New Year's Resolutions (some beans)

[walkitout]

It is New Year's Eve, the last day before the Resolutions kick in. Already, store shelves are filled with diet and exercise and other self-help media (hey, it's not just about the books and magazines -- don't forget the yoga and pilates tapes, er, DVDs). Last year, I didn't make any. Previous years, I have sometimes made resolutions. I remember one year, one of my resolutions was to get better at level changes (this would be sort of a technical thing applicable to martial arts in particular, and sparring sports in general -- it's about how fast you can switch between up high, in the middle and down low). I tend towards the hyperfocus; by the end of the year, my instructor had spontaneously commented positively on how well I was doing with that attribute.

This year, I have a freaking spreadsheet of resolutions, because I'm trying to do something that is pervasive and difficult to research: I want to switch from a healthier-than-average diet-and-exercise lifestyle to:

increase beans
increase whole grains still whole
increase whole grains milled at home
increase greens
increase fruits and vegetables
move, in general, to a plant based diet (decrease animal products)
increase exercise

But I don't want to do any of the programs I've seen out there, mostly because of the increase-beans element, which is, as you will note, on the top of the list. (Yes, Virginia, it is possible that this is a pregnancy-induced food craving that will pass. This is not to say that I am pregnant. But the last time I was pregnant, I did indeed switch to an all-bean diet and was totally unable to consume meat for months.) If you happen to know of a good book or program oriented to the (entire) above list, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Comments

[poon.livejournal.com]

move, in general, to a plant based diet (decrease animal products)

I'm curious what you'd consider "in general" - I eat meat about 2-3 times a week, usually chicken or fish. I probably have a steak once a month.

I'd be curious to hear if you have meat cravings with replacing meat with beans+grain. Did you have any meat cravings at all when you were pregnant?

in general, as opposed to, exclusively

[walkitout]

I don't want to commit to never-eat-animal-products again, for sure. And, in fact, I like eggs and think they are an important part of my current eating pattern. If I quit eating them without replacing what they do for me, I'll get into trouble (as in, the b-f omelette with the added lecithin is an ongoing part of the avoid-recurring-mastitis strategy).

I had _no_ meat cravings when pregnant the first time. For the first few months, IIRC, I was so meat averse I could hardly stand to be in the room with cooking meat and couldn't bring myself to eat it at all. This wasn't an "idea"; it was largely a smell thing.

I'm on a short timeline still, but several days into the bean thing, my primary response to eating beans and whole grains is, yum, give me more. When the beans are not cooked enough, followed by, ow. And a lot of complaining from R. about the farting. But we think we have that fixed now.