Vegan? Vegan!

About a month and a half ago, Ethan asked if I would try a vegan, low-fat diet with him. I responded with a loving, but skeptical, "I guess we could try it". I am so not a hippie. I feel no moral obligations to cows that prevents me from eating them or their milk. But I do have a very strong family history of heart disease, and there is pretty good evidence that a plant-based, low fat diet is the healthiest possible for prevention of heart disease and multiple kinds of cancer.

And the surprise? I actually like it. The first couple of weeks were tough. I was craving fat, salt, and cheese. I am fine with eating almost no meat, but cheese was a BIG deal for me. and Ice Cream. I have a major sweet tooth. But after a couple of weeks, the fat cravings went away. We have been trying out new recipes, and trying foods that I had never eaten before in my entire life (Kale,mustard greens, turnips, parsnips, nutritional yeast, new kinds of peppers). We have explored Indian and Chinese grocery stores and found new kinds of seasonings, and different kinds of lentils and beans. We have tried out grains that I haven't ever had before.

The best part? I can eat as much food as I want. I can eat until I am completely full and I don't feel bad about a single bite of food that goes in my mouth. I don't count calories, but I have lost about 4-5 pounds since changing my diet, and my body feels like I have lost more (Ethan's looking pretty good too, added bonus!). Meals take a bit more planning. I can't just decide I'm tired and I want to go out for a burger and a beer. But I don't feel deprived at all. We both have more energy and we've both noticed our skin clearing up.

You may wonder, "what on earth do they eat?"

Here are a few of the things we've made:

Texas Caviar

 

Asian Slaw with rice vinegar, tamari, and a tiny bit of tahini, over radishes, carrots, parsnips, and cabbage.

 

Home made corn tortillas- SO much better than store-bought if you have the time!

 

Vegetable Fajitas. I'm not sure exactly what Ethan put on them for a marinade but they were the best veggie fajitas I've ever had in my life.

 

We both started taking a vitamin with B12 to keep our bases covered, but we're converts.

Here are the resources that helped us to change our minds:

Forks Over Knives (also on Netflix)

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (Also on Netflix)

The China Study

Pumpkinfest

We spent a little bit of this morning at the arboretum. It was kind of busy because they just started their fall pumpkin festival- but so worth the crowd. They used pumpkins and gourds to make mosaics, and to cover small buildings.

 

There were dozens of Monarch butterflies. Watching them made me feel like a little kid again

 

Sometimes I have to sneak up on Ethan to get his picture. This is him at his happiest- caffienated.

 

So many gourds! The pictures really don't do this justice.

 

 

And of course, I had to get a picture of myself in a pumpkin patch. Happy Fall!

 

Favorite things in East Dallas

We moved to East Dallas about a year ago and I am really in love with our neighborhood. When I first moved to this city I lived between uptown and the hospital. There are some nice restaurants and plenty of nice people there, but there was also a LOT of what I hated about Dallas. Which can really be summed up by the phrase "30,000 dollar millionaire". It took me four years to turn from HATING Dallas, to saying "eh, it's okay" to actually really loving where I live. I think a lot of it has to do with our move to East Dallas. I love seeing white rock lake every day. I love that my neighborhood is full of small houses with big yards (rather than 5000 sq foot houses on 5500 sq foot lots), and tons of people doing DIY renovations. So in celebration, here are my favorite places to go in East Dallas.

1. White Rock Lake We live less than a mile from this, which means that we can walk or bike to the trail. There aren't large motorized boats, but plenty of rowing and sail boats and canoes. In the morning, if it's calm when I drive to work before sunrise I can see the reflection of the skyline in the water. In the afternoon I pass it again on my way home. It is my marker of "NOW I can relax".
2. Dallas Arboretum We just got a membership after living here for a year and we should absolutely not have waited so long! This is a very pretty garden which is also within walking distance. yesterday we went for a concert in the garden and saw a super fun 80's cover band. When it gets cooler in the fall I'm planning on taking picnics to the garden, or just sitting under a tree with a book.
3. Cock and Bull This is a dark, cool pub-style bar with a good beer selection and AWESOME Food. I have never had a bad dish. The best things they have are the mussels, the Red Bull Burger, the Italian Sausage, and the Reuben. on Mondays any Burger plus any beer can be had for $9. It's especially nice in the summer to slip into a dark cave-like space when it's so ridiculously hot outside.
4. White Rock Coffee I think that light coffees often taste a bit like soy sauce to me, and Starbucks-Dark tend to taste like burnt toast. White Rock Coffee is always smooth, never too bitter or too acid. plus they have free wi-fi and free refills if you get a ceramic cup rather than a paper one.
5. The Balcony Club this place has live music most nights. We especially like Thursday Jazz. The bartender can make a mean gin martini. We came here for the evening after party after our wedding.
6. Angelo's our FAVORITE Italian restaurant. The seafood Fra Diavolo is amazing. We held our wedding brunch here. They have bottomless mimosas at Sunday brunch. and they give you yummy garlic knots with marinara before your meal.
7. Henk's Okay so this one is pushing it as far as being "in the neighborhood", but it still takes us less than 10 mins to get there and it's east of I-75, so I'll count it. This is an authentic German restaurant with a deli, bakery, and imported-foods grocery store. Friday and Saturday nights are the times to go for cheap beer, live accordion, and great food. Any choice of brats is delicious, as is the schnitzle. The cheese soup is also great. For dessert, the chocolate turtles are yummy and the mousse ball (a hard chocolate bowl filled with chocolate mousse and topped with a dollop of whipped cream) is so yummy. It is big enough to share between four people. I guess unless you really like chocolate.



The best thing is, I feel like every day I find a new place that I want to try or explore. And we have great and friendly neighbors- on one side a WW2 vet who gave us lawn furniture when we first moved in and didn't have any, and on the other side a couple who grow more than half of their food in their organic back yard garden. They recently told us about a pool not too far down the road that belongs to a mason's club of some sort, that you can pay a reasonable amount and use during the summer. I think we're going to try it out in the next couple of weekends.

Morning at the Arboretum

This morning we went and got some extra-large icy beverages from Starbucks and went for a walk through the Arboretum. It was so pretty! And we discovered whole areas that we had not seen last go round.


The place was absolutely crawling with brides and engaged couples! I think we saw four or five engaged couples getting portraits made, a half a dozen women in wedding dresses, a quincenera, and a couple of weddings. In my book, an outdoor wedding in JUNE in DALLAS needs to either be finished before 10:30 AM or begin after 6:30. I was comfy in my cotton sundress and straw hat, but I felt pretty bad for those guys in tuxes and women in gowns in 85 degree and climbing weather. sheesh.


Lily pond. very pretty.


I took this picture for my sister. She loves sunflowers. These were no joke about 9-10 feet tall!

just keepin' it real

Remember when i shared the big office reveal?


what you may not know is that the desks we have in here are meant only to be used when attached to the book-shelf, and they come with one leg, and hardware to attach to the shelf to act as the other leg. not to be deterred, we jury-rigged a solution, and figured that we could always make a more permanent solution in a week or so.

We all know how this ends. This is the permanent solution that we have come up with.


the permanent solution, as you can see, is a stack of disused textbooks as the leg on the other side of the desk.

It is the same as the jury-rigged solution. I have just come to peace with the fact that it is permanent.

Pinterest

I am now on Pinterest. It is like crack. I can put all the pretty pictures I like on it. my website is
http://pinterest.com/laurenlosefast/

I can see all the nice things I like at once. check it out.

tomatoes and zinnias

Cherry tomatoes are ripening. we are getting about a half a pint to a pint daily and they are sooo delicious.

The zinnias I planted a while ago are starting to flower. I will definitely plant these again next year. Just scattered them in the ground, watered occasionally, and look how pretty! such happy little flowers.




In other news, I am FINISHED with my surgery career. thank you God. It's like the relief I used to feel when finals week was over, except that finals week was 11 months long. I will now have a semi-normal schedule and will be able to see the people I love more than occasionally.