Whole Food Plant Based Diet

What I Eat Monday: September 23rd 2024

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It started usual and ended fun!

Breakfast was the usual Grape Nuts Cereal with Soymilk with blueberries and a banana

Lunch was curried lentils that I had left over with some geeens and roasted veggies and garden cherry tomatoes with a sprinkle of hot sauce

Snack was simple edamame and grapes

Breakfast, Lunch, and Snack
Simple dinner ingredients

But then for dinner I made an easy weeknight dinner; Costa Rican black beans and potatoes. You just dice up some onion and garlic and saute in a little vegetable broth until translucent. Then just open cans and throw in a can of sliced potatoes, a can of diced tomatoes with green chilis, and a can of rinsed black beans. Add 1/2c water and a TBSP tomato paste and a teaspoon of cumin and simmer 10-15 minutes till thickened. Stir in 4-6 handfuls of spinach and some fresh cilantro and dinner is ready! I like to serve this over rice, but it goes well with whole-grain crusty bread also. Leftovers can be wrapped in a corn tortilla for lunch.

Then came a completely no-sugar added dessert!

I noticed the over ripe bananas this morning and so I peeled them and put them in the freezer. Then tonight I blended the frozen bananas with 1/4c plant milk and a splash of vanilla. If you keep blending, they turn into nice cream. I made my black bean brownies (only sweetened with dates) and ate warm brownies with cold nice cream tonight after dinner!

Happy Plant Eating 😁


*For Brownie recipe see my blog post from Sept 9 What-I-Eat-Monday at thejollyheart.com

Lifestyle Medicine

A New American Health Plan

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I am a physician who was raised and trained in the traditional medical system of my time. As medical students and resident doctors, we learned about diseases, drugs, and procedures.  We perfected how to take a history from our patients using open-ended questions that still pointed to the pertinent positives, and how to do a physical exam to allow our patient’s body to speak to us in a different language.  We enthusiastically learned to look and listen to any body fluid or X-ray image we could reasonably obtain for more clues.   This is traditional medicine from the point of view of a medical doctorate.

But there were more critical, if not more oblique, lessons. With the long hours and even longer nights, we learned to be service-oriented leaders.  The body became a great mystery to solve, the mind even more mysterious, and while none of us ever found the soul in the gross anatomy lab, we learned quickly at the bedside that the soul was there somewhere.  We could, after all, feel it leave the body as we learned how to say, “Time of death: 1739.”   None of us will ever forget the room and the faces that looked back at us the first time we uttered these words.

I carried all these lessons with me as I sat in a meeting of administrative leaders who were part of our large and corporate health system. We were  welcoming our new heart failure specialist. I stared at a PowerPoint slide with a pyramid shape used to describe how this new heart failure center of excellence would serve patients.  At the base of the pyramid were the patients who had mild symptoms of heart dysfunction and only needed a few drugs to take to manage their symptoms.  The pyramid climbedupward with increasing levels of medical intervention until you reached the pinnacle of the LVAD or left ventricular assist device.  This device is implanted into your heart and pumps your blood around your body for you because your heart can no longer do the job.  A miracle of modern medicine for those of us who felt like we had lost a war each time we pronounced “time of death”, and a great source of revenue for those who cared about the bottom-line of an extensive health system

After over 25 years in medicine, I have seen this change happening in the background.  It has changed from a ministry- a ministry that doctors are still taught- to a profit-oriented business.  Physicians like me still practice the ministry of the body, mind, and soul at the bedside with pride, but now, there is a force hovering thickly around us that does not see it the same way.  Instead, some others started to see us as the widget makers on an assembly line.  We were told to work harder and faster and be more amicable for those good reviews to maximize billing and revenue.  We physicians all shrugged and let a lot of it run in one ear and out the other or swatted it away like an annoying mosquito because when we were with our patients, it was still a ministry to us.  Alone and face to face with our patients, practicing our calling, the rest seemed to be paperwork by very peripheral people.  

But that day, in that boardroom, I stared at the pyramid of increasing medical interventions and saw the patients.  I saw the money coming out of their pockets, their graying skin, and their short breaths as they tried with increasing futility to get the oxygen to walk a few steps.  I saw their grown children with worry on their faces and the renovated homes with hospital beds on the first floor because climbing stairs was an impossibility.    I saw this pyramid for what it was, and I wondered, “How can I possibly keep myself and everyone I love as far away from the pyramid as possible?”  In a modern day healthcare system, health has already been lost when you step in the door.

It became clear to me in that singular moment, that our healthcare system did a very important, job of treating disease.  Treating disease lends itself to business.  But caring for health is not a good business in this model.  Healthy people do not use drugs or procedures or need LVADs.    We who are physicians can tell you that while it will never be profitable in the way of a corporate business spreadsheet, it is an integral part of our heart’s calling.  It is our ministry.

This is the story of the seed that was planted that day in my mind. A seed that I wanted to nurture and feed and grow into a new kind of American healthcare system that would, at its best, minimize the need for disease treatment as much as possible. I stood 25 years ago in a still clean and starched white coat with my hand raised up and promised to “first, do no harm” to you; my life’s calling.

Whole Food Plant Based Diet

What I eat Monday: September 9, 2024

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Most days are not anything special. It’s ordinary food whether you are plant eating or not. But I do like to learn new ways of cooking with plants. I learn a little bit at a time and this week’s new recipe was BROWNIES!

Breakfast was grape-nuts and Soymilk and blueberries with an orange for added calcium.

A snack of apple and pecans for energy as I had a busy day seeing patients and needed energy!

Lunch was greens topped with some noodles (made from chickpeas for a protein boost) with soybeans and tofu snd some garden cherry tomatoes. I made the same sauce for the noodles and for marinating the tofu. The sauce was some peanut butter melted in microwave, soy sauce, white wine vinegar and hot pepper flakes. Yum! Lots of great protein in this lunch! Especially since the brownie for dessert is added sugar free and made from black beans. More info below.

For dinner I met a favorite church group out at a local diner and got the veggie wrap and some sweet potato fries. I asked them to hold the sugar on the fries as I am trying to cut down on added sugar and they were happy to oblige.

Now about the brownies…

First you soak 2.5c of Medjool dates in hot water for 2-4 hours. Then you blend them up with 1c water to make a date paste.

You then take 1.5c of this date paste and blend in a can of rinsed and drained black beans and 3/4c plant milk.

Then mix in 1/2c cocoa, 1tsp of baking powder and vanilla, 1/2 tsp of baking soda, and 3/4c oats.

Mix it all up and then spread in brownie pan with some chips and nuts on top of you like and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. They need to cool to stay cut in a square and I like mine after some time in the fridge. Very fudgey…These are husband and teenager approved!

Happy plant eating!

Lifestyle Medicine Physical Activity Stress Management

Workout Wednesday: Less than Perfect

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I want to envision myself leading the perfect healthy life. My diet, my exercise, my temper , and my hair all just cooperate perfectly. Every. Single. Day. I once proudly told a mentor that I was a perfectionist. Without hesitation she replied, “Well, I can always tell when someone has a problem with dishonesty.”

Because perfect is dishonest. It is not a true part of being human. Sit down to hear me say this: You will never get it perfect. This applies to all your hard work on fixing your spouse too. It is slightly disappointing news, right before it is freeing.

Two facts were true this week. I had Covid and I really need my exercise time for my mental health. There was a time when the sudden intrusion of illness, or any big life event, would mean I would skip exercise because I couldn’t do it “perfectly”. By this I would mean that I couldn’t go to the HIIT class, or I couldn’t give it my usual effort.

But this week I stopped expecting myself to exercise and just considered a goal of “body movement”. I wasn’t sick enough to be stuck in bed, so I put shoes on my feet, and good music in my ears, and walked a mile outside on a “photo walk”. This is a walk where I take pictures of things in nature that I find beautiful. It is good for the soul.

Then I did 12 squats x 2 on a bench, 12 lunges x2 on a flight of stairs, 12 toe taps x2 on a parking bumper, and 12 tricep dips x2 on a garden fountain. There are many things on a walk can be used for strength training and making your own gym is creative and fun!

I then used my Tabata app timer to jog a minute, walk a minute, for the mile back to my home.

It wasn’t my best workout. It was far from perfect. But the truth is that right now my body is not at its best. I’m not perfect. But adding gentle movement to my day is always a win.

Lifestyle Medicine Whole Food Plant Based Diet

What I Eat Monday: A Bean, A Green, and A Grain

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It found me this weekend; the big Covid. I hardly have any symptoms, but I am trying to stay away from other people who might be more vulnerable. I am also doubling down on my nutrition with extra vitamin C and colorful fruits and vegetables for antioxidants.

It is times like these that I am glad for a stocked fridge. A few days before I had cleaned out the fridge and I had found:

Leftover baby carrots and cauliflower pieces from hosting a book club

A few getting squishy spaghetti squashes, and a few miniature butternut squashes from the garden

A handful of small round potatoes

A few red peppers. I was unsure if they were sweet or spicy

I chopped them all up and spread them on baking trays with parchment. I sprayed them with cooking spray, sprinkled them with salt, and roasted in the oven at 400 degrees.

I like to set the timer for 10 minutes and then check to see what veggies are done, flip all the others around a bit, and put it all back in for 10 more minutes. I repeat this 3-4 times or however much time is needed. This is a great activity for me to combine with laundry and other chores around the house as I can do other tasks in the 10 minute intervals.

This is how I food prep and how I tend to arrange my meals : A Bean, A Green, and A Grain.

Breakfast is shredded wheat with blueberries and soy milk. Let’s substitute blueberries for the green because it’s breakfast, the mini wheats are the grain, and the soy milk is the bean.

Lunch is a curry split pea spread on sourdough with mixed greens, fresh cucumber, some of the roasted veggies, and some added sugar free cookies that I had made after roasting the veggies. The greens are a handful from store box, the bean is the curried split pea, and the grain is the sourdough bread.

I snacked on some edamame which I love as a way to increase the protein in my diet. Dinner was take- out Indian that I ate with my husband on the porch while properly socially distanced. The bean was the chick peas, the grain was the rice, and the green was a handful of greens I added for fun.

It was delicious food that nourished my body and gave it fuel to fight the Covid. I hope everyone has a great week…and Happy Plant Eating!

Whole Food Plant Based Diet

The Next Question

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People often ask me how I changed to a plant based diet. There seems to be a disappointed disconnect as I shrug my shoulders and reply, “I just decided to do it.”

I really want to give people a 7 step plan for getting rid of all the saturated fat and cholesterol and zero-fiber animal foods. But, truthfully, I woke up one day and decided that for the next 30 days I would eat only plants. I rummaged around and found some oatmeal and blueberries. It was hodge-podge, messy, and creative. Lunch was a baked potato and some left over broccoli. I opened a can of beans and topped it with some salsa. It was ugly at times, but each day I got better, and I learned.

First, I decided. But as my husband points out, I have an unusual ability to go “all-in” on things. He’s not wrong. But I think it comes from the question I asked AFTER I made the decision.

Once decided, and when things get hard, I don’t revisit the decision. I never asked, “Should I keep eating plants on vacation or while traveling?” but instead I asked, “How will I keep eating plants while on vacation and traveling?” It’s a big difference.

How will I eat plants at the Mexican restaurant, or at the barbecue place that my father-in-law picked for his birthday? How will I eat plants at this work dinner? The all-in success was found in never revisiting the “should”. The success was found in asking the “how”.

Too often we sabotage ourselves going backward to re-answer a question that we have already answered. I know I should go to the gym. I should stop drinking. I should cook more. I should get to bed earlier.

We usually go back to re-answer it when obstacles come. I should go to the gym, but work has been too crazy. I should stop drinking but maybe not on football weekends. I should cook more after the kids have less activities. I should go to bed earlier after summer is over.

But what if instead we said:

How will I get to the gym with work being this crazy?

How will I stop drinking during football season?

How will I cook more with all the kids activities happening.?

How will I get to bed on time during the summer?

The “should” statements are a wish for a future that never seems to come, and the “how” questions are committed actions.

How will I stay married to this person?

How will I be successful at work?

How will I stay sober?

The key to success often isn’t just in the decision. It is almost always in the next question.

Physical Activity

On Beauty: A Workout Wednesday Post

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I once had a person tell me that looking at my feet made him want to vomit. It’s perhaps a fair assessment as I was born with very deformed feet. I can’t point my toes, stand on one foot, or do ankle circles, I don’t have the correct number of toes, and I need to shop in kids shoes for a size 13 and a 1, because they are not even the same size.

I had a bunch of surgeries when I was little to make them functional with wheelchairs and crutches and braces and odd shoes. I had casts and more casts and physical therapy sessions aplenty all before I turned five years old.

To my parents credit I don’t remember feeling weird or different as my energies were channeled into sports where my arms could be power (long-distance swimming), and my time was spent developing a penchant for reading and a talent for writing. And my feet have carried me down the aisle at one wedding and numerous graduations, into the delivery room and through two pregnancies, and even through a half marathon.

Today for my workout I decided to go for a run on a late summer morning that was teasing us with fall temperatures. I took pictures, as I often do, of things that I think are beautiful and I listened to music that fed my soul.

I was only going to do a mile. But the weather had me continuing on down the trail until I realized I had run 1.5 miles. I decided to go for 2. Then a great song came on and my watch said 2.2 and, although tired, I knew it was going to be three. I’m a slow runner but it brought me such joy to move my body this morning in great weather, beautiful surroundings, and good music in my ears.

I made it 3.1 miles. I bent down, hands on knees, exhausted, in my driveway and saw my feet and smiled. They can’t be called beautiful in the traditional sense, but they had carried me through more than I thought I could do. That, I realized, is a different kind of beauty.

Moving a body-any kind of body-with joy is beautiful and is a mental health elixir. Our bodies are beautiful in how they carry our souls for as long as they are able. We demand so much from them, and spend a lot of time thinking they are less than optimal, but they still carry us and start to dance when that particular song plays, or beg to run outside, or seemingly on their own, jump to hug the ones we love the most.

There is beauty all around us, if we know how to see it. And there is a joy in moving our bodies that reflects the beauty of the soul. My feet are beautiful, and yours are too. Let’s move them with the joy they deserve today!

Stress Management

Looking Higher

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I know a guy who claims to have no God. He is a proud atheist. He will also tell you how important Service is for his own health and clarity. He routinely recommends “service to others” as a path to good mental health and I could not agree more.

Walking with a Higher Power, something that is beyond my own skin, might be one of the most important things I can do for health.

Most importantly, this practice protects me from trying to BE that power myself.

Because when I try to manage, fix, manipulate, direct, enforce, punish, reward, or worry into submission the world around me, I fall prey to anxiety (aka fear) and depression, self-pity, selfish behavior, anger, slightly more than white-lies, and using others as actors in my direction of my play. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting for me and wearing for those around me. It’s the opposite of good health, true social connection, or stress reduction, and leads to sleepless nights, Oreo eating, and so much hand-wringing that I become unable to move my body with joy.

When it was first suggested to find a Higher Power, something greater than myself to look toward for direction, I chose the Power of Good. The Power of Good is invisible like the wind, but you can see the effect of both things in people’s lives. “Goodness” was a Power outside of my own skin that I could believe in and reliably trust. I learned that religious people call this Faith.

I first started asking this Higher Power for direction at the beginning of my day, and then in the evening I began reviewing my actions through its lens. Before long I started to converse with it anytime I was unable to figure something out, or fix something myself. I learned that religious people call this Prayer.

Today I belong to church as one part of my practice, but my Higher Power bursts out in unexpected places and at unexpected times. It cannot seem to be controlled in a way that is most akin to when you get the giggles inappropriately and cannot stop. I learned that religious people call this Grace.

I intuitively know I am seeing only a small part of something too big for me to get my human arms and mind around. For me, it seems to have no definite body or pronoun, exudes wisdom and loving perspective, and seems to not have an ounce of fear, anger, or self-righteous judgement; things that can cover me like a heavy wet blanket from which I cannot escape. I learned that religious people call this Sin.

For me, even with my human limits, I can rest in this Higher Power. I can trust it to lead me. My atheist friend calls his power “Service” and I call mine by many names including: Goodness, Love, Joy, Grace, Patience, Kindness, Beauty, or for short, just “God”.

I am coming up on 11 years of finding a Higher Power and I can tell you that turning toward this Power, talking to it, listening back, letting it guide me in all situations, has been the best life change that I EVER made for my health. I learned that religious people call this “Finding God.”

And as my friends in Kenya like to say, “God is Good. All the Time.”

Whole Food Plant Based Diet

What I Eat Monday August 12, 2024

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I try to be honest so this is actually what I ate yesterday, Sunday, but I repeated most of it with leftovers today!

For breakfast I sliced some whole wheat sourdough and layered on some hummus and greens and apple with a drizzle of honey.

Then, for lunch I whipped up some chickpea “chicken” salad by crushing up a can of chickpeas and then throwing in raisins, apple, green onion, and celery. I then take hummus and thin it with lemon juice to make a sauce to hold it all together. I ate this with pita bread and fresh cherries. Yum!

Breakfast
Ingredients for Chickpea salad
Mashing up the chickpeas
Lunch chick-pea salad

For a snack I enjoyed 3 cookies. I make these cookies using a can of white beans!! They are so yummy and packed with fiber and bean goodness.

Basically mix the dry ingredients: pulse up 3/4c rolled oats in food processor till it’s flour like and mix it with a cup of whole wheat flour, 1tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, sprinkle of cinnamon and salt.

Then drain the can of white beans but save the fluid. Put a cup of the beans in your food processor with 1/4c until sweet applesauce, 1/2c raw sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 1 TBSP of the bean liquid. Purée it all up and add to your dry ingredients and stir till moistened.

Then add in 1/4c rolled oats and the rest of the bean liquid with 1/2c vegan chocolate chips. Make balls and flatten a bit before baking 12-15min at 350 degrees.

For dinner I made an easy summer dinner that was a mixture of a can of black beans (drained and rinsed), a cup of corn, diced red bell pepper, diced cherry tomatoes, diced avocado, and green onions. I add a sauce that is 1 TBSP whole grain mustard with 2-3 TBSP fresh lime juice, 1 TBSP oil, and 1 tsp cumin. Mix it all together and serve with chips and fresh pineapple-strawberry fruit mix for a yummy summer dinner!

Ingredients for the sauce
Dinner

Happy eating Plant Eaters!

Physical Activity

Workout Wednesday!

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Some days I just need a quick workout at the gym.  I know I need to exercise for mental health as much as physical health and so the days when I am feeling not at the top of my mental/emotional health game, I am at a crossroads of needing to exercise and not being motivated to exercise.

If you have those days too, feel free to try my template that involves 4 or 6-minute movement segments using a Tabata format.

A Tabata is a form of exercise where you alternate short periods of exercise with shorter periods of rest.  For a Tabata, I use 4 minutes of exercise consisting of 8 exercises, each done for 20 seconds, with 10 seconds of rest in between.  There are lots of great Tabata timer apps for free and in general, I choose the 8 exercises to fit the pattern of lower legs, cardio, arms, side abs, middle abs, side abs, cardio, arms with legs combined

Get-It-Done-Workout

Block One: 6 minutes of cardio

For the first 6 minute block I like to do the elliptical at a steep incline and lower resistance for 1 minute, medium resistance for 1 minute, high resistance for  1 minute, and then repeat this resistance pattern at a medium incline.   The goal is just to get your heart rate up for 6 minutes.  You can run outside in intervals or even a consistant 6 minute run.  You could jump rope in a pattern of 1 minute on and 15 seconds off for 6 minutes.  Whatever you have available to do for 6 minutes

Rest 1 minute

Block Two: 2 Tabatas (8 minutes total) with 30 seconds of rest in between the first and second Tabata

Today I did the following 8 exercises: wide leg squats while holding hand weights, moutainclimbers, tricep dips, side plank with hip dips and lifts on left side, v-sit sit ups, side plank with hip dips and lifts on right side, jump lunges, legs together squats with both arm rows with handweights.  I then rested 30 seconds and repeated this Tabata

Rest 1 minute

Block Three: 6 minutes of cardio

I did the same elliptical routine that I did in Block One, but sometimes I change it up and run on the treadmill, or run up and down some flights of stairs if they are available.

Rest 1 minute

Block 4: 2 Tabatas (8 minutes total) with 30 seconds of rest in between

You can repeat the same Tabata in Block Two for today I did 8 different exercises.  I did wide leg squat with alternating side leg lifts, jumping jacks, straight front arm raises with weights, sitting russian twists holding a weight, dead bugs with weights, bicycle crunches, burpees, lateral arm flys with hand weights

 

This should get you a quick 30- 35 minute workout with plenty of variety to keep you entertained on the days that you just need to get it done!