Milestones! Oh, and Potassium!

     So this week I was able to hit a few milestones in taking charge of my own health.  I've been eating a vegan diet now for just under two months and I got my cholesterol tested last week to see what sort of effect my new eating habits have had on those numbers.  I was pleasantly surprised (and a little not surprised) to learn that my cholesterol numbers had dropped significantly enough to astound my doctor's nurse (who was the one calling me with the results).  My total cholesterol dropped 54mg!!  LDL went down 35mg but my HDL also went down 13mg so I need to work on bringing up those good fats in the next couple of months.  My triglycerides also dropped 30mg.  All-in-all, I think this marks quite a wonderful amount of progress but wait, there's more!!  I also realized that I've now lost approximately 16 pounds in the almost two months that I've changed my eating habits - and that, was like icing on the cake (vegan icing, of course)!!  All of this has made my week, maybe even month!  Of course, I'm sure that it wasn't just the diet but all of this was helped along by a good amount of exercising almost every day and THAT was more difficult than changing my eating habits.
     I've been finding that this whole vegan diet was just meant to be for me.  It feels easy and the food I'm discovering is a no-brainer when it comes to making it.  No more realizing at 4pm that I forgot to take a slab of meat out of the freezer and that it won't defrost in time for dinner only to give up and announce that we'd be going out to eat!  Now, around 4pm, I'm considering what I feel like eating, go to the store to pick up whatever veggies, grains, or additives needed to make it, and dinner is done within two hours!  I tried planning and buying a week's worth of meals but I got tired of the vegetables wilting or rotting before I was able to use them.  So now, I kind-of fly by the seat of my pants everyday.  I try to make sure I have leftovers so I can eat the next day for lunch but if not, I always keep tomatoes, mixed greens, broccoli, tofu (and/or tempeh), and vegan bacon in the fridge for a quick salad or a yummy VBLT (VeganBaconLettuceTomato) sandwich.  When I make a soup or stew, I freeze half of it to use another day that I don't feel up to creating something.  It's very liberating for me!  I do plan well-rounded nutritionally dense foods for every day's meals, remembering to keep it colorful to get a good balance of vitamins and minerals.  My copy of the book "Becoming Vegan" by Brenda Davis, RD and Vesanto Melina MS, RD is my stalwart companion in keeping up with how much of what I need to eat to keep as healthy balanced as possible...if you're also embarking on a vegan adventure, I highly (again) recommend that book!
  

     So, besides needing to raise my HDL cholesterol and lowering the rest of all that a bit more, my other challenge has been potassium intake.  I just can't seem to get enough from what I've been eating.  Now, before anyone jumps on the banana wagon (LOL!), I know bananas have a lot of potassium but I also know that a baked potato has WAY MORE potassium than a banana. I've never been a big fan of bananas but I'll eat them if I have to and potatoes (love them) are way too high in calories to eat more than once in awhile (1 banana is 110 calories & 450mg of potassium; a baked potato is 290 calories for a whopping 1081mg of potassium)!  So I've been researching other sources of potassium that I can "pepper" my meals and snacks with and I've found out some interesting things:

(According to USDA.gov website):
1) Figs.  1 fresh medium fig - 116mg potassium / 37 calories
             1 dried fig - 87mg / 21 cals

2) Canned tomato paste (unsalted).  1 cup = 2657mg / 215cals
3) White beans. 1 cup = 1004mg / 249 cals
4) Raisins (packed). 1 cup = 1236mg / 493 cals
5) Spinach, cooked (without salt). 1 cup = 839mg / 41 cals

These are just a few of the ones I looked at but there seems to be more than I thought there was.  Plus, the list made me recheck my calorie tracking software and I found out that potassium numbers are not always given (even though I know the product has potassium).  Might be that I'm getting enough and I just don't realize it.  Nonetheless, living in a very humid area and working out hard...well, let's just say that I don't bother sitting down on our couch until after I've showered :D Minerals must be replaced constantly here.  It's too bad we can't have a machine in our homes that we can test our own blood every month to check vitamin/mineral serum levels ourselves.  Wouldn't that be grand??  I'd use it just to make sure my body has what it needs to function like it's supposed to.

If you want to check out the USDA's nutrient database sorted by potassium rich foods, here's the link.  (By-the-way, animal products only start showing up on this list at 850mg of potassium, just saying.)

Don't these look yummy?!? 

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