Wednesday, August 24, 2011

"New Shit has Come to Light..."

Sorry, I can't stop thinking about that quote from The Big Lebowski and laughing every time I learn something new about this stuff!

I read a little more about the banned foods list, and it turns out that MAYBE the veggies on the list aren't quite so bad when they are cooked! The thing that interferes with the thyroid is called a GOITERGEN, and those are probably destroyed when the veggies are cooked. So I guess I can still eat corn (who eats raw corn anyway?) and spinach, broccoli, sweet potatoes and cauliflower in moderation (I don't "need" those as much as corn... haha.)

I also re-read the intro to Appetite for Reduction and realized I had forgotten that Isa (the author) has hypothyroidism too! I definitely wonder if she knows about goitergens, though, since so many of her recipes contain those foods. :-\ I also wonder if I'm being INSANE about this, or if modern medicine has really just convinced us that it's okay to be on pills and eat whatever we want.

After work yesterday, I stopped at The Good Life Market in Dormont, which is on my way home, but I honestly haven't been in there much. I just knew that they had Daiya and wanted to pick some up. I ended up buying WAY more than I had planned to (but I got a free gift bag full of samples!) Here's some new stuff I got:

A huge container of coconut oil, which I think is a good step in the right direction. It was painfully expensive ($24!) but I like the idea of medium chain triglycerides. You can go here to read more about it, because it would take me forever to explain, and you probably don't care that much! Most importantly, I used it to sautee the veggies for some curried corn chowder last night, and the subtle coconut flavor worked SO well (especially since I didn't have coconut milk and had to use almond!)


I also FINALLY broke down and bought some stevia (it was $14... ugggh!) Stevia is basically what Splenda pretends to be. It's an all natural sweetener made from leaves that has a "negligible effect on blood glucose." Awesome! I had it in some tea I got in the sample pack as well as my morning coffee, and I am definitely impressed.


I also got some arrowroot and Daiya, and I decided that I can make my life a lot easier by doing most of our shopping at The Good Life Market and the Shop n Save that's a block away from our house instead of trying to trek over to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's every week or two. Now that I'm not eating tons of fake meats, I can get pretty much everything I need at a regular grocery store, which is a huge plus!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Operation Soy-Free Vegan!

Well I finally fell off the wagon. Over the past week, I have eaten a ton of cheese and other assorted garbage foods. I honestly felt my sanity starting to slip away when I discovered the huge list of foods that interfere with thyroid hormone production:

Soy (this includes tofu as well as processed soy like Tofurky and Earth Balance)
Cabbage
Mustard
Horseradish
Wasabi
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Kale
Peanuts
Corn (UGH!!)
Peaches
Strawberries
Flax
Sweet Potatoes
Spinach

Since SO many things I had started eating since going vegan were on that list, I panicked. I no longer knew what was good for me. I didn't know WHAT TO EAT. So I gave up and regressed to my former unhealthy lifestyle for a week, and let me tell you- it feels HORRIBLE. I have had energy, but that's probably because I cut out the soy, which I think was having a huuuge effect on me, and have now been on thyroid medication for 7 weeks. However, I have pretty much had a constant stomach ache, which I know is from eating crap. I have also had a near-migraine level headache for 48 hours straight.

So today is the day that I pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on with what I originally intended to do for myself. So my list of things I can eat is a little shorter now... so what? I will survive, and I love food enough that I should be able to survive happily! I keep telling myself, "It could be so much worse- at least it's not a true ALLERGY! Just imagine if you couldn't even go NEAR peanuts!"

Operation soy-free vegan starts (officially!) today! I think my healthiest choices are yet to come, since I can't use the fake soy meats crutch anymore. :)

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Inspiration and Explanation

I just realized that I forgot to mention where I got the inspiration to go ahead and do the juice fast, nor did I explain some things that probably need explaining!

First, we watched a documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. If you have Netflix, WATCH IT!



Then, while looking for recipes, I discovered Green Smoothie Girl @ youtube and was convinced that this was something that I could do, but only if I had a high powered blender instead of a juicer (see my first entry about juicing for my reasoning.)



Also, I've decided that "juice fast" makes it sound like a dumb fad diet. "Juice cleanse" isn't much better. The idea of a cleanse sounds nice (especially after my recent bad experience with soy!) but my main objective IS to lose weight.

For those of you who don't know, hypothyroidism makes it really tough for me to lose weight. It actually lowers my metabolism! I had been fighting with people for years over the fact that I just CAN'T lose weight unless I eat under 1200 calories per day. People told me that it was impossible for someone my size to need to eat that little. Well, there you go...

When I went vegan, everyone expected me to drop a bunch of weight immediately. Honestly, I at least expected SOMETHING! So, after 6 months of healthy eating and still no weight loss, I decided to make a list of all of my ailments and take it to a doctor. She immediately suggested that it was probably my thyroid.

So now I have been on medication for almost 5 weeks, knowing that it takes a very long time to get thyroid medication straightened out, and I am tired of being fat and tired. I don't want to wait for my metabolism to catch up with me. If I'm only burning x amount of calories, then I just need to eat less! And if I'm going to do that, then I need to eat only very healthy, nutritionally dense foods... hence the juicing!

After 10 days, I will go back to eating beans, legumes, etc, but if I can stand to, I'm going to continue juicing for breakfast and lunch!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

First Green Smoothie!






The VitaMix arrived yesterday, so we immediately went to the farmers market and bought a bunch of fruit and veggies! In this one, I used kale, spinach, carrots, peaches, apples, bananas, blueberries, and blackberries. And nothing went to waste- not even the apple core! (Although I did remove the peach pit because I thought it might make it taste bitter.) The thing is a beast that will tear through anything!

Our 10 day juice fast starts today! I have a big bottle of it at my desk right now, but it's SO THICK. I think the bananas weren't ripe enough and I needed to use more water and/or ice! Next time I will use an actual recipe instead of just cramming whatever I want into it.

I'm doing okay without coffee this morning, though, so that's good! I just hope I don't end up running to the bathroom all day for the next 10 days.

I need to figure out which camera to use to make youtube videos. Filming in the kitchen is awkward!