Oatmeal Breakfast

 I am back! I have not really abandoned this blog!

Well, I didn't write for a very long time. Partly this was because I lost access to this particular google account, I forgot the password, and then for some reason I couldn't get it back because it was sending verifications to an old email account I don't have access to. 

Then I somehow managed to get access back. But by then I lost the habit of writing things down here.

So.......time for a weight update. I lost a bit more weight since last time. In fact I was only 700g before my planned weight for beginning of January. Since one never really expects things to go according to plan, this is pretty good. 

I still have 27.7 kg to lose before I achieve my goal, so still a ways to go.

And yes I am still vegan. In fact I am a lot more determined in my veganism than I was at the start.

To celebrate this fact, here's my standard oatmeal recipe. I enjoyed it this morning and it really is pretty good. And I started from really hating oatmeal.

I've started using steel cut oats, or coarse oatmeal rather than rolled oats. For the slower sugar release.

I've also started cooking them in a saucepan, rather than the microwave. They take longer to cook than rolled oats, so saucepan works out better.

I cover my oats with some sort of plant fake milk. Then bring to simmer. 

After a bit of simmering I add some frozen berries. Generally I like using co-op frozen summer fruit. I really like the currants.

I stir carefully after adding the fruits so they don't completely brake up.

I shake in some (maybe around 1 tablespoon?) of ground flax seeds. Not only add to the nutrition but I think they make the porridge thicker. 

Finally after moving to a bowl I put a bit of biona date syrup on top. It is really nice, I'm sure maple syrup would work just as well.

Anyway it tastes really good, is filling and very nutritious. Probably would be more dietary without the syrup, but everybody deserves a bit of sweetness in their lives.

Still Going Strong(ish)!

 An update. Haven't really been keeping with these, I was planning once a week but who cares, nobody reads these anyway.

Really it is more for my sake, it keeps a record of where I am, like just now I couldn't remember when I started this. So I looked here, first post was 23rd August, so I'm gonna take this as the beginning.

So I'm still eating plant based. I have lost a bit of weight, it is hard to tell how much because when I was binging on horrible animal flesh and purified carbs my weight would fluctuate quite a bit. But lets say I am now lighter by 3.5 kg.

Which is pretty good but whenever you start a diet (although this isn't really meant to be a diet) your weight decreases quite a bit to start with. I don't expect this rate to keep up, especially since I am actually eating quite a lot. Ad libitum is the technical term I believe.

I made a couple of exciting discoveries, I've tried beyond meat burger, it is delicious! I think I prefer it to meat burgers. 

On the other hand, it is not especially healthy, high in saturated fat etc. etc. I don't think I will make it a routine meal. But it is good to know that there is something out there that I can use occasionally if I get the itch, and still say vegan.

My brother mentioned that burger king do a really nice vegan burger too, probably won't be trying that anytime soon.

But then I found this recipe for a black bean burger. I think it is based on serious eats. I really liked it!

I made some yesterday and ate it with boiled greek freekeh, I also added a quick salad of tomato and cucumber with a quick red wine vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette, and I absolutely loved it!

The burger does contain an egg and feta cheese, so it is failing a bit to be vegan, which I think is pretty good for plant based.

Freekeh is really good too! I bought a bag from Amazon, I got the Syrian rather than the Palestinian one, since Palestinian, which would have been my first choice, apparently had a lot of grit according to the reviews. 

I saw stuff online that claimed freekeh was better than quinoa. Not sure if it is better, all these grains probably have their own slightly different nutrient profiles, so the best thing is to eat a variety.

Blame it on the Cats!

A quick progress report.

Didn't notice that it was about a week since i (re)started this. I'm still more or less on the plant-based run! To be honest I haven't been paying that much attention to stuff. I've had a lot of pet drama in the last few days.

But I definitely didn't eat meat, or cheese, or eggs. Having said that many of the 'protein sources' I've been eating, like vegetarian sausages, are not strictly vegan, I believe they contain some egg (so I have in fact been eating eggs). Still they are a good stepping stone to getting rid of meat, so i intend to use them for a bit.

I think there is a bit of a difference between plant based and vegan.

Having said that, I have been trying to get my protein from more basic primary food. I made a kidney bean and lentil curry, which was quite nice. I also fried some tempeh, which was really nice, prefer it to tofu. Doesn't really taste of much I guess, slightly bitter, but you can get the taste in with seasoning.

Sesame oil is amazing by the way!

Today I am soaking chickpeas with the plan of making more curry, maybe I will add coconut milk this time, more fattening, but also more delicious.

For grains I've been eating brown rice, and polish buckwheat groats, and oatmeal for breakfast.

I'm surprised to see how few people talk about potatoes as a good source of carbohydrates. I think simply boiled potatoes are pretty good. they do pack quite a bit of starch, but so do grains, I think they have some fibre, and vitamins and minerals. They are actually fairly low in calories, 1kg has about 700, which I take to mean they are not so carbohydrate rich, probably have more water than grains. 

Not saying you should eat them every day but a couple of days a week should be quite good. 

Because of the cat stress and trouble, I haven't kept up with the green smoothies for the last 3 days, however today I intend to get back on the wagon.

Also I did have a beer session with a friend where I drank a cpl of bottles and ate a bunch of salted roasted peanuts, and lentil crisps, the next day I ate another bag of roasted salted almonds that we didn't quite manage to fit in the night before so that probably didn't do the weightloss any favours.

I blame it on the cats!

New Start! Now Going Plant Based!

 I started this blog in 2016. There were 4 posts in it, before I deleted it. My weight loss journey is even less impressive. I am about 10 Kg heavier than I was in 2016.

The gain was quite gradual. The Covid lockdown was the cherry on the milkshake. I can barely tie my shoelaces now. I need to loose at least 35 Kg!

So as anybody preparing to loose that much weight does, I've been watching youtube videos, lots of videos. 

I've been convinced by 'Plant based diet', which to me is try to be vegan but fail a bit.

I've also just bought a yoghurt maker, (and a Bulgarian yoghurt starter), which is why I'm not going to even attempt proper veganism. I intend to eat a lot of tzatziki, I love tzatziki, anything can taste amazing with a bunch of tzatziki over it.

From the youtubes I really like Nutrition Made Simple. Very scientific. Also doesn't really push the veganism, it's more about eating unprocessed food, although it shows a lot of advantages of plant based.

Another thing I've done for the past 4 days is to try and drink 1L of green smoothie per day. I've had lots of green smoothies, although I did not reach the 1L for every day.

But it is important to try.