My 1st Nutritarianniversary

When I turned on the Blendtec this morning, I happened to notice that it’s counter coincided with today being the start of my 2nd year as a Nutritarian!

No, I’ve not used my high-speed blender every single day this past year, but sometimes I’ve used it multiple times per day, so I guess it all balanced out in the end.

Over the winter, I was usually eating bowls of fruit with either some oats or muslix.  Now that warmer weather has returned, I’m back to drinking my breakfasts.  This week, I’ve been on a berry smoothie kick:

Berry Yummy Smoothie:

1 cup non-dairy milk (I like non-sweetened almond milk)

1 banana (fresh or frozen)

A handful of fresh kale and a handful of fresh spinach (stems removed)

A few handfuls of strawberries (fresh or frozen)

A few handfuls of wild blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Optional: a tablespoon of chia seeds or flax meal (for additional fiber); a squirt or two of agave nectar (if additional sweetness is desired); a couple ice cubes (if all fruit above is fresh rather than frozen).

Blend in a high-speed blender for about 1 minute until smooth (I used the Blendtec’s “Smoothie” setting).

I’ve been amazed this past year at how much I’ve enjoyed eating a “nutritarian” diet (as Dr. Joel Fuhrman calls it in his book “Eat to Live”).  I easily shed 30 pounds in the first 6 months without ever feeling starved or craving anything.  I also didn’t have to count calories or exercise to lose the weight.  The last 6 months have been more challenging. I stopped losing weight, and in fact, gained a few pounds back mainly from eating too many carbs and sweets, and not exercising enough.

So, this past weekend, I thought I’d start a juice fast for a few days to boost my nutrients and cleanse out the carbs.  Easier said than done!

My mornings started out o.k. with my green/fruit smoothies, but when I tried the more veggie-focused juice recipes for lunch or dinner, it was hard to get them down with all the fiber still being in the drink (I only have the Blendtec and not a dedicated juicer).  I also underestimated the strong desire to CHEW!  Even though my body was getting plenty of nutrients and was not hungry, I still could not mentally get used to blending all that delicious fresh food rather than chewing and eating some of it instead.

So, I’ve now ordered a few food strainer bags, and will try “round 2” of juicing with the Blendtec next week (to see if straining the fiber out will make the juice easier to drink).  A juicer machine would no doubt be easier, but I’m really trying to avoid so many “single-purpose” appliances to make my transition to an RV kitchen easier.

Perhaps my body was still revolting against the juice experiment, but for some unknown reason, I found myself celebrating my 1 year anniversary at Portillo’s eating a big, juicy Italian Beef sandwich!  I grew up on these things, and if you’ve ever been to Chicago to eat one, you’ll know just how addictive they can be.  I have to admit, it was damn delicious! 

I still don’t have any desire to eat meat daily (or weekly), but for special occasions, I’m gonna have that annual Italian Beef sandwich!  Life needs to be lived!  It reminded me of why Dr. Fuhrman calls his approach “nutritarian” rather than “vegan” — he believes the exact same thing!  As long as meats, dairy, sweets, and oils are considered “special occasion” and  don’t exceed 10% of your diet, he sees no harm. 

So, on to Year 2!

The Unvirtuous Vegan Vagabond

Well, it seems with all the flurry of activity and emotions this month, and hosting out-of-town visitors as well, that an unwanted guest managed to slip their way into the house and has been hiding out in the kitchen all month.  Yes, the “Food Crack” dealer left my fridge and pantry filled with lots of sweets, snacks, and booze left-overs.

The virtuous vegan would have thrown all that stuff out, and I did a good job at immediately pitching any items with meat.  But, I was much less rigorous about the “vegetarian” and higher calorie vegan items— what vegan would not want to drown their sorrows with chips, salsa, beer, and cookies?

Of course, now I’ve discovered that all my newer-sized jeans are becoming too tight to wear comfortably.  So, with my 1-year vegan anniversary looming on the horizon next month, it’s time to take action!

I’ve now evicted the Food Crack dealer from my kitchen, and am preparing to start my first Juice fast later this week.  Hopefully, this will be a good way to renew my Vegan vows and re-dedicate my fitness and weight-loss efforts that I’d been neglecting in recent weeks.

Now that Spring has sprung, I’m also hoping to get the View out and start doing a little vagabonding as well.  No time for long trips until my Master Naturalist class finishes up in June (and I get further along with projects on both my and my mom’s houses), but I can at least get out for a couple days at a time to take a break and recharge.

Thank you to my fellow Vegan Vagabonds, Tessa and Evelyn, who have been posting to the Vegan Vagabonds Facebook page and blog site these past few weeks.  Hope you guys will let me jump back onto the wagon and continue the ride!

A Vegan Vacation Weekend to Traverse City

Livability.com ranked Traverse City, MI as it’s #1 Foodie City in the U.S. and it’s not hard to see why.  While the farmland around my home state of Illinois only seems to have vast “Big Ag” corporate farms churning out tons of government-subsidized corn and soy, the farmland in the rolling hills of northwest Michigan contains a delightful mix of small family farms, fruit orchards, and vineyards—all producing a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and wines.

When I last visited in 2010, my brother took us to meet a ski buddy friend who happened to run his family’s cherry orchard on the Leelanau peninsula during the non-winter months. Cherries are the region’s biggest crop and Traverse City hosts a great Cherry Festival each June.

But on this visit, as a recently-converted vegan, I was most looking forward to the Saturday morning farmers’ market.  The markets in suburban Chicago had been a huge disappointment for me this summer—more vendors selling candles, flowers, and dog treats, than actual farmers selling heirloom and organic fruits and vegetables!

The farmers market in Traverse City was overflowing with fresh and beautiful produce.  Not quite as big as the massive Madison, WI market, but excellent quality offerings and lots of variety.

I wished I could buy it all, but had to be carefully choosy to ensure it would all fit in my RV fridge.  Here’s the bounty I ended up selecting – everything was delicious!

Traverse City has some wonderful “farm-to-table” restaurants and wineries, but I decided on this trip to eat my fresh produce and spend more time out and about.

There were plenty of sailboats out in Traverse Bay on this warm and sunny day:

The little downtown area of Traverse City is also delightful—I love the little canal that flows behind Front Street:

And Front Street itself was drawing quite a crowd of shoppers, diners, and even a small happy group of Occupy protestors!  My kinda town!

The great summer music camp, Interlochen, was less than 10 miles from my campground, so I decided to attend a free faculty chamber music concert.  The campus is located in a pine forest and they’ve tried to maintain as many trees as possible

Wish I could have recorded the concert, as each of the pieces were wonderful, but pretty rare 20th century chamber works.  A delightful evening.

The next afternoon, Millie and I took a drive around the Leelanau peninsula exploring the small farms:

We ended up at one of Millie’s favorite dog swimming beaches at Glen Haven in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  She managed to pace herself and swim for a full hour, and was one very happy (and tired) dog!



In 2010, we stayed at the state park right in town.  Convenient, but ridiculously tiny sites, overly-crowded, noisy, and smoky from all the campfires in such close proximity to each other.  It was also rather expensive by the time we paid for daily vehicle entrance passes for both cars (on top of the nightly camp fee).  So this time around, arriving for a warm summer weekend with no advance reservations, I now knew of a better place to go—the Northwestern Michigan Fairgrounds!

Only $20/night and just 5 other campers in the whole place!  Fairground RV parks are a great alternative to kid-packed, overpriced commercial campgrounds (and state parks too!) during busy “high-season” weekends.  Nice monthly rates (and 4G cell service) here too, so I may very well spend a month here in a summer to come—Traverse City has got everything a vegan tech worker and her dog could ever want!

The Newbie Nutritarian

It’s been nearly 2 months since I’ve been home after snowbirding in the Southwest all winter.  Transitioning from one home to another is always the opportune time to try doing something a bit different and not simply falling back into the the same old routines.  So when I got home and stared at my empty fridge and pantry, I knew this was the ideal time to to make a major lifestyle change— to become a VEGAN!!!

Meeting fellow View owners, Evelyn and Steve, this past winter, I started learning more about their recent change to a plant-based “nutrient-dense” vegan diet.  Evelyn also introduced me to fellow RVer, Tessa, who Evelyn had been getting lots of tips and information from.  They encouraged me to get the book “Eat to Live” by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and watch the video “Forks Over Knives” to learn more about this way of eating.

After failing so many diets in the past, and feeling totally helpless to control my weight (or my ever-worsening cholesterol, BP, and glucose numbers), I knew I had to do something radically different if I wished to slow down or reverse the pathway that I was on towards diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Over a year ago, I stopped eating most meat (but continued to eat fish and dairy).  I thought this vegetarian diet was a step in the right direction, and it probably would have been had I not ate so many sweets and salty frozen/fast-foods in place of the meat!  Consequently, becoming vegetarian wasn’t enough of a change to reduce my weight or improve my health.

But a quote while watching “Forks over Knives” really stuck with me. The doctor said that while many Americans think moving to a vegan diet and eating only whole, unprocessed food is “radical”, they don’t seem to consider how radical it is to have their chest opened up and undergo bypass surgery as a result of abusing their bodies with the “standard American diet” for so many years!  The movie compared our health statistics to many other countries and the results were sobering—our diabetes and cancer rates are off the charts compared to countries that eat primarily plant-based whole foods.

So after a bit more web research (and continuing to only find positive feedback on this kind of eating), I decided to give it a try.

I’ve now been eating this way for 1 month, and with no changes other than the food I’m eating (i.e. absolutely zero exercise this month), I’ve already lost 12 pounds!

Now that my body is finally getting real & sufficient nutrients, I’ve got a ton more energy and “mental alertness” and no longer suffer the “yo-yo effect” of sugar levels spiking up and down all day long.  Best of all, my 3 meals a day are now providing so much nutrition density, I no longer get hungry in-between meals and no longer crave sweet or salty snacks.  Since there’s no sense of deprivation, this is truly a way of eating that I can stick with for the rest of my life. 

This month, I’m starting to re-introduce exercise again.  But now, I can pick and choose activities that are fun since I know I can control my weight-loss with food alone (rather than having to do lots of slave-driven boring repetitive exercises just to lose weight).

Evelyn and Tessa have been fantastic coaches for me throughout this transition, and my success has apparently been motivational to them as well!  The 3 of us RVers have started a blog called Vegan Vagabonds to track our progress and serve as a spot to store the book/video/web resources and recipe’s we discover.  We also have a Vegan Vagabonds Facebook page to share daily news stories and collaborate with readers. 

If you’re interested in giving this “nutritarian” way of eating a try and regaining your health, give the blog’s Getting Started and Resources pages a look!