What am I eating?

After I left my meeting with my nutritionist, I immediately headed to my local Trader Joe's. For those of you who don't know what Trader Joe's is like the mecca of affordable health food. Truthfully, the prices at Meijer and Kroger are comparable, but I can find some more plant based protein at a better price there. Also, their frozen meals are fabulous and generally healthier and better priced than at other stores. I will often get these for my fiancee when I won't be home for dinner. Anyway, I digress. At Trader Joe's I picked up some hemp hearts, walnuts, and quinoa and brown rice pasta.

After Trader Joe's I called my dad to see if he could meet me at Costco. My fiancee and I are probably one of the few people left who do not have a bulk food store membership. Fortunately, I am the biggest daddy's girl ever and he agreed to meet me right away. My grocery list at Costco included: individual packages of guacamole, vegan protein powder, spinach frozen triple berry mix, and cashews.

You would think that between Costco and Trader Joe's I would be finished shopping. Nope. Not yet. After Costco, I went straight to to Meijer and picked up my produce. Apples were on sale this week, so I picked up enough for one a day. I also picked up some stuff for my fiancee to eat. I'm still easing him in to the idea of veganism. After Meijer, I headed to Kroger. I was looking for Bragg's Liquid Aminos and Nutritional Yeast. Supposedly the nutritional yeast is like Parmesan cheese. I'll let you know how that goes.

Becoming a Veganista

I have eaten a primarily vegetarian diet since middle school. Why? I don't know. It something that just happened. If you ask my mom, I stopped eating meat after watching a deer be gutted in front of me. I don't remember it being terribly traumatic. But maybe it was. Who knows. Moral of the story is that I slowly started to ease meat products out of my diet. 

I began Weight Watchers in November to prep for my upcoming wedding. I figured with some accountability I may actually lose something. I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, Weight Watchers is a great program, but when you aren't getting enough protein, it is difficult to lose weight. In fact, I'm going to stay on Weight Watchers while I rework my diet. 

I met with a registered dietitian yesterday to go over how to be vegan. She was fabulous! We talked about how to get protein and how I basically wasn't getting any before. Honestly, I probably haven't gotten the correct amount of protein since I was in middle school (thanks Mom ;) ). She created a meal plan that I am going to follow for the next two weeks. It is just strict enough that I am getting enough of my nutrients everyday, but also lax enough that I have some variety in what I am going to eat. After talking to her, I felt that going to a vegan lifestyle isn't going to be all that difficult. Which I am grateful for. Now I just have to convince my fiancee that it's going to be fine.