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From:	miffy (cpe-66-108-113-114.nyc.res.rr.com)
Subject:	Claudia--Thanks so much!
Date:	July 31, 2007 at 3:15 pm PST

In Reply to: Snacking Answers for Miffy posted by Claudia on July 31, 2007 at 1:09 pm:

Claudia -- It's unbelievably nice, not to mention helpful, of you to answer my questions. Apologies in advance for this overlong post.

I'm 5'4.5" and 128 lbs. I'd be happy to lose 10 or 12 lbs. I'm very small framed. Altho, at my current weight, I look not so bad. I'm moderately, but not gym-rat-ishly, active.

In March, I read both The China Study and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, after which I immediately switched to a basically fat-free vegan diet. I say "basically," because of course all food, even the most benign vegetable, contains fat. I guess I mean no-fat-added. Before this, I was a vegetarian, so the switch to vegan was not that big a leap for me. Ditching oil, though, seemed like it would be hard. Weirdly, it was easy.

I'm not on any medication and haven't had any caffeine for 15+ years.

I read E2L several years ago and even though I thought it sounded great and I loved the explanation of the science behind it, it seemed impossible for me to do. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I read it again, and it seemed not only possible but probably pretty easy to do! Amazing how a person's perspective can change.

So, I haven't been doing E2L for quite a week, but for the past 5 months, I was eating a totally vegan diet with no added fats. During that time I lost about 4 lbs (actually more, but I gained some back because I was so hungry so much of the time) and was still experiencing the same late-afternoon (and sometimes post-dinner) food-deprivation meltdowns that I've been having most of my life. [Feed me now! I *must* eat! That kind of thing.]

I may not be following E2L exactly. I'm new to it and trying to figure out what will work for me.

Anyhow, here's what I eat on a typical day:

Breakfast:
a) 1/2 cup uncooked rolled oats
b) 1/2 oz. raisins
c) 1 small banana
d) 8 oz. Westsoy plain fat-free soy milk

I realize that dried fruit isn't on the 6-week plan, but I have my limits of what I'm willing to give up and 1/2 oz of raisins seems ok, or, anyway, I hope so. I'm also not sure if the soy milk I use is Fuhrman-approved, but I've been thru many different soy milks and the unsweetened ones just taste horrendous to me, so I've compromised by having a ff one.

Lunch:
a) gigantic salad with approx. an entire head of romaine lettuce and whatever raw veggies I have lying around--tomatoes, carrots, broc, etc. I dress it with a fat-free (I make it myself) hummus and vinegar dressing
b) 1/2 cup of some kind of beans, today it was chickpeas made into a sort of fake falafel (not fried, I just use the falafel spices and smush up the chickpeas)
c) lots of fruit--today it was a lot of blueberries
d) today I also had about .25 oz of walnuts (before I read your post...I must've channeled it! lol)

Dinner:
a) another big salad, usually with about 1 oz of avocado in addition to whatever else there is in it
b) a bean dish--last night I made lentil soup, tonight it'll be curried chickpeas (a great recipe from the P&RHD book, btw, which book has terrific recipes in it) also, tonight I'll have 1/2 cup of brown rice with the chickpeas
c) steamed broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and other veggies
d) fruit, fruit, fruit
e) last night I also had .5 oz of walnuts along with the fruit

I like to keep things relatively simple since I'm not a great cook.

Well, it's 6 pm and I didn't seem to crash so much today. I mean, I would like to have eaten something at 4 or 5 or even now, but I'm not CRAZILY craving it. Maybe it was the walnuts?

I don't think there's any way on earth I could eat 2 oz of nuts a day and still lose weight. Do you not eat any grains? I've been very careful not to have a grain at lunch, but have been splitting the cup of grain between lunch and dinner. I did have an Ezekiel English muffin with a homemade black bean burger one night last week, but that's been the extent of my bread intake.

TIA for any help you can give me. I really appreciate it, esp. since I noticed that this board is not very active.

--miffy--

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