The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet (18 page)

As you get better and better at building healthy meals, you can keep some other elements in mind:

• Try to use as many colors as you can in a meal. This is a great way to get all your nutrients and to please your eyes as you eat.
  
• Vary your cooking styles; it will keep your tongue and body happy.
  
• Little things make a difference; a garnish of chopped cilantro, scallions, or parsley will give a dish extra vibrancy!
  

TROUBLESHOOTING

Variety:
Don’t eat the same thing every day. Variety is yummy and important. Although I have certainly gone on jags where I wanted to eat a particular food every day for weeks (Rice Dream Mint Chocolate Frozen Pie, Uncle Eddie’s cookies, Tempeh Reubens would be a few examples), I’m also careful to eat a varied diet. Each food has a unique combination of vitamins and minerals. When you eat a good variety of fresh food, your body gets completely nourished, and you will never get bored!

Detox:
Detox is fun. The feelings that come up as your body detoxes from meat and dairy can sometimes be a little weird, and they are often confused with the diet itself. But the problem is not the beans and grains; it’s what you ate
before
them. Your body is making a big shift from one fuel to another and lots of underlying chi—or energy—is getting unblocked. This means your body is healthy, doing the moving and shaking it’s designed to do. This unblocking may produce some weird stuff like rashes, headaches, phlegm, sleeplessness, constipation, diarrhea, and other fun stuff. Or not. Everyone’s different. On the other side of detox, you can look forward to better skin, deeper sleep, and lots of energy. If you’ve been eating meat and dairy your whole life, your intestines may need some time to clean themselves out before they will be able to effectively absorb nutrition and energy from plant-based foods. It’s not unusual for people to feel shaky or weak at times as their bodies and blood sugar learn to stabilize. Make sure to eat regularly and to chew your food extremely well.

Is More Really Better?

Sometimes we go crazy on things. If we hear drinking a smoothie is good for us, we drink one every day for good measure. If we hear blueberries are good, we eat a whole quart. We read an article about a certain food and get obsessed with it. We as Americans are raised on the ethic of “if some is good, more is better.” But that’s not actually true. When we listen only to our minds saying, “This is
good for me
,” we stop listening to our bodies. And if we don’t listen to our own bodies’ signals, who will? The body requires variety and has different needs within a day, a season, and a year. Luckily we have a finely honed tool to help us determine our real needs: intuition. By eating whole grains and vegetables, your intuition will become stronger and you will be more and more attracted to things that support your health. Instead of saying, “Carrots are good. I should have carrots every day,” ask yourself, “Do I
feel
like having a carrot?” and really listen. Although it may not happen overnight, trust that by eating Nature, she will begin to speak through you.

Chewing

The secret to total satisfaction is in your mouth. Ahh, your mouth. In your specially designed kisser, you have the magical ability to convert a complex carb—like a grain of brown rice, or a green bean, or even a hunk of squash—into . . . glucose. That’s right. Sugar. The
good
kind. You come equipped with flat molars, a jaw that moves in little circles for grinding, and a special enzyme in your saliva, called ptylin, that breaks down complex carbs into glucose. When this glucose travels to your brain, it gives you the most amazing feeling of satisfaction. You will feel nourished and centered, and your brain will be free to generate happy thoughts. And all this begins in your mouth.

So we’re talking about chewing here. We’re meant to chew—that’s what our molars are for! Because we modern folk eat refined carbs like sugar and white flour (which break down so quickly in the mouth), we’ve never had to think about chewing. But I promise you the feeling of satisfaction you will get from chewing whole foods thoroughly is something you appreciate for the rest of your life. Good-bye calories! Good-bye Weight Watchers Points! Good-bye glycemic index! Hello really eating—and enjoying—food.

Truth is, when I concentrate on chewing a mouthful, my jaw aches a little, I get bored, and finally I feel like an old lady at a retirement home. But then the bliss sets in. I know it doesn’t sound sexy, but by chewing thoroughly you will nourish yourself deeply, feel totally peaceful and satisfied, lose weight, and create your strongest health.

All that being said, I’m not the greatest chewer. I try hard to chew every mouthful 30 times, but I often don’t meet that mark and often forget altogether. It’s really about doing your best and discovering that feeling of satisfaction. Here are some chewing tips to help you practice:

Eat some meals alone:
It’s
way
easier to chew when you’re not expected to talk.

Put your fork down between bites:
This simple trick interrupts mindless gobbling.

Really taste the food:
You went to the trouble to get it! By paying real attention to the food, you can relax and let each bite be chewed until it’s liquid, enjoying every little bit of flavor.

Your jaw might hurt:
When any unused muscle gets a workout, it feels it, and your jaw’s been slackin’ off for years now. Your body will soon thank your jaw because you will perform so much better on chewed food.

If you want to throw in the towel,
here are some tips to keep you on track:

• Pick up this book and reread the information about Nasty Foods and Kind Foods.
  
• Make your favorite dish from this book.
  
• Eat something very rich, with lots of oil and satisfying flavors.
  
• Go get a great vegan meal at a restaurant.
  
• If you find you’re struggling with cravings, see the section on Cravings on page
  104
  .
  

And don’t hesitate to get support. Get a couple of the books I recommend from the library to keep you inspired. Check in with the vegan world at least once a day—there are a lot of us out there! Go to my Web site at
www.thekindlife.com
for inspiration and to connect with others.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

I know I said up front that staying away from all animal products is important in order to feel the full impact of the diet—and that’s certainly true—but at no time is beating yourself up an option. Changing a lifetime’s worth of habits can be challenging; if you fall off the wagon, just get back on. No drama. No guilt. Being vegan is a journey, not a destination. It is a gentle awakening of the heart, mind, and spirit. You’ll see that there is no punishment here, just the beautiful reward of feeling better and better every day.

As you continue on this journey—4 weeks and beyond—you will experience amazing changes. Some will come quickly, some slowly, but eventually meat’s hardness will melt away, leaving your body and heart soft and open. You will begin to feel more deeply. Compassion will flow from your core toward all other living beings. This is the most amazing gift of eating a plant-based diet—feeling the sacred connectedness of all living things. Enjoy.

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.

—Buddha

Reminders for Vegans:

• Ramp up the whole grains.
  
• Commit to freeing your body and the planet from the grip of nasty foods.
  
• Dive into Vegan recipes and dabble shamelessly in Superhero recipes.
  
• Check in with your body; listen to its signals.
  
• Be proud of the choices you’re making.
  

VEGAN MEAL PLAN

Here is a week’s worth of menus using the recipes you will find on pages
141
–
213
, with a restaurant meal thrown in here and there. Please feel free to mix and match as you like; these are only guidelines. After 7 days, repeat the menu or introduce new recipes from both the Vegan and Superhero sections. Go crazy!

DAY 1

Breakfast

Pumpkin Bread (page
202
)

Steamed greens

Lunch

Hot Rice with Cold Lemon, Basil, and Tomato (page
151
)

Sicilian Collard Greens with Pine Nuts and Raisins (page
176
)

Purchased squash soup (I like the Imagine Company’s)

Dinner

Explore a local vegetarian restaurant. Get something crazy like vegan nachos or a vegan BLT.

DAY 2

Breakfast

Mom’s Granola (page
201
)

Lunch

Restaurant veggie burger and a salad

Dinner

Fried Rice (page
234
)

Sweet Potato-Lentil Stew over couscous (page
166
)

Steamed greens

Oatmeal, Walnut, and Dried Plum Cookies (page
186
)

DAY 3

Breakfast

Crocodile Crunch (page
200
)

Lunch

Dolma with Tofu Cream (pages
224
–
225
)

Sugar Snap Peas, Radishes, and Edamame with Lemon Butter (page
167
)

Dinner

Waffle, Sausage, and Cheese Panini (page
153
)

Watercress, Beet, and Heirloom Tomato Salad or green salad (page
173
)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (page
183
) or My Favorite Cupcakes (page
190
)

DAY 4

Breakfast

Bagel with Tofutti cream cheese or Toast with nut butter and jam

Lunch

Radicchio Pizza with Truffle Oil (page
144
)

Alicia’s Sexy Inspired Salad (page
174
)

Dinner

Takeout from your favorite Indian restaurant: cauliflower/potato/pea dish, lentil soup, naan bread, or rice dish

DAY 5

Breakfast

At a restaurant:

Toast with avocado and tomatoes, Oatmeal, or Hash browns and tofu scramble

Lunch

Your choice: Tostadas (Kinda) (page
217
) or Burrito (pages
216
,
219
)

Crispy Peanut Butter Treats with Chocolate Chips (page
184
)

Dinner

Rustic Pasta (page
147
) or pasta with your fave marinara sauce

Pecan-Crusted Seitan (page
154
)

Steamed broccoli with Vegenaise

Garlic Bread (page
147
)

DAY 6: QUICK AND EASY DAY

Breakfast

Quick Date-Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal (page
196
)

Steamed greens

Lunch

Your choice of sandwich (see ideas on page
152
)

Dinner

Chorizo Tacos (page
157
)

Steamed greens

Rice Dream Frozen Mint Chocolate Pie

DAY 7: SUNDAY

Brunch

Traditional English Breakfast (page
198
)

Dinner

Basic Rice (page
233
, make a large pot)

Black Soybean and Kabocha Squash Stew (page
164
)