Healthy Vegetables

Vegetarian 101

This is day 7 of my grand experiment of being a vegetarian for the month of March. Why would I want to test the waters of vegetarianism? Working on a Cardiac IMC unit in the hospital I noticed some “Common Denominators” of the patients that come to the floor.

The The “Top 3″ were:

1. Overweight (moderate to severe obesity)
2. Diet (high saturated fat)
3. Exercise (lack of)

Seeing these common connections between people with heart problems (coupled with heart disease in my family) & a few other reasons; in April 2009 my wife and I changed our eating habits. I avoid using the word “Diet” intentionally. I’ve been on “Diets” before. They are typically short term & ineffective. I did some research and chose a “Program” to follow. In our case the “Swank Diet” is the eating regimen we chose to follow. What did we give up? The main changes to our diet were the elimination of fried foods and the reduction of saturated fat. *Side note: Be careful what you make fun of. I used to laugh at people in the grocery store that read product labels; now I’m that person! So how much saturated fat is o.k.? We went with avoiding anything with more than 2.5 grams of saturated fat. The results: after three months we had both lost 30+ pounds (and have kept it off for 11 months & counting). While our reasons for changing our eating habits was not to lose weight, but instead to eat healthier; it’s still kinda nice wearing clothes that 10 years ago wouldn’t fit. I have a low-fat simple recipe site here: Recipe Resource. Most of them are “Swank Friendly”, but they are all tasty, simple to prepare and low-fat.

Healthy food is yucky! This is what I used to believe. You know, to eat healthy it’s all celery sticks & tasteless rice cakes. Boy was I ever wrong. We found a community of people committed to following the “Swank Diet” who generously and selfishly shared their favorite tasty recipes. Now the Swank Diet was designed for a specific medical condition that I wont go into here. And while the medical evidence for it’s benefits aren’t overwhelming, we knew that the healthier lifestyle change was something we wanted to adopt. The health benefits from eating delicious healthy food was our primary goal, and in this we succeeded.

Watkins Natural Products

October 2009 I was introduced to Watkins. I received some samples in the mail and was flabbergasted. I was one of those people that had never really heard about Watkins Vanilla, Watkins Black Pepper & Watkins Cinnamon. OMG!, this stuff was awesome. Seriously, just doing a simple cinnamon taste test between the cinnamon I had in the cupboard vs. Watkins Cinnamon opened my eyes to a world of flavor I had been missing. I had no idea that there could be such a difference in the flavor and quality in spices. Now, 5 months down the road with my involvement in Watkins, I’ve found that all of their products are top notch. They feature natural and green products that are good, and good for you and your family. It was great when I realized that a simple change from chemical laden shampoo, soaps & deodorants to natural Watkins products would be better for me and the environment. With over 350 products, Watkins has something for everyone.

7 Days as a Vegetarian

So how did I end up experimenting with vegetarianism? A little soul searching and a lot of fact finding. Just as before when I went with the Swank Diet, I did some research. I remember years ago hearing about a Dr. Dean Ornish who had a revolutionary way of reversing blockages to the heart WITHOUT surgery. The parallels I saw between his Clinically Proven way to reverse heart disease (eat low-fat vegetarian diet & exercise) and the patients I see coming to the Cardiac unit (unhealthy diet, overweight & no exercise) were an epiphany. “Yeah but”, why does it have to be vegetarian? Why not? #1 it’s proven medically to reverse blockages to the heart. Secondly, have you ever considered why it is you have the eating habits you do? Just because that’s the way you were raised should not be the one thing that stands between you and living a healthier life. “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner” Ever heard that one, or have you ever got a McDonald’s jingle stuck in your head. Could we as a society be so malleable as to be susceptible to the marketing marvels who promote an unhealthy diet? I was. What vegetarian recipe could compete with McDonalds? Check this out if you love the McRib.

Vegetarian Recipes

After researching more about Dr. Dean Ornish and his “Eat more & lose weight” healthy heart eating regime, I decided to see if I could find any good recipes. Yep, sure enough I did! Here are a few great resources to try. AllRecipes.com then search for vegetarian recipes. Another awesome site for info on vegetarianism and recipes is goveg.com. Start here with Vegetarianism 101. Being a guy, I’m a visual creature. That’s just one of the reasons I love VegTV.com. They have videos showing you how to prepare some wonderful vegetarian and vegan recipes.

In conclusion. I’m not trying to scare or guilt anybody into being a vegetarian. My goal is to supply share our story and offer resources. I’m looking for helping the person who has an open mind & is looking for better health. Thanks for stopping by.

To order Watkins online click here.

David Blalock
Bronze Trailblazer Consultant #386886
E-mail me