Tags
achieve goals, cooking, Habits, Homecooking, Plant Strong, recipe, spices, spicy, success, tofu curry, weight loss
Every January is a time, when we are highly motivated to make bold resolutions on attaining lofty goals. We have the luxury of knowing that there are 365 days ahead of us and by God, “this is definitely happening this year”. We believe that the goal will be attained because 365 days is plenty of time to make it happen. Life moves like a high speed locomotive, on a track, that at times is perfectly straight and clear, blocked or veering off into a different direction. Before we know it, our energy drains dealing with these obstacles, while trying to keep the train moving on the track.
The question arises, how do I continue to maintain my focus on my lofty goals? Am I going to let an obstacle or a distraction stop me from working towards this goal? It comes down to whether you are willing to put in the time and effort needed to get to the destination. When you arrive at the destination, it then comes down what you are willing to do to keep what you worked so hard to earn.
Early this year, I committed to making some changes in my life for 2020. I was “making it obvious” that it was time to incorporate some changes in my life. My main goals for 2020 were to
- Develop a daily writing habit
- Find a way to get more sleep (goal of 8 hours/night)
- Get on the path to weight loss – target moving from 169lb to 150lb by adopting a whole foods plant based diet
- Do strength training twice a week
Almost a month later, my observations are that none of these goals are easily achievable. If you are wondering which goal is the hardest to meet…..you guessed it, it is number (2), getting 8 hours of sleep per night. This is the one goal I have struggling to get past 7 hours. Getting in strength training twice will probably be the easiest to achieve, along with six days of running per week.
On developing a daily writing habit, I am also having some challenges. What does one write everyday? I have read articles and listened to podcasts, where the experts say that you should try writing a few sentences daily and then you eventually get into a rhythm. I started first by recording my workouts, meals, and how much I sleep, in a fitness journal. At the end of the day I also summarize how my day went. I have a separate blue book where I try to summarize my thoughts for future blogs, and perhaps thoughts for a future book 🙂 Finally I have a third book where I summarize books that I read, so that I can go back and refer to important takeaways from those books. So developing a writing habit appears to be very fluid at this time. You may ask, why do I keep three separate books? Well i am just like that. I am an engineer and love to ramble and record details. Perhaps one day I will have to create that one special notebook where I can record all of my activities and writings!
After 26 days, losing weight and sticking with a plant strong diet has been nearly as challenging as trying to get a good night’s sleep. Where do I begin??? A short summary of the journey would be as follows: Gaining weight is like falling from the top to the bottom of Mt Everest, and losing weight is like climbing up Mt Everest. One does not start by simply climbing up the mountain and succeeding the first time. The journey to success requires going through tough spells of training and scoring infinitesimal gains along the way. Nutrition plays a bigger role than exercise in weight loss, and one has to be patient along the journey and simply trust the process. I weigh myself every morning, record my meals and get my workouts in. I have a great running coach Lindsey Parry, who gives me a program that I follow. So the exercise part is easy (not really, but easier because it is defined in terms of what I need to do each day). The hardest part is watching what I eat and making sure that I am staying plant strong.
What it means to be Plant Strong
I am focusing my efforts on eating as many vegetables and grains as I can. I have avoided meat for the most part. There are times in Indian cooking, or when I have gone out to eat, it is difficult to avoid dairy products. Some of these times include when my wife makes pizza at home. I truly do not care for Vegan Cheese on a pizza. During such times, I eat a ton of veggies like roasted Brussels sprouts, and have a couple of slices of pizza. I am completely okay with that as I am getting most of my nutrition from plants.
Being plant strong also means that I have been motivated to get creative with my cooking. A steak is delicious and easy to make. Sprinkle salt and pepper and then grill. And it is quite filling. Cooking with plants means creating dishes that can take time, but are memorable. While a steak tastes great and fills you up, I usually don’t feel great afterwards. Cooking with plants means that I am having fun coming up with new dishes. I enjoy the process of thinking about what I am going to cook, scribble out a recipe, and then create the dish. When writing out the recipe, one needs to imagine what their creation will taste like, and then attempt to construct the building blocks, and ensure these building blocks fall in together like blocks in a game of Tetris.
This week, my mother and I made Tofu Curry pita wraps. I thought about this dish in the morning while I was at work. On the drive back home, I started to piece together all the ingredients that I needed to make the dish. Below is a picture recipe of how the dish was created
Roast the spices until you can smell the aroma. Do not roast the pepper seeds 🙂 cashews are roasted separately Blend the roasted spices, cashews and black pepper together
The first picture shows all the spices used: 7 chilies (less for desired spiciness), 8 tbsp dry coriander seeds, 1 tbsp cumin seeds, 1 cup of dried cashews, 1 tbsp black pepper. After the spices are roasted, let them cool for 10 minutes before blending them together
Concentrated tomato paste Adding 2 tbsp of tomato paste to the onions Adding the blended spices Letting the spice mix cook together. Add 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric powder. Add a half cup of water to ensure that the spice mix does not stay stuck to the bottom of the pot. Right about this time, take out the cinnamon stick and bay leaves, and throw them away
Creating the batter Dipping the tofu cubes in the batter Getting ready to roast the cubes
1) 2 cups of chickpea flour – you can find this in Indian stores (called Besan)
2) 1 teaspoon of chili powder
3) 1 teaspoon of salt
4) half a can of beer
Dip the tofu cubes in the batter and arrange them on a tray coated with olive oil. Bake in a 400F oven for 10 minutes.
Once the tofu cubes are cooked, mix the cubes in the spicy sauce.
Time to saute 1lb of spinach Saute in olive oil 1 lb looks like a lot of spinach 1lb of spinach after sautéing does not look like much 🙂
Overall this dish fed 5 people over 2 separate meals. The dish was incredible. It was a little spicy, but I like my meals spicy. In the future I would probably reduce the number of chilis to 3 instead of 7 red peppers. It was also pretty filling. If you are motivated to make this dish, let me know how it turned out.
Measuring success after 26 days
My measure of success is weight loss. I started out the year at almost 170lbs (almost 77kg), and set a goal of getting to 145lbs (66kg)
As an engineer, I make observations and conclusions based on data. In the first one month, I have been running consistently, and increased my sleep from 4 – 5 hrs/night to 6 – 7.5 hrs/night. Sleep is the best form of recovery. I have also been staying plant strong as much as I can. Occasionally I have a slice of pizza, and I am okay with that. I also keep a record of my workouts on Strava, and also in my fitness journal.
My focus during this whole time has been on committing to the process. The habits I have committed to, namely, exercising well, getting sleep, and maintaining a plant strong diet are repeated every day. I consciously make the choice to ensure that I know what I am eating everyday and have gotten into a habit of taking home cooked meals to work. The number of restaurant visits have dropped. I also understand that time is my friend. Believing in the process does not yield a favorable result everyday. There are days when you wonder what is not working today, especially when your weight climbs up after a day of eating healthy. However over weeks, one begins to see the dividends coming thorough, from the investments made. Below is the journey of my weight loss starting from the beginning of January 2020
So over the last 23 days I have managed to shed over 6 lbs or little over 2 kg. Overall this is progress! I am motivated to continue on this journey, as it shows that adoption of good habits leads to favorable outcomes which continue to reinforce the good habits.
I dedicate today’s post to everybody that has made that decision to make a positive change in their lives. Be willing to start the journey and stick with it. Have fun on this journey and celebrate the moments of success. Not everyday is a successful day, however the culmination of hard work and dedication to your chosen process will slowly start to yield dividends. Until the next post!