Day 9: American Idiot

Another exciting plant-strong day!

For breakfast I needed something fast... I decided to toast 3 slices of cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread with some pure maple syrup. A quick and easy breakfast for that person on the go.

Have you ever had that day where you were sitting at your cube and you just forgot about lunch? Well, while running out the door I forgot to grab my salad. So really all that I had to eat was 2 rice cakes and a cup of fruit from the sundry shop.

I went to purchase some American Idiot tickets today for this Saturday evening (7:30PM). While driving to the box office I came very close to pulling into a drive thru. So many great options, Bojangles Biscuit, Fries, Onion Rings, Anything. Thankfully I stuck to the plan.

The only question was where are we going to go out to dinner before the show. I posted the following on the CityData forum to gather some ideas -> http://www.city-data.com/forum/raleigh-durham-chapel-hill-cary/1482338-vegan-engine-2-restaurant-options-sw.html

For dinner, Leigh made an excellent dish. We both spotted the Sweet Potato Bowl. A combo of sweet potato, mango, avocado, black beans, bell pepper, and cilantro. Another winning recipe!

For desert I made some oatmeal raisin cookies, although I made the cookies in the muffin pan.

9 Down - 19 Left

Day 8: No Meat?

Aunt Voula: What do you mean he don't eat no meat?
[the entire room stops, in shock]
Aunt Voula: Oh, that's okay. I make lamb. 

Day 8 started out alittle uneventful. For breakfast I made the 'Big Bowl' again with the cut up fruit from brunch Sunday. One big reason to over cut fruit for a fruit bowl... leftovers!

For Lunch, I just had a spinach salad with mushrooms and onions.. Pretty boring and I am still having oil, although less, in my Newman's Own Vinaigrette.

I had a bunch of snacks today... It started with one of the pumpkin corn muffins from last nights dinner. I then baked a bag of tortilla chips and had some chips and salsa. I hope the bag of chips stays fresh!

Tonight was our group meeting for all of the E2ers in Chapel Hill. While I was expecting a night filled with meatless samples, that was not the case. Don't get me wrong, the samples were excellent, but as a lonely carnivore, I was hoping for the sweet taste of something that tastes meaty!

I was a good little student and stayed after class with the teacher. :-) I think it was a blessing that I was not able to stay after class last week as the entire group also stayed. This night we only had 3 participants staying to walk around the store and go aisle by aisle and discuss what can and cannot be used, along with some of Jenn's favorite ingredients or recipes. This hour was priceless! I purchased a number of items and look forward to trying new dishes in the days and weeks to come!

Almost forgot... Down to 214! I do not think I ever lost any weight over a weekend (mostly gained) let alone losing weight. 

8 Down - 20 Left

Day 7: Brunch

Sunday we decided to invite some friends over for brunch. Both Kendall and Alicia watched the film 'Forks over Knives' this past week and they wanted to talk to us about the film and the Engine 2 diet. We had an excellent meal and conversation! For brunch we made several E2 approved dishes: First we made a large bowl of fruit: pineapple, strawberries, raspberries kiwi, mango. This was the first time I have ever sliced a mango or a kiwi (thank goodness for google and YouTube), but boy was this fruit bowl one of the best we have ever had. We also had some gluten free french toast (as seen 3 days ago) along with a similar dish to Migas Especiales except we replaced tofu with potato.

We went to the women's gymnastics meet today. Leigh's intern at UNC is on the team and we wanted to catch her in action against the Tribe. While there I was able to take some time between routines to read more of the E2 diet book. It is hard to believe I have not completed the book just yet. I am actually still discovering some tasty recipes. I look forward to trying them all. I could not help to smell the 'buttered' popcorn, hot dogs, and pretzels. I am not sure what the 'old Matt' would have purchased while we were there...

For dinner we tried 2 new recipes. Leigh made the E2 Three Bean Chili recipe. While the prep was difficult with 22 or more different ingredients, the chili was amazingly good! It does make alot, but we look forward to leftovers throughout the week. To pair with the chili, I made Pumpkin Spiced Cornbread Muffins. This was found in the on the E2 Super Bowl website.

This concludes week 1. While it was extremely difficult giving up cheese and milk this week, I am not looking back. I did not have much meat this past week, but as of tomorrow, meat is off limits. I look forward to my group session tomorrow to discuss meat substitutes.

7 Down - 21 Left

Day 6: 'Fast Food'

Weekends are always tough. Routines do change.... but we did try a few new things:

Breakfast we went with an egg look-alike. We tried the Migas Especiales. With the turmeric, it makes the soy look like scrambled eggs. The meal was actually pretty good. The savior was the homemade salsa. Simple ingredients of tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, onion, jalapeno and lime.We also did have coffee. While caffeine is not really allowed, sometimes you have to indulge. I did have the coffee black, which was not that bad but I did need alittle turbinado sugar.

For lunch we tried a favorite, veggie burger and sweet potato fries. This will be a go to moving forward. It is quick and easy and actually tastes very good.

For dinner we went with a few prepared (fast food) items from Whole Foods. We had a Multi-Grain Corn Cake, Kale and Avocado Slaw (got to say my first taste of kale that I am aware of), Mashed Potatoes, and California Quintana Salad. Overall the meal was great... The Corn Cake was alittle dry so I added the homemade salsa to it, but other than that, a nice quick and easy meal.

Looking forward to what the recipe book brings tomorrow!

6 Down - 22 Left

Totally forgot about dessert... This was fairly simple also... I cut up some bananas earlier (around lunchtime) and stuck them in the freezer so they were nice and frozen this evening. I added the vanilla and some almond milk along with some frozen berries and made of 'berry ice cream'. We then warmed the muffins from a day or two ago and added the ice cream on top. A great way to end the evening while finishing the film "The Ides of March"... Cheers!

Day 5: Sam's Club

Breakfast was uneventful today... rocked the Rip Big Bowl again.

Went to Sam's Club today... I have to say this was a whole new experience coming in with a different mindset.

The old Matt would have walked into the Sam's club and went right over to the pizza and purchased a slice. While wheeling around the store looking for good bargains of fatty foods I would have ate said slice of pizza. I would take any and all samples that they were giving out. Upon finishing shopping I would have went back to where I started and purchased another slice for the road. And life was good.

New Matt walked through the store. I walked through the aisles. There was a whole aisle for soda! A whole aisle for juices. Multiple aisles of snacks, junk food. Huge sections of meats and cheese. It was really amazing once I opened my eyes. There was one booth that I would have never stopped was one where they were sampling oranges and honeydew. After all that was said and done I purchased the following: Bananas, Kiwi, Mangos, Pineapple, and frozen Berries. Surprisingly, Sam's has an excellent produce section. Who would have known?

For dinner we went with the leftover lasagna yet again. It was pretty good, but I knew I was going to have to step up my game for dessert.

For dessert I made the Blueberry Dumpster Fire Cobbler. I doubled the recipe from the book and decided to make cobbler muffins. The recipe yielded 12 muffins with about 1/4 cup of batter in each slot. I added one tablespoon of berries to each muffin. The muffins were very good. I can honestly say it would have been better with a scoop of ice cream on top, but my pallet is changing and for the better.

5 Down - 23 Left

 "The human body has no more need for cows’ milk than it does for dogs’ milk, horses’ milk, or giraffes’ milk." -Michael Klaper, MD

The Elephant in the Room

I drove my 13 month old daughter Stella to daycare today. The drive was a mere 3 miles. In this short distance I pass the following:
Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Little Caesars (mentioned earlier) and Sals Pizza (no so fast food, but I have been known to frequent their lunch buffet from time to time) Chick-fil-a, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Bojangles, Arby's, Wendy's, Backyard BBQ, Subway. and there are probably more...

The point is that America is addicted to fast food. "In the United States alone, consumers spent about US$110 billion on fast food in 2000".

Fast food is the elephant in the room. We as a society really need to slow down!

This reminds me of a song. A country song. While I am originally from New Jersey, I went to school at James Madison University in Virginia and then moved to Durham NC. While I was never a country fan, my wife of 10 years this year, does. She has turned me on to the music. The lyrics of this song (Mayberry) go alittle something like this:

Sometimes it feels like this world is spinning faster
Than it did in the old days
So naturally, we have more natural disasters
From the strain of a fast pace
Sunday was a day of rest
Now, it’s one more day for progress
And we can’t slow down ‘cause more is best
It’s all an endless process 

It is time to slow down. Stop and smell the roses.
 
"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”

Meeting Rip!

Well today was the day that I met Rip Esselstyn. The author of 'The Engine 2 Diet'. He was here for an event in Chapel Hill. The event was at Hargraves Community Center (which is a really nice btw).

The event started off with a 'light' workout. I use light in quotes because it was anything but light. I worked up a pretty good sweat. It was really great going through each of the exercises from the book. It is one thing to read them in a book, but another to have a live demo on how exactly each exercise should be completed.

After 45 minutes of the workout was the book signing and Q&A. Unfortunately I had to leave early so I was able to track Rip down and get my book signed and my picture with Rip and my Whole Foods E2 coach Jenn.

"Matt, Plant-Strong! Day 4 and Counting... Go, Matt, Go! Rip" Definitely something to keep me going on this journey!

Day 4: Trying new things

Well, after 3 days of the 'big bowl' for breakfast, we decided to break the habit and try some french toast. So how do you do E2 french toast? It is easy! Instead of eggs as the base you start with banana. Add a 1/2 cup of milk substitute (we used the oat milk) and then some cinnamon and vanilla extract... look to the left for the outcome with some fresh berries!

For lunch, nothing too exciting, just a spinach salad with onion, mushroom, tomato. I did break down and add some sliced turkey.

I rocked another orange for snack, along with a rice cake.

For dinner we went with the all American Dinner: A Burger and Fries... Although not your father's burger and fries... We had a frozen veggie burger, with caramelized onion and mushroom, some avocado on a whole wheat bun. And to top it off, some sweet potato fries with some E2 approved catchup. Dinner was excellent!

Not sure what dessert will hold, but an all around great day. Going to need to crack the book again tomorrow for some more great meal choices.

4 Down - 24 Left

Super Bowl

One thing that I am certainly dreading is Super Bowl Sunday. One of my most favorite nights of the year. From Beer, Pizza Roll, Wings, Dips, Chips, Sausage Balls, Rio Grande Dip, Cheese and Crackers, and the list goes on and on... The night to just pig out and drink and watch football. Isn't America Grand!

As a back drop I took a new management job almost exactly this time last year. My team is a global team and I have not met any of my direct report employees, my peer managers, or my manager. They are all across the country and the world. Well, my manager and peer managers are converging on RTP for a training here locally. As the only manager in RTP, I wanted to host and give our team members from all across the US / Ireland / Hong Kong a proper welcome. So I am actually hosting the event!

While I am not limiting what folks bring as it is a pot luck, I am dreading my overall willpower for the night. I am thinking that this will be one night where I put the diet on hold, but who knows.

But then today came the 'Plant Strong' Super Bowl Menu
http://engine2diet.com/the-daily-beet/host-a-plant-strong-super-bowl-party-plus-a-big-giveaway/

Several recipes that actually look pretty good! While I have not read them all, I am encouraged that I can have some healthy options handy during the big game this year!

Day 3: Office Difficulties

Breakfast I had another big bowl... This time I went with the 'Oat Milk' as mentioned in Day 1... I can honestly say that this cereal is already getting old, and this is only 3 days in. I was thinking breakfast would be the easiest meal to make this diet happen.

I went into the office for the first time today... Now the office is another beast. Having soda machines, snack machines, and a snack room convenient is difficult. Plus water is not as easy to get as it is at home with my cordless headset. At the office I am pretty much attached to my cube with my phone. Also, having friends and colleagues pop over and wonder if I want to go out for lunch is always a challenge. While I want my diet to succeed, I also want to keep my network strong. Sadly there are no real good lunch / fast food options available.

So luckily I brought in some leftovers of the chicken chilli so all was good and I had an excuse :-)

As for dinner, I was on my own. A bachelor. In the past this was when I could buy one of those frozen pizzas and hide it from Leigh. This would have been especially true as I knew that Leigh was actually having pizza tonight as part of her orientation training at UNC. Well, I did not do it... I held firm and did not break from the diet. I actually warmed up some more tortilla chips and made a new batch of guacamole. Plus, I used some fresh cilantro! This took the guac to the next level. I cannot say I feel good about having just chips and guacamole for dinner, but it worked for me tonight.

I had no dessert today... looking forward to my weigh in on Friday.

3 Down - 25 Left

Day 2: Nothing Clever

Today was kind of an uneventful day. For breakfast we made the 'big bowl' again and added much more fruits to it to add flavor. Again the bowl was HUGE... It was much more than Leigh or I could eat... as Leigh left for work she gave me her leftovers. I was working at home again today so throughout the morning I continued to pick at the bowl. As time progressed I realized that it was 2pm and I had not had lunch, so all I ate for breakfast and lunch was cereal.

For dinner we decided to go with leftover lasagna. Now I have to confess, the first go round, while good, the lasagna was rather dry. The solution was to make a side pot of sauce and over spice! Spice is going to be key on this diet. Added crushed red pepper, Cayenne, along with the standard italian seasonings. The lasagna tasted much better.

For dessert... go figure! We have done ice cream so often for our before bed snack. And I wonder why the LBs kept piling on! So tonight I had an orange, yes an orange... And believe it or not, it was actually good and filling. This might be my new before bed indulgence.




2 Down - 26 Left

Day 1: Fire Fighter Training

So I went to my first group orientation today. Since Week One is eliminating Dairy, we discussed and taste tested some Milk alternatives: from almond milk, coconut milk, soy milk, oat milk and hemp milk. I have to be honest, my initial thought was that the coconut milk was going to be the best and the oat milk was going to be the worst. You know what they say about judging a book by its cover. I could not be farther from the truth. The 'Oat Milk' was by far the best of the five options we tried, and sadly enough the 'Coconut Milk' to me was the worst.

For dinner we stayed on the 'Fire Cadet' path. We one of Leigh's best dishes, her white bean chicken chilli. We did get it as close to E2 as we could by using vegetable broth and no added salt. It would be interesting if we could try and make this a 'no chicken white bean chicken chili', but we will see what comes during week 2!

And for dessert? How about some fresh home made Ice Cream. This seems very easy... Just slice up a banana and put it in the freezer for 2-3 hours (right around dinner time I guess). Add the frozen banana to a blender and add some vanilla extract or E2 approved Maple Syrup (yes the real stuff, not Aunt Jemima or Mrs. Butterworth, have you ever read the labels or ingredients on those?).

While I have to say I am still somewhat hungry, I feel the love and encouragement from so many family and friends that are following the blog. I sure hope I do not let you down!

1 Down - 27 Left

Day 1: Single Step

They say that 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' Well this is me today. While this 28 days is going to be difficult, you really have to start somewhere. No Excuses!

Breakfast
So for breakfast we made the 'Big Bowl' which consisted of Oats, Grape Nuts, shredded wheat, Uncle Sam (love you mom), flaxseed, walnuts... We all know what is missing here (cough, cough, SUGAR!)... Due to the lack of sugar we are able to add on as many fruits for natural sugar as we wanted. We added Banana and Blueberry. Unfortunately this was not enough, so grapefruit and other fruits, I will see you tomorrow. We topped this all off with unsweetened almond milk.I really did not taste a big difference with the milk in all honesty.

Lunch
Salad seems to be a pretty easy thing to do for lunch. We moved to solely doing spinach for salads so this was not a big problem. Adding onion, mushroom, tomato to the salad (excluding the cheese and turkey of course). Luckily the 'no oil' requirement does not happen until week 3. I will need to read that section very soon.

Snacking
This has to be one of my number one issues with all diets. What to eat during meals? On South Beach where I lost tons of weight I used to do string cheese. Obviously that was not the right way to do it! Also adding to the willpower is the fact that I am working at home today. Thankfully we went through the cabinets and removed all of the treats (other than Stella's cookies, hmmmm)


So I had a grapefruit which was very good. I also made my own tortilla chips to have with home made guacamole from last night. It was very easy to make. I took the Large Ezekiel Tortilla and cut one up into triangles. I put the toaster oven on 200 degrees and threw them in there for 15-20 minutes.




NOTE: Monday weight 220.6

Welcome Letter

Dear Whole Foods Market Engine 2 Group!

We officially start on January 23, 2012.  If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to grab an Engine 2 Diet book and peruse it, get rid of all the junk food in your kitchen, fill up your cupboards with healthy fare, and talk to loved ones about Engine 2 and ask for their support.  For some of you, this way of eating won’t be easy at first, but like anything worthwhile, the payoff is well worth the challenge.  We’re going to take back your health one meal and one day at a time!

The only things that EVER really keep us from achieving greatness are our own self-imposed limitations.  As Rip says “You can have radically insane health, but it’s up to you to make it happen.”  Stick with the program and 28 days from now you’ll look and feel better than you have in years and your new cholesterol numbers and lower weight will be tangible proof that you’re on your way to the best health of your adult life.
Rip created several lifelines to help ensure your success.

1)    www.Engine2diet.com
There are meal plans, recipes, grocery lists, forums, exercise info and snapshot weekly overviews.  Most importantly, I HIGHLY encourage each of you to keep a food log so you (or I) can review your data and give valuable feedback.

2)    http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/chapelhill/health-starts-here-at-chapel-hill/
This is our store’s Health Starts Here webpage.  I will be posting “recipe of the day” information here as well as information about the challenge and meetups.  This is also where you can find information about our Health Starts Here program that can support you beyond the 28 days of the challenge.  Also check out the Health Starts Here page on Whole Foods Market’s page www.wholefoodsmarket.com/healthstartshere (hint: this is where the Hempseed Apricot recipe came from).  This is also where you can check out the water sauté video (I know a lot of you had questions about that).

3)    http://www.facebook.com/#!/Engine2Diet
If you have not already done so join the Engine2Diet on facebook.  This is a great way to get further information as well as connect to other E2ers from all over.

4)    Fire Partners:
Pick another Whole Foodie participant to be your Engine 2 “fire-partner”.  This is someone with whom you’ll share your goals and health dreams – and you’ll encourage each other if the going gets tough.

5)    The Engine 2 Diet book:
Read the book so you’ll really understand why you want to eat the PlantStrong™ way.  The more you know the harder it will be to eat that cheese, chicken, olive oil, cake, soda, etc.  Read the section on attitude.  You’ll need a super-duper one to fend off the naysayers.  The book is available here in the store, for order online, and in digital format.

For further information check out these videos online:
-Engine 2 Diet channel on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/Engine2Diet?blend=3&ob=video-mustangbase
-Bill Clinton’s interview with Wolf Blitzer about eating PlantStrong™
-Forks Over Knives featured on Dr. Oz
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/diet-changes-lower-disease-risk-pt-1

Some useful online resources are:

For recipes and research:  http://drfuhrman.com , http://drmcdougall.com , http://www.happyhealthylonglife.com/ , and there are so many more.  Get out there and explore, get educated and have fun!

For recipes:  http://fatfreevegan.com/  and http://vivelevegan.blogspot.com (some of these need tweaking to remove the oil and/or salt but she has some amazing recipes on here!)  Go nuts!  There are tons of vegan cookbooks, blogs, etc. out there.  Many of them are not oil-free but adapting them is often easier than you may think.  Share your successes with your fellow challenge members as well; I personally am always looking out for new recipes to add to my repertoire.

My hat goes off to each and every one of you.  Way to go for making this commitment to a better and healthier you!

Let’s get this PlantStrong journey started!!!
Jenn

Whole Paychecks

So most of us has heard the Whole Foods should change their name to 'Whole Paychecks'. While the cost might be higher, it is nice knowing we do not have to question what we are buying.

So, we will start this like an American Express commercial:
Returning food from refrigerator and pantry: $75
Purchasing new E2 approved foods: $340
Improving your health: Priceless!

Now, while the cost was much higher than we might ever spend, much of this food will last us for months. Who is going to consume a pound of flax seed in a week?



So we made our first dish from the E2 Diet book, the Raise-the-Roof Sweet Potato-Vegetable Lasagna! It certainly took awhile to prepare and while is certainly was missing something (Duh Cheese!) the dish was pretty good.The lasagna recipe is huge and will probably make 9 servings, so we will be having leftovers for awhile! :-)





Day 1 starts tomorrow with my first group support session. Looking forward to meeting some of the members going through this journey together.

Meathew and Stellaphante

One of my nicknames in recent memory has been 'Meathew' (a deviation from Matthew of course). This is obviously because I eat a ton of meat. Growing up we always planned our meals around meat or pasta. Vegetables have always been an afterthought.

Thankfully I married a very supportive woman, Leigh, who has introduced me to many wonderful foods. Would you believe that I never had a peach, avocado, sushi, spinach, blueberry, grapefruit, and the list goes on and on. I was the guy that went out to eat and did not have to look at the menu, I knew I was going to either get a big old steak and potato or Chicken Parmesan! I thank Leigh for all of the support that she has given me getting me to this point in my life and for the support she is giving me while taking this 'Engine 2' Challenge together. I love you Leigh...

Another interesting parallel is the elephant. Before our daughter was born we decided to go with an elephant theme for the nursery. We decided to not find out the gender of our baby and figured that an elephant theme was gender neutral. We referred to her as 'Babar' prior to birth. We have so many elephant pictures and nicknacks from our travels to Orlando (dumbo) and more importantly to India while she was in the womb.

Well, we had a daughter and we named her Stella. (12/28/2010). Stella just turned one and I can certainly say that she has something to do with the inspiration to lose weight and lower my cholesterol. Oh, and back to the Stellaphante nickname, because of all of the elephant paraphernalia, Stella's uncle Brian began referring to her as Stellaphante!
:-)

Kitchen Rescue

We watched the Kitchen Rescue last night. This video entailed Rip going to 2 families homes and tearing through their pantry and refrigerator, throwing away all meats, cheeses, butters, eggs, milk, etc.

Rip then went through several recipes that were 'Plant Strong' and part of the Engine 2 diet. From Lasagna, to Burgers and Fries, to Pizza, panini,  and Cereal. It is then I realized that this diet really might not be so bad. The diet is not about depriving or starting yourself, but it is about eating the right foods. You do not have to leave the table hungry.

This morning I decided to go through our cabinets, pantry and refrigerator.  Today is the 'big day' where we will go to Whole Foods and purchase foods that are 'Engine 2' approved. But before we do this it is time for 'out with the old' before 'in with the new'

I must say that Leigh does run a pretty tight ship as we were not too far off the pace. Obviously we have meats / eggs / cheeses that really cannot be returned, but we did have a number of items that hopefully we can get some money back. Items returned include:
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Soups: (Chicken Noodle, Chicken and Rice, etc), Pancake Mix, Crackers, Ginger Ale, Chocolate Chips, Snapea Crips, Kettle Corn, Cookies, Raisin Bran with sugars added, and salad dressings.

I look forward to our Whole Foods buying experience later today!

My starting statistics

A diet cannot start without some baseline statistics so here are mine:

Height: 6'
Weight: My morning weight is 227 (wowzers! potentially the heaviest I have ever been)
Blood Pressure: When I was tested for the CITY study, this was not abnormal. Close to 140/80
Cholesterol: I have always had high cholesterol. I and my doctors have always blamed this on 'family history' but I am beginning to think that this is not the case. I think it is due to the animal fat and protein that I have been eating for years. We will soon find out if I and Rip are right or not. (139/79)

LDL or 'bad cholesterol" = 189
Total Cholesterol = 271
HDL = 47
Triglycerides = 174
Glucose, Serum = 95
Insulin = 10.1
Pulse = 83

These numbers are certainly interesting and I look forward to having this test done again in a month or so to see how things have changed.

CITY Study and my mantra 'I am on a diet starting Monday'

As a side task to the Engine 2 diet I was in the process of going through a weight loss study called the CITY Study (http://www.dukecitystudy.org/). Today was the day where I would find out what group I was in.
1. Cell phone intervention group (a group where you get a cell phone paid for you and applications to help you lose weight)
2. Personal Contact Group (a group where there were scheduled group sessions to get information that the cell phone application would have given you, but you recieved them face to face and not in a support group setting)
3. The Control Group - you get nothing other than having semi-annual checkups and at the end of the 24 month study, would receive a weight loss coach.

Unfortunately I was selected for the 'Control Group'. I can say I was alittle worried is I were to be selected to one of the other groups as the 'Engine 2 Diet' might have thrown off their results for this CITY cell phone application.

I 'celebrated' this news by going to Little Caesars and purchasing one of their $5 quick and easy take out pizzas. Again, this is one of the things that is wrong with America. The easy of fast food and the temptations. While I realized that this could be one of my last chances to get a pizza which is one of my most favorite foods in the world, I do also realize I am treating this Engine 2 diet as an excuse to eat poorly.

My mantra has always been 'my diet will start on Monday' which always allowed me to eat poorly on the weekends. While this diet technically does start on Monday (another appeal to the challenge), I am going to start making better choices starting Sunday this time ;-)

Jimmy John's

Now this week is prep week, or as I like to call it 'get in the last meat and cheese of potentially your life' week.
My buddy, Sammy, had a birthday today, so instead of eating my prepared salad for that day I decided to go out with him to indulge. While there are certainly much worse selections, I decided to go with the 'Club Lulu' which included both turkey and BACON!. Boy how I love bacon.

“(Lisa) "I'm going to become a vegetarian" (Homer) "Does that mean you're not going to eat any pork?" "Yes" "Bacon?" "Yes Dad" Ham?" "Dad all those meats come from the same animal" "Right Lisa, some wonderful, magical animal!"”


Eating our for lunch or dinner is going to be the hardest part of this diet. Temptation is very difficult and as Rip mentions in his videos, we do not want this diet to be about temptation and will power, so we just cannot put ourselves into these types of predicaments...

Orientation

So I went to Whole Foods this evening to get my orientation on. Our leader is Jennifer Lewis of the Chapel Hill Whole Foods. Jennifer handed our our instructional packed and sure enough as Leigh and I expected, this was a vegan diet. No milk/cheese/eggs/meat!
There are two paths that I could choose, the Fire Cadet (which starts off slowly) or the Firefighter (which goes from zero to 60)

For the Fire Cadet the rules are as follows:
Week 1: NO Dairy (Milk Cheese Etc) and also no Refined or Processed Foods.
Week 2: NO Meat, Chicken, Eggs, Fish... This is on top of the Week 1 rules
Week 3: NO Oils! No Canola, No Extra Virgin. Nothing! This should be interesting.
Week 4: All of the above. If I make it here, I am officially a Firefighter!

As Jennifer answered all of the 'contestants' questions she brought up an interesting fact. There are 140 participants taking this challenge which seems like alot. The nice thing about the challenge is that we are all doing this together. We will be having weekly group sessions to discuss what is going well, what are the hardships, recipes etc.

I know this is going to be extremely challenging, but that is why it is called a '28 day Challenge'. Nothing good in life is going to come easy. You need to work at it. I am willing to work at it to save my life and live longer for my wife and my children.

Breaking the news

On the drive home (8 hours from Clark NJ to Durham NC) I decided to tell Leigh about my plan. There is only so long you can keep something this special from your wife and the constant digs about my weight were wearing on me. I know Leigh would be very supporting, especially because it was being done by Whole Foods and that it was based on a 'whole plant' diet.

After a pit stop in Richmond VA and watching the Giants defeat the Packers we had made it home around 11pm. We were both exhausted and there was no time to watch the movie... So the start of the journey had to wait for one restful evening.

Finally, Forks over Knives Video time!

Leigh has off today for Martin Luther King Day. I decided to work from home to catch up on my hundreds of emails that came in while I took 3 days off the previous week.
We scheduled time to watch the video that night. As the Facebook friend eluded to earlier this month, this video was certainly earth shattering and life changing. It speaks about the 'western diet' and how we consume so much animal fat in milk, cheese, meat etc that we are making ourselves obese, sick, and bringing on all types of cancer. It talks to the fact that countries like China who have never been influenced by this 'western diet' have never had degenerative diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and stroke... The statistics were mind boggling.
But the point still remained... could a carnivore that could not remember a single day where he did not have meat, or did not have daily/cheese, actually compete and succeed in the Engine 2 Diet?
With orientation a day away, we will certainly find out.

They are here!

The videos were delivered today, but the only problem was that I was up in New Jersey for Carmine and Emily's wedding. Leigh did not mention that a package came in, so I just figured it was being delivered on Friday like the estimates said.

Although it would have been great to bring the videos on the plane for my entire family in New Jersey to watch, the viewing would have to wait until Sunday when we returned hope from the wedding.

Forks Over Knives Trailer

I decided to find out more about what I was getting into. I went to the site -> http://www.forksoverknives.com/ and watched several trailers of the video. This certainly seemed interesting and I wanted to learn more.
I checked the website to order the film... After seeing the price and the shipping I decided to search the entire web and came across Amazon who was holding a 'free shipping' even for purchases over $30. I purchased the 'Forks over Knives' video, the 'Engine 2 Kitchen Challenge' video and 'Forks over Knives' recipe book.
It is important to note that at this point I have not mentioned this to Leigh at this point. I wanted this to be a surprise. She has been making fun of me (and trying to motivate me) recently for my weight and the fact that I have not done much about it, so I figured we could sit down and watch the film and she would be excited and proud that I actually was taking matters into my own hands...

28 Day Challenge?

For some reason I had to do our families food shopping solo... thinking back I recall that both my Leigh and Stella were in the car due to the fact that Stella was sleeping and we did not want to wake her up.
While wheeling around Whole Foods I noticed a flyer on 'The Engine 2 - 28 Day Challenge'. I grabbed one and read it and saw that the 'graduation date' was February 19th. Now February 19th is certainly an important day for me as this is my birthday.
So, while checking out I decided to take the leap of faith. I signed up for the program although I did not know what I was getting myself into...

Facebook can save lives?

This all started with Facebook... As I was reading status updates I came across with the comment along the lines of:
'Just watched Forks over Knives, extremely life changing'
While I do not take too much stock in most Facebook comments, I am always interested in anything that is 'life changing'...
I decided to file this into my 'mental list' and do some research at some point in the future...