccoli...those are just a few of her recommendations. It will be a bit of a challenge to incorporate all of these, but this is the route I'm going to follow. Chris showed me enough variety to make it interesting and delicious and therefore, sustainable...

It feels a bit daunting and I can't help but wonder if it's too late to make all of these changes...but I'm going for it anyway. It feels pretty weird that through the years, so many times I've tried different diets, mostly for weight control, and haven't really been able to be successful, just haven't have the stamina, the commitment, the perseverence to make it work...and have failed most times, to meet my goal. This time...it just feels different--almost as if I've "flipped a switch" and will be able to do this without a lot of fuss. Weight control seems unimportant now, life is taking me down a road that I'd rather not travel...it feels that making this change in my lifestyle is not really a choice, but a change that may prolong my life...a worthwhile endeavor for me to undertake. Wish me luck...