busy start to summer!

I have been a bad vegan redhead ignoring my blog.  I do have a couple of reasons for the missing in action -

1. My daughter graduated from High School!! Woohoo!
2. Work has been crazy off and on.
3. Eating like a bad vegan (lots of vegan junk food) and not feeling that energy and motivation I do when eating healthy.
4. Have realized and now excepted that I am not, nor will ever be, a runner (you can see I have dropped that from my blog header lol).

With summer now upon us things feel like they are slowing down a bit.  So, now for some catching up!

Graduation

I have to start with my daughter graduating really fast!  We are so proud of her!!  The day of graduation she and I enjoyed pedicures and then the day after - Mother & Daughter tattoos!!  We are a bit wild that way lol!  Here are a few photos from the event:

Vegan Eating

Over the last few weeks I found myself cooking LOTS of vegan breads, muffins, naughty baked donuts and what happens?  The darn scale has been going up and UP.  Another side effect - I feel like crap all of the time, oh and my clothes are no longer fitting (I've gone from my size 4's to 10).  Ugh.  Time to turn it around.  We have had the debate of joining a gym for the summer, but after last years mess i think we are going to stick to home workouts and swimming. With the internet you can find great workouts you can do at home with little to NO equipment!  Also - we have a pool just dying to be used!!

Back to eating, trying to adapt the "Raw until 4pm" motto.  I love raw, but for dinner I do like warmer food lol.  Now my husband, he can eat ANYTHING cold, not me.  Saturday for an early Father's Day I made the most AMAZING raw lunch.  The raw bread was started Friday night as it took 13 hours to cook, but SO worth it and check out the ingredients...NO flour or crap all fresh!


After just a few days of clean eating it's amazing how great I feel again! Trying to add more banana in my diet.  Have you seen the blog The Banana Girl or Loni Jane on Instagram? Now I'm not saying I would eat bananas all day-every day, but the more I have read, the effects of adding more bananas to a diet are actually pretty good and positive.

"In fact, there’s evidence that suggests just the opposite: a diet rich in produce—including bananas—can help you lose and maintain a healthy weight. Fruit provides relatively few calories from its volume, thanks in part to its high water and fiber content. Not only are those who eat plant-based diets thinner they have reduced risks for most chronic disease, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
Many of the world’s fittest and leanest athletes report eating several bananas every day. In fact, the Olympian Yohan Blake eats 16 bananas a day!
When it comes to the glycemic index of bananas, all fruit is rich in fructose, which is digested and absorbed slowly by the liver as opposed to other sugars that are metabolized through the small intestine. In fact, because bananas provide equal amounts of glucose and fructose and a small amount of sucrose, they have a low-to-moderate glycemic index of 51, which is the same as many other fruits like grapes, pineapple and mangoes. Bananas and other fruit don’t “spike” your blood sugar levels like candy, soft drinks, white bread or other refined grains that don’t contain fructose or fiber." Source here

What are  your thoughts on this?

Since cleaning up my diet (starting last Wednesday) I have dropped about 7 pounds and feeling so much better.  This weeks menu is raw and fresh, makes me look forward to cooking dinner every night!!