30-Day NEURO Plan, Day 3

I'm 3 full days (and then some) into the 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution NEURO Plan! Here's what I ate yesterday, on day 3, on this whole foods, plant-based, sugar-free meal plan. 

My gym just started offering morning classes again for the first time since March 2020! They moved to virtual during the "stay home" part of the pandemic, and they started doing outdoor evening classes. And lately, we've been doing evening classes indoors, but they finally added a morning class! I much prefer morning workouts. So I went to the first 6:15 am body burn class on Tuesday morning (fueled by a cashew cookie Larabar). After the gym, I came home to this beautiful Mediterranean Tofu Scramble that I prepared the night before (with a side of almond butter toast).

The scramble is from the 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution book, and it's amazing! It has sundried tomatoes and green olives, so it's got lots of great umami flavor. I'm glad the recipe made enough for a few more days!

Morning snack (back at work!) was a bowl of berries and walnuts and a second coffee from French Truck Coffee. The Sherzais, the authors of the book/plan, say coffee is brain-boosting, but they just don't recommend drinking it after 2 pm because it affects sleep. Because I go to bed so early (8:30 pm), I try to avoid caffeine after noon.

Lunch was a salad topped with leftover Taco Quinoa and some leftover South of the Border salad topping (black beans, sweet potatoes, corn, bell pepper) with leftover avocado dressing.

I had some more Dark Chocolate Orange Pistachio Truffles for my afternoon dessert/snack.

And then dinner was another Pinto Bean Quesadilla stuffed with pintos, bell pepper, spinach, corn, red cabbage, and cashew cheese. So far, I've managed to eat avocado daily (sometimes twice a day) on this plan, so I'm digging that!

30-Day NEURO Plan, Day 2

Monday was my second day on the NEURO plan from the 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution book. You can read more about that plan here, but the basics are whole foods, no sugar, daily exercise, meditation and breathwork, restorative sleep, and brain challenges. Here's a recap of Day 2. I woke up and had some pineapple and walnuts before my 5-mile run. I've been fueling my runs with high-glycemic fruits lately, and it's been working well. 

After my run, I had a Mango Banana Protein Smoothie with almond milk, banana, mango, flax seeds, stevia, turmeric, and Complement Protein powder. Although protein powder would probably be considered a processed food, Complement makes the cleanest protein, and I feel like it's important for me to have that post-run protein.

For my morning snack, I had Strawberries, Blackberries, and Almonds (plus, green tea, which the plan recommends daily). I enjoyed this at my desk at home because we got a surprise "work from home" day on Monday while our organization figured out how to deal with Omicron. Was hoping we'd be working from home again for the long term, but we were back in the office today with some new safety protocols. Oh well. I REALLY enjoy working from home.

Lunch was another South of the Border Salad with avocado dressing. I had this on Sunday for lunch, and the recipe made plenty for leftovers. It has black beans, sweet potato, bell pepper, and corn, plus a garlicky avo dressing.

I had some more Dark Chocolate Orange Pistachio Truffles for my afternoon snack with a cup of moringa tea. You can see those in yesterday's post.

Dinner was Taco Quinoa with Steamed Kale, Pinto Beans, Baked Corn Chips, Guacamole, and Salsa. The taco quinoa recipe is from the book, and it's so yummy! You boil and then bake the quinoa so it gets a little crunchy, and it has lots of chipotle, nooch, and chili powder. The recipes in this book are so flavorful! For the chips, I just air-fried from corn tortilla wedges. 

That's it for day two! So far, I'm feeling great on this plan. I don't miss sugar at all (but I was never a daily sweets eater), and the recipes have been so tasty. I did notice that I've gravitated to mostly Mexican-inspired dishes so far, but there are many other types of dishes in the book. That's just what sounded good when I was meal planning!

30-Day NEURO Plan, Day 1

It's been a couple years since I've done a January reset. I used to do a meal plan every January to get back on track after the holiday onslaught of processed foods, desserts, and booze. But after doing the No Meat Athlete 80/20 Plants plan a few years back, I finally found a nice balance between healthy, whole foods and vegan junk foods. And to be honest, I was doing great with that until the week of Christmas. So I really didn't need a reset, but they're fun! And I've been really into the work of vegan neurologists Dean and Ayesha Sherzai lately, so I wanted to try their 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution NEURO plan. 

I read their first book, The Alzheimer's Solution, back in November, and I got their cookbook/plan, The 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution, for Christmas. Alzheimer's and dementia run in my family, and I'm determined to not let that happen to me! The NEURO Plan is 30 days of whole foods (nothing processed) with zero sugar. The Sherzais say sugar is one the worst things you can eat if you're trying to prevent dementia. I'd already been limiting sugar after reading their first book, and I'm not giving it up entirely (you'll never pry my donuts away!), but for 30 days, I'm doing this sugar-free thing.

I started the NEURO Plan on Sunday with these Golden Waffles with Strawberry Sauce from the book. Can you believe these are sugar-free? They are! The waffles don't have any sweetener, and the strawberry syrup is sweetened with monkfruit. Monkfruit is their healthy sweetener of choice, and I like it!

Lunch was the South of the Border Salad. This has black beans, roasted sweet potatoes, corn, bell peppers, cilantro, and spring mix with an avocado dressing. A very hearty salad!

Dinner was Pinto Bean Quesadillas with Chipotle Cashew Queso. This was my favorite meal of the day! The filling is made with pintos, spinach, corn, and bell peppers, and it's seasoned with a smoky cashew cheese sauce. They recommend sprouted grain tortillas, so I used Ezekiel wraps. They don't wrap well at all, but they're great for quesadillas. I made some awesome guac, and I used some of my dad's homemade salsa for topping. I had some steamed kale on the side because they say you should get 3 servings of green leafies a day.

There's even dessert on the plan! I made a big batch of these Dark Chocolate Orange Pistachio Truffles to enjoy throughout the week. These are made with Lilly's stevia-sweetened dark chocolate, orange zest, almond flour, almond butter, and monkfruit sweetener. They are so good, and you'd never know they were sugar-free!

NEURO stands for nutrition, exercise, unwind, restore, and optimize, so there's more to this plan than food. They recommend daily exercise (I'm doing a running streak in January, and I'm doing Yoga with Adriene's 30-day MOVE plan). For unwinding, they suggest meditation, breathwork, and journaling, and the restore part focuses on sleep hygiene (they recommend 7-8 hours a night). Optimize is actually the hardest part for me. In that section, they say you should spend a little time doing a brain-challenging activity. I've decided I'm going to try to learn Spanish, so I've started a basic Spanish podcast, and I'm practicing with flash cards. 

I'll be blogging about the NEURO plan for the next 29 days! Wish me luck!

Hello, 2022!

Happy New Year!! This was the first year in a long time that we didn't do much for New Year's Eve. But we didn't get invited anywhere, and Omicron is everywhere in Memphis. So we decided to check out a new brewery, Soul and Sprits, that has lots of space to spread out. There weren't many people there, so we had a whole section of the brewery to ourselves. Fortunately, it was the game section with giant checkers and giant chess.

I don't know how to play chess (though Paul is pretty good), so we played giant checkers and enjoyed a beer. I tried the Coffee & Cigarettes Smoked Coffee Porter. The brewery closed at 8 pm for NYE, so we grabbed a 4-pack of pints to go and headed home to await midnight by our new firepit.

We both really struggled to stay awake until midnight, but we made it! I popped some champagne for a toast while we watched the New Year's Eve programs on TV. Then we went to bed.

Since we got to bed so late on New Year's Eve, we slept in pretty late, and then I headed out for an 8-mile long run. It sucks having a long run on the plan the day after NYE, but hey, you gotta do it! I'm also doing a 31-day running streak in January, so this run was a must. After the run, I made Protein Pancakes with Complement Protein and the last of my Fry's Breakfast Links. And mimosas of course!

For dinner, we had the obligatory Blackeyed Peas & Cabbage. I cooked the fresh peas with canned tomatoes and veggie broth, and for the cabbage, I used my recipe in Cookin' Crunk, which involves a long, slow caramelization. We served our good luck meal over rice.

Today (Sunday), I started the 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution plan as my January reset. I'll post about my full day of eats on the plan tomorrow!

Christmas with Family & Friends!

Our Christmas celebration started on December 23, when I made the drive to Jonesboro to do gift exchanges with my me-maw and my BFF Sheridan. My parents moved to Cherokee Village, Arkansas, a couple months ago, but my me-maw still lives in my hometown. So my parents and I met in Jonesboro (about an hour drive for both of us) at me-maw's house. 

My mama made Vegan Chicken & Dumplins and Collards. Me-maw made Soup Beans and Corn. And I made Cornbread. Such a perfect Southern dinner!

Mama also made some Vegan Raspberry Bars with graham crust, coconut, and vegan white and dark chocolate. These were SO GOOD!

Mama also made my very favorite dessert — BANANA PUDDIN! Yum! I could have eaten this whole pan. 

After we ate and did gifts, I drove over to Native Brew Works to meet up with Sheridan and Drew. They were already in town for family stuff too. Jonesboro is in a dry county, so the fact that they have a new brewery is BIG. By law, they're not allowed to say what they brew (ha!), and there are all kinds of weird laws around how they can operate. But I'm just so glad they're there!! I tried the Dry County IPA and a small sample pour of the coffee ale. Both were excellent. Would have loved to have tried more, but I had to drive home to Memphis. Here we are in front of the keg tree!

I drove back to Memphis that night, and the next day, Paul and I made the drive to Cherokee Village to hang out with my parents. Maynard came too! He loves his grandma and grandpa.

For Xmas Eve dinner, we had Beyond Burgers and French Fries!

And mama made with Vegan Carob Haystacks with carob, chow mein noodles, and peanuts. I couldn't stay out of these.

We watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and enjoyed some cocktails. My dad makes the best bloody marys, and then we headed to bed.

On Xmas morning, mama made Just Egg, Sausage, and Hash Browns, and I made my favorite Vegan Pancakes. I was so excited that mama had Cocowhip and fresh berries for toppings. I love whipped cream on my pancakes!

After breakfast, we opened presents. I got an outdoor composter, some Jaybird Vista earbuds for running, and lots of sweaters (and money for jean shopping!). We took some pics on my parents' lake dock, and then we headed back to Memphis.

Later that night, we stuck with tradition and got some Chinese takeout from Mulan. I got their Tofu Fried Rice, and we split an order of Fresh Spring Rolls. 

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! And happy New Year!!!!

Solstice with the Pets!

Well hey there! Remember me? Ha! I've been on vacation from work since December 21, and my routine has just gone to hell. So I forgot to blog for a week. Oops! Plus, I've been busy with holiday stuff and watching Ted Lasso and The Morning Show on Apple TV. Anyway, I'll be recapping Christmas over the next few posts, and then beginning January 3, I'll start posting about my planned January reset.

December 21 was Winter Solstice, which is when Paul and I traditionally celebrate with the pets. 

After work (my last day until January 3!), I went home and enjoyed a Yule feast of Holiday Ham & Bean Soup with cornbread. This recipe was from the Llewelyn Sabbats Almanac, and it wasn't vegan. It called for pork ham, but I substituted some homemade seitan ham that I had prepared the day before. The soup also had mixed veggies, blackeyed peas, and white beans.

I also made the Winter Solstice Salad from the almanac. This has grapes, pom seeds, cucumber, pistachios, and an olive oil vinaigrette. The mixed greens with red leaves and the grapes and pomegranate were meant to symbolize the red and green colors of the season. 

After dinner, we opened presents with the pets! But first, we made them wear Santa hats. Ozzy was mildly annoyed.

Polaris was very annoyed.

And Maynard stuck his tongue out at us! HA!

Seymour, the cat who lives on the kitchen cabinets, wouldn't tolerate such antics, so we didn't even bother putting a hat on him. They got lots of treats and toys (my elderly cats still enjoy toys!). Maynard got some EcoBone vegan rawhide bones, and loved those.

Rather than buy presents for each other this year, Paul and I went in halfsies on a nice firepit since our old one rusted out. We built a nice fire in the backyard after we finished presents with the pets. 

Hope everyone had a happy Solstice! 

Potato Soup, Tofu Scramble, & a Vegan Bowl!

Ever since The Plant-Based Athlete book (by Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke) came out this past summer, I've been working my way through the recipe section. The recipes were submitted by all the vegan athletes featured in the book, and Robert submitted quite a few. His seemed to be some of the simplest recipes, so I naturally gravitated to those first. I've made most of those, but I finally tried his Legendary Tuscan Potato Soup this past week. This was, indeed, legendary. It's a chunky potato soup that loaded with kale and Field Roast apple-sage sausages. Perfect with sourdough and salad on a cold December night.

Here's another awesome dish from The Plant-Based Athlete. Bikini athlete Natalie Matthews' Simple Tofu Scramble might be my favorite scramble recipe yet! It's so simple — seasoned with just adobo and nooch. I will probably make this my standard go-to. I even like it better than my own Cookin' Crunk scramble recipe (which is still really awesome and available HERE)!

And finally, here's a classic grain/green bowl! I used a base of brown rice and topped that with some frozen, sauteed Swiss chard and brussels and an easy tahini sauce (tahini, Bragg's, nooch, garlic, sriracha). So good!