boyziggy and I have made a peanut butter spirals recipe for friends and family on numerous occasions to rave reviews, but that wasn't specifically what I wanted. I found just the recipe in one of my vegan cookbooks, and cooked it up along with a package of soba noodles that had been sitting in the cupboard since who knows when. It was so good. I stared at the puddle of high-fat peanut sauce leftover in my bowl, debating whether to rinse it out into the sink or mop it up with a piece of bread. My tastebuds won out and I did the latter. But I felt guilty about it. I had to put the leftovers away really fast before I ate any more. Fortunately in a few minutes I was no longer hungry. The "wait ten minutes" rule has saved me from consuming countless calories over the last few months.
The above might seem like a ridiculous dilemma over a few grams of fat, but this is what millions of dieting women (and men) deal with every day. I don't like to think that I'm on a diet; I'm following a lowfat mostly-vegan diet, but I'm not super-strict about it, and I plan to stay with it indefinitely. I was reading someone's post on the McDougall forums about how it was easy for him to stick to his diet because he eats virtually the same thing every day. Then today I started watching Ruby, a show about a woman who started out weighing nearly 500 pounds, and in the first episode you see her picking up her week's meals from a nutritionist who makes her promise to eat only that food and nothing else.
I don't want to be that restrictive. I like variety, I like to cook, and I like occasional splurges. The exercise should help even out the bumps when I eat too much fat. But I still feel I need to be mindful of my food intake at all times. Being vegetarian for primarily ethical and environmental reasons definitely helps, but there are still plenty of high-fat vegan treats I need to minimize or avoid. Having a lot less money to spend on pre-packaged foods and restaurant meals should also help in that regard.
