21-Days Down

I've completed my first 21 days of a mostly vegan lifestyle.  I feel the main thing is to not stress about being perfect (and I'm not.)  I really love to cook, so this has been a chance for me to become more "experimental" and creative.  I feel challenged to create things and a desire to research food and find the limits of my tolerance for totally weird stuff.   I've never thrown so much food away!  I mean, I have made some really inedible stuff.  But I've made plenty of food that I have enjoyed.  There are several more interesting products I want to try (seitan, nutritional yeast, soy sour cream, to name a few), but I think eventually I will settle into a comfortable level of healthy eating without suffering.  I think my husband's threshold for suffering is lower than mine, so I have to be careful.  I am willing to eat the occasional sprinkle of cheese, and have had fish twice in the 21 days.  I've found a recipe for low fat cheesecake that I have to try -- still dairy, but I LOVE cheesecake!  And, one of my favorite restaurant meals is Lobster Fettuccini at a restaurant called Biaggi's in Champaign.  I fully intend to go back and get some of that.

I bought a cookbook called Vegan Yum-Yum and I am following her blog, as well as some other vegan recipe sites, so that keeps me trying new things.  I signed up for an exercise class, so that will get me started on the other half of my healthier lifestyle.  My son actually ate a veggie burger last night and didn't complain too much -- so we are all doing FINE!