Ready. Get Set. Go!



Chinese Cabbage (Napa cabbage).

 I decided at the beginning of the year to return to a vegetarian diet. I've been vegetarian on-and-off for awhile and decided to return to it for health and environmental reasons. I'm the type of vegetarian who eats eggs and dairy products. As for eggs, I only eat chicken or duck eggs, not fish eggs.

The first thing I did was to come up with an eating plan. I calculated my daily protein requirement: weight in pounds divided by 2.2 (to get kilograms) then multiplied by .9 (for good measure, a conservative factor) and got 80 grams of protein. I divided that into 3 meals and got 27 grams of protein or so. So, my goal was to get 27 grams of protein per meal. If I couldn't get that amount, I would make it up at snack time. I found that after awhile if you have 'set meals,' you stop counting because you already know that you hit your protein goal. There are protein calculators online.



Some days I go four times in a day!!!

 I didn't worry about fiber (since I started pooping more as a by-product anyway) or Vitamin B12 (from supplements, eggs and dairy).

My plan rotates intake of protein from what I call the protein food groups:

1. Eggs
2. Dairy
3. Beans
4. Tofu/Doufu
5. Wheat/Grains and Wheat Gluten/Mianjin (麵筋)/Seitan
6. Nuts
7. Processed Products

Sure, you could collapse 'processed products' into their respective categories and really, you could put tofu into the bean category, but these categories are based from the cooking perspective. That is, if I'm too lazy to cook, I will prepare and eat a processed product, such as Field Roast Italian Sausage. And most beans are cooked the same and tofu is cooked in a whole different way and the eating experience is different too, so it's in its own category. I don't eat eggs or beans often and occasionally, I will drink soymilk instead of milk. I buy organic, if it's available.



I'm on my way to a healthier me.


 At the beginning of the year, I weighed 195, as of this writing, I am down to 189 pounds, a loss of six pounds, about a pound a week.

In the rest of this blog, I will write about the foods I've cooked, eaten or read about and related matters. I hope you will stick around and share your thoughts.

Thanks!