It seems everywhere I turn these days that Veganism is being touted by celebs, firefighters, triathletes, scientists and more. There are books flying off the shelves about how to eat more of a plant-based diet and how to live longer, lower you cholesterol, get off drugs and be the healthiest you can be by doing so. You know what I say??? Halleluah! It’s about time…And this is not only because I am a Vegan chef and believe in eating clean, but because of the amazing opportunity for America and many other countries to live longer, healthier and happier lives, not to mention saving our dear animal friends.

This is truly a very important time in history where we can turn our obese, fat-ridden, cholesterol ridden, heart-disease ridden society around and really make a difference with our health and the planet. And, I’m sure it’s no secret anymore that the animal/meat/dairy industry is responsible for the most pollution on the earth right now, not to mention the unethical treatment that happens to our fellow animal friends. If you haven’t read the chapter on meat in Rory Freedman’s, “Skinny Bitch” book, I highly recommend it. I don’t have to give you all the statistics. You can pretty much look anywhere on the internet and find that grim and sobering information.

So on a lighter note, I want to share a glimpse of my day today and how this all ties in together.
I had such a synergistic and life-changing experience. I went to meet a dear friend and fellow vegan (BTW, we were friends before I knew she was a vegan) at a tea house today in Hollywood, calledT Salon. I rolled up upon this amazing new tea house when I was on my way to an event and trepsing through Hollywood looking for a parking spot, which all of us So-Cal residents know is not easy to do. I was so ecstatic when I saw that this beautifully painted tea house with it’s smart and simple stainless sign, had opened up right next to one of my favorite Veg restaurants, M Cafe. I had visited this same tea house in NYC many years back and LOVED IT! And now, here it is right in my very own town!

Anyway, to get back to the synergistic part of the story, I recommended to my friend that we meet at this funky, cool, new spot because they have vegan food, desserts and amazing tea. 250 different types of tea to be exact. I arrived a bit early and ordered my tea while I talked to the lovely woman at the register who took my order. This woman is so friendly and lively and shows interest in other people’s lives, and I mean GENUINE interest. Not the usual half-assed, laxadasical customer service you get here in LA, but true and heartfelt. The reason I know this is because I told with her that I was a Vegan chef, after she asked and then she proceeded to ask me many more questions about my business and what I do. I talked to her about the many vegan desserts they offer there at the tea house, that all look amazing, but in my book, are not the healthiest because even though they are vegan, they are still made with white flour and white sugar. Yes, you can be vegan and still be somewhat unhealthy, but I’ll save that for another blog post. After our conversation, she prompted that I should meet the owner of the tea house and drop off some of my very own gluten free, refined sugar free goodies for the Salon to try and possibly sell. I told her I would be honored and I went about my business of catching up with my friend and sipping some delicious Dark Roast Yerba Mate tea with almond milk and a bit of Agave nectar.

Ten minutes later, the friendly T salon lady introduced me to another fellow vegan customer in the Salon who happened to be a writer for the Huffington Post. We shared our stories about becoming Vegans and how it has changed our lives and how amazing we feel. Ms. Huffington post told me she has only been Vegan for 5 months after partaking in a cleanse and decided she felt better off the meat, than on it. She also expressed that she hasn’t told her father and that in her culture, it’s taboo NOT to eat meat and she was fearful of her father’s reaction, even though she is doing something good for herself and the planet. Kind of ironic isn’t it??

Shortly after that, Ms T Salon came back to our table and handed me the phone saying she was talking to the owner of the Tea house and she wanted to talk to me about making Vegan desserts and soups for their lovely tea house. I was ecstatic. I set up a time to bring in some samples of my healthy fare and felt blessed for being in the “right” place at the “right” time.

Afterward, again, my dear friend and I went about our business talking about how ecstatic we are to live in LA, own our own businesses and are able to spend a Friday morning sipping tea and meeting fellow vegans, randomly.

Another 10 minutes passes and Ms T Salon brings a gentleman over to meet us, who is, guess what? a fellow vegan. I know at this point you might think I was getting annoyed, but to me it was a sign that we all attract who we are, what we do and how we act, so I went with the flow and knew that these people were in front of me out of divine guidance. We chatted up with the gentleman and I asked him if he knew some of the other vegans in our circle and he did. He looked familiar to me and I realized that I had seen his photo on Facebook, as he is a friend of one of my friends, who is an amazing Macrobiotic Chef here in LA as well, Christy Morgan, The Blissful Chef. 

The point of this story is that, not only is Veganism becoming more recognized in the public eye, I mean even Oprah recently had book author, Michael Pollan on her show (Ominvore’s Dilemma & In Defense of Food) along with Vegan Celeb, Alicia Silverstone, whose new book “the Kind Diet” is all the rage these days, but there is a whole community available to us in this day and age to change the way we eat, get healthier and change the state of the planet.

Will Tuttle, former monk and long-time Vegan’s book, The World Peace Diet touts that we have been disconnected from our food since we were children and we never really understood how the meat we eat got from farm to our plate and what happens in between. As children, we weren’t really given the choice, we just had hot dogs cut up and thrown on our high-chair trays without even KNOWING what we were eating. Again, I don’t need to share all the gory details, and unless you have your head buried in the sand, I’m sure you have heard faint whisperings of the unethical treatment of animals and how the meat industry pollutes our earth and the consumption of meat and dairy can cause all kinds of dis-ease in the body.

Yes, I know, you think I am preaching…well, maybe I am. But the bottom line is that now is the time for us to wake up! Now is the time to take charge of our health. Things are changing, but WE – YOU need to be a part of that change. It’s not enough to sit back anymore and pretend we don’t know what’s happening to these animals and the damage that is being done to the earth, on top of what damage we do to ourselves and our health.

If we continue to go the way we are going, our life span is going to get shorter, not longer. Studies are now showing that with the obesity epidemic rising the way it is, that we are going to die much sooner than we think, not to mention what is happening to the planet with all the pollution from the meat industry.

Who really thinks that all this natural disaster is just Mother Nature doing her thing? Or does anyone think that the HUMAN RACE has anything to do with it??? Hmm…I wonder.

So, what will you do to make a difference? Give up meat 1 day a week..or maybe two? Check out Meatless Mondays. Fill your plate with 80% veggies instead of 80% meat ad 20% veggies?? What will you do? Or will you just sit back and hope it gets better??? And if you are one of those people who think you need Animal protein to build muscle, get energy and stay alive, I highly suggest you read T. Colin Campbell’s latest book, The China Study or Vegan Triathlete,Brendan Brazier’s book, Thrive. You might just change the way you think..and that’s a start!

A few people have asked me to write about my experience with Missy Costello’s 30 day cleanse and even though I am not technically done with the cleanse until Feb 2nd, I thought I would share my thoughts now. I am pretty much on autopilot and short of someone tackling me and shoving a Snickers bar in my mouth, I will finish the next 5 days with no cheats. (Brian don’t get any ideas, I am pretty sure I can out run you since doing Insanity).

One of the first questions people asked me is why? Why would I subject myself to 30 days with no alcohol, sugar, caffeine, animal products (including, fish, eggs, dairy) and gluten. Well contrary to what some believe, I didn’t do it to lose weight. Actually, I remained very cognizant of my daily food intake to prevent weight loss since I am on the lean side right now. There were however, others in our group, which consisted of about 20 people, who wanted to and have lost weight. I chose to do this for a few reasons. First of all, I have wanted to get off coffee for a while. I have been been a two, sometimes three cupper a day for the past 20 years and have tried to eliminate it before. With the exception of my 3 pregnancies, I have been unsuccessful. Second of all, I also was getting a little too attached to my Clif bars. Since I spend a lot of time taxiing my kids around town, I had gotten into this rut of grabbing a bar (or two) on my way out the door. Add a protein shake in there, and I realized that I was eating 2 bars and a shake a day and not enough whole foods. When I did eat “real food”, I made good choices (or so I thought) but I was getting lazy and turning to more convenience foods that weren’t the best choices.

So when my good friend Kit told me she was doing this cleanse, I figured this was my chance to try to be successful. I had someone to suffer through this process with. I spend a lot of time working on the outside of my body, it was time to take care of the inside. Oh, another big reason I decided to do this was really to see if I could – I love a good challenge!!

I won’t lie to you, the first 5-6 days were HORRIBLE! Because I also used Splenda in my coffee, when I gave up both cold turkey, I had a splitting headache for 6 days and was very lethargic. Around 4 pm every day I would start counting the hours until I could go to bed. In the past, that would have been enough for me to throw in the towel but I approached it like I approached my first round of P90X – one day at a time. One day turned into two, then three and FINALLY by day seven, I started to feel like myself again. Not only that, I was starting to get more energy in the morning. I was waking up before my alarm and by the time I put my feet on the floor, I was wide awake and ready to hit the ground running. No more standing in front of the coffee maker, patiently drumming my fingers saying……”hurry up already”.

As for the food, this was a challenge mainly because I am a remedial cook at best. I don’t really enjoy cooking either but I knew I had to cook because otherwise I would not eat. We weren’t allowed ANY processed food with the exception of an occasional Larabar but they had 18 grams of sugar (from dates) and we were trying to keep the sugar intake below 5 grams. I saved them for my big big cravings and when I traveled to Philly.

So once again, I approached it like I approach my fitness. I planned out all my meals for the entire week and made big batches of food that I could easily heat up or grab and eat in the car. After about 10 days, any cravings for sugar completely disappeared and for me, getting off of sugar was much easier than coffee. I made and tried a lot of foods I had only heard about before and spent time in aisles at Whole Foods I had never ventured into. It was quite an experience watching me shop there. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure I was pronouncing the food correctly and a couple of times, when the very helpful associates pointed me in the right direction, I actually looked at the food and said “really?”. I think the big test for me was day 11 when my daughter asked if I would make her chocolate chip cookies, which are my biggest downfall. In the past, I would easily pop a few spoonfuls of cookie dough in my mouth while baking but I wasn’t even remotely tempted.

The key to my success here was support. I got it from many angles. My husband and children fully supported my efforts. There were also 19 others doing this with me. We had an email thread and everyone was sharing successes, struggles and recipes galore. I always tell people the reason I was so successful with P90X was due to the message boards. This felt very much the same. I especially am thankful for the support of my friend Kit Horton Caldicott. There were days at the beginning where we were emailing each other 5 times a day and I know that a few times both of us may have slipped had it not been for a two sentence encouraging text or email from each other.

I feel amazing on this cleanse. I have more energy, sleep better, I have less bloating (and all things relating to that), clearer sinuses and skin. I usually get bad eczema on my arms in the winter but so far nothing. Someone in my spin class told me my eyes seemed brighter. Not sure what that means, but heck I’ll take it!!!

One of the best lessons I have learned is that when you are out to eat and want your food cooked a certain way, you simply need to ask. When we were in Philly, I was with 4 of the healthiest eaters I know and we hardly ever ordered something directly off the menu (and it only took California Pizza Kitchen two tries to get Mark Brigg’s lunch correct – lol!). Sunday night I went to a 40th birthday dinner at a Country Club and I knew they had a pre-ordered meal so I called the host and asked if they could just give me a salad loaded with grilled veggies. The chef got on the phone with my friend and he was so accommodating. I won’t be “afraid” to ask for what I want again.

Another question I often get is what about your family. Even though, my family didn’t eat what I was eating, they definitely ate more veggies and fruits over the last month. I tried to incorporate my diet with theirs as much as I could. My daughter actually said my cooking has gotten better which isn’t saying much but it’s a start. I am hoping to incorporate more of the many awesome recipes we got into the family meals. I will not force it on them but plan on taking baby steps to get them to eat more whole foods as well.

So what happens on day 31. Well I know I will not go back to coffee, except maybe an occasional decaf. I just don’t need it anymore and don’t want to go through that detox ever again. I also will not go back to dairy. I now use Almond milk in my shakes and oatmeal and really love the taste. Add a little Agave Nectar and you don’t even realize what your missing. I will probably add back fish and chicken as I do miss them but probably not red meat. I am not a drinker so alcohol is not really an issue but I will probably have an occasional drink when the need arises – 😉 That leaves gluten and sugar. I am going to do my best to keep those to a minimum. My cravings have all but disappeared and I feel so much better having not eaten them for the past month.

Is this or any cleanse for you? Well that’s a decision only you can make. I liked it because there were no pills or potions – just good clean food. I can’t tell you how many people say to me “I COULD NEVER EVER DO THAT”. I initially thought that as welll but once I committed to doing this, I surrounded myself with like-minded people, made a plan, used a journal to write down my food and just took it one day at a time. If you are struggling with your nutrition or feel like you need a jump start, I highly recommend cutting out some or all of the aforementioned foods and see how you feel.

I wasn’t striving for perfection, just progress. I walk away from this mentally stronger. I am really proud of myself for succeeding here. It wasn’t easy but it was so worth it. I am so glad I have created new eating habits and have gotten a great education on what eating healthy REALLY means. Thanks so much Missy! Your guidance through this month has kept us all motivated and focused. You ROCK!!

February 1st is in a few days – I can’t think of a better time to take on a new challenge. I teach a boot camp and am starting a 30 day nutritional and fitness challenge with them on that date. I know that this was a radical change in my diet but I needed that kind of shakeup, again sort of like starting P90X. I do think that even making some of these changes will drastically improve how you feel. If you want to make real change, you got to get into that uncomfortable zone. These past 30 days have definitely been that. My adviceis to find a buddy, make a plan, and get started. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Check out Missy’s website at www.karmachow.com. Check out some of her other guides (she blogs at HMHB), like her most recent on the best crib mattress.

For me, my next challenge will be to put on 10 lbs of muscle. I have the fitness programs and now the nutritional knowledge to make that happen. Game on people!!

In health and happiness,
Susan

As a vegetarian personal chef, wellness coach and nutrition educator I get to witness many different levels of commitment from my clients and would-be clients, or just people in general. I hear all sorts of excuses and reasons why people can’t eat healthy or don’t want to change their lifestyle to feel better & live longer.

Here’s the thing: nutrition, wellness, eating right, being healthy..it all takes work, commitment and dedication. Some of us don’t have the dedication or WANT to commit to being healthy. We say we do, but when it comes down to it, we’d rather spend money on perfume or makeup or some new gadget then on good, nutritious, healthy whole food. Get your free credit report online to learn about and optimize your spending habits.

I cannot tell you how many times I hear the following complaint, “Eating healthy is too expensive”. To me, this phrase shows the level of commitment in another person. Eating healthy may be expensive, but that isn’t necessarily the case and it isn’t entirely true. It’s just an excuse.

Think about the money you spend on things that you think you need, that you really don’t that end up sitting on a shelf or spending their “life” stuffed away in a closet. If you are a woman, think about the endless buckets of cosmetics you buy that you never use because the color was wrong, or the consistency made you break out..or whatever. Or the shoes you buy, that you wear twice a year because they kill your feet. If you’re a man, think about the “fun, new” gadget that you HAD TO HAVE and thought you would use everyday, but sits in a corner collecting dust because you got bored with it or the next & better version came along.

Well, guess what??? All that money that goes toward the material things that we think we need or our ego wants, could all be used as an INVESTMENT in your health & your life! Why is it that we need to buy lipstick, makeup, perfume, gadgets to feel better, when all we have to do is eat right & exercise and then we will REALLY feel better…from the inside out!

Yes, I’ve heard the term “Whole Paycheck” when people refer the specialty market, Whole Foods, yet I really believe that people are not educated in ways to shop healthfully and inexpensively. I agree that when you get into the processed “healthier” foods that are offered at these specialty stores, that YES, it can get expensive. But if you have a PLAN and stick whole foods of grains, veggies, fruits, nuts & legumes, I guarantee you’ll spend less than $150 a week, depending on the size of your family and have a full weeks worth of meals to boot! If you need a hand with finances, consider your loan options from Sambla.se.

Learning how and where to shop for healthy foods is where it starts. Buyingseasonal, local produce is another factor. Visiting your neighborhoodfarmer’s markets or joining a CSA and having locally grown produce delivered to your doorstep can save you buckets of money.

Being healthy is about being creative. It is a learned process like anything else in life. Do you think being unhealthy comes natural? NO! We learned it! It started at a very young age when we would belly up to the kitchen table before school and eat our LARGE bowl of Cocoa puffs or Lucky Charms with the big gallon of white paint (my favorite description of whole milk) next to us. I used to love those darned marshmallows. I think back to those days and I wonder how I ever made it to where I am now; a vegan, whole foods chef. I also remember always feeling like crap and being sick constantly. Falling asleep on my desk at school during 3rd period. Why? Because my body didn’t have the fuel it needed. I was living on processed sugars and simple carbs. I constantly had colds, strep throat, digestive issues and simply NO energy.

If this is how you want to live, then keep eating the processed, non-nutritive foods that are “cheap” so you can save a little bit of cash now, just to spend it down the line when your body is riddled with disease & discomfort from years of a processed, junky diet. Or keep buying that new shade of lipstick, or latest wrinkle cream to feel better, when all you have to do is EAT RIGHT! I promise that the better you eat, the YOUNGER you will look and you won’t need to adorn yourself with all the latest creams, colors and gadgets!

I know, we all work hard and deserve to treat ourselves to nice things. Trust me, I love to buy my favorite Rose Body Oil by Weleda, but the difference is that I make sure I spend my money wisely on my nutrition FIRST and foremost before anything else. I know that when I do that, I am making an INVESTMENT in my life to live longer, feel better and have more vitality. The end result? I rarely ever get sick, my digestion is in optimum working order, I have energy, my skin is clear, I am at my natural body weight and I don’t have to struggle with losing those extra pounds.

So, you get to make the decision? What will it be Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie Nail Polish by OPI, the latest and greatest $80 bottle of wrinkle cream or a healthy delicious meal like my Sweet Potato Tempeh Stew loaded with complex carbs, protein & fat all in one dish for a fraction of the cost?

Take charge of your health today. You are the ONLY ONE who can do it! Know your purpose and MAKE A PLAN!