Donut Panic Cause San Diego Has Awesome Vegan Donuts

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, and to be honest I won’t be blogging much anymore. It was consuming too much time and taking away from other important things (like work!). That being said, I will post when the mood strikes.

I had to write today to tell you about the awesome vegan donuts I discovered in San Diego over the weekend. I read about Donut Panic on Yelp and was excited by their 4.5 rating and interesting vegan donut flavors like maple bacon.

So on Saturday my husband and I tried their Chocolate Bavarian Cream, Maple “Bacon” and the Earl Gray donuts. They were all really good, but my favorite was the Chocolate Bavarian Cream (my hubby’s pick was the Maple “Bacon”). They have lots of other vegan flavors that we plan to go back for. Please note that they only make vegan donuts on weekends and Wednesdays (I’m not sure if they make their vegan donuts all day on Wednesday or just at night for their game night).

My only disappointment was that they don’t make vegan maple bars, but since they had non vegan maple bars I bet they’d make me a vegan version if I asked.

Anywho, if you’re in San Diego you must check this place out!

PS – Mychael, Michele, Linda and my other San Diego readers – we’ll have to all meet here some time!

PPS – This photo is courtesy of Brianna M.

Baking for Street Children

Hey all! I’m still on a blogging break, but I just had to share this wonderful post from Bunny Kitchen. When I see posts like this, it reminds me of all the good that’s in the world. We all need such reminders. Great job with the bake sale Poppy!

Bunny Kitchen

So I am home from my incredible USA adventure which you will hear lots more of shortly, but not before I share with you the bake sale I ran on Tuesday to raise funds for street children across four continents (Africa, Asia, South America and here in the UK) via StreetInvest, a UK based charity of which I am a trustee and have been involved with in various guises since before the name of the charity was even decided. Since then, the small charity with passion which would burst beyond it’s office walls, has grown and is a leading voice for street children around the world with some of the world’s experts in world development and the plight of street children as part of it’s team.

View original post 879 more words

Taking a Break

Just a short post to tell all you lovelies that I won’t be blogging for a while. My husband and I are getting our fixer-upper house ready to put on the market and I just don’t have time to sit at my computer.

Other exciting news…

And in case you didn’t know, my blogger buddy, Poppy, will be visiting me in less than two weeks. I’m SO excited and have a Southern California Vegan Spectacular Tour planned for her. I’m not the only blogger she’s visiting on her trip to America – she’s got a whirlwind planned. You can follow her exploits on facebook or twitter.

Be well!

Photo from Pinterest.

How to Change the World

When I know someone’s trying to sell me something, whether it be cleaning supplies, a timeshare or a religious perspective, I shut down. I don’t want someone else telling me what to believe or how to spend my money. Yet, when I first went vegan, I tried to sell it to people. Once people hear how wonderful this lifestyle is for their health, for animals and for the environment, they’ll thank me for enlightening them.

Um, hello REALITY CHECK! I was just turning people off.

Still, I know that if people really discovered how wonderful veganism is that many of them would fall in love with it too. So what do I do?

The Buddha suggests openness.

I’m currently reading Walk Like a Buddha by Lodro Rinzler, and I was struck when I read his response to the question about how the Buddha would deal with the challenges of our times. He said, “Forcing fixed views on other people is just another form of aggression. Society does not need more aggression. …If you want to shift the psychological environment of a group, you have to do it from a place of openness rather than from your own sense of what is right and wrong.”

Maybe this way of changing the world doesn’t happen overnight, but I believe that it is the only viable way to change the world.

Anywho, that’s how I see it.

Photo courtesy of jonathanstormet.com.

I’ve seen veganism negatively stereotyped on TV many times. The latest hit was on the Tonight Show when Jimmy Fallon joked about feeling sorry for the spouses of vegetarians because they’d have to eat yam-burgers. It was about vegetarians, not vegans, but I think the public lumps us all together.

I couldn’t find Fallon’s statement online, but I did find this:

No wonder people assume that vegan food is crappy – that’s what the media is selling! Vegans know differently, but it’s hard to compete with Hollywood.

Or maybe we can…

Celeb plant-based chef known for The Great Food Truck Race and owner of Seabirds Kitchen, Stephanie Morgan, and I want to get on the Tonight Show and blow Fallon’s socks off with amazing vegan food.

Here’s a photo of the lovely Stephanie.

Celeb chef and owner of Seabirds Kitchen, Stephanie Morgan

But we need your help!

We need BUZZ to for this to fly. So let’s make some noise and get vegan on the Tonight Show. You can help by sharing this through your blog and on all of your social networking sites. With your help, maybe we really can get vegan on the tonight show.

Let’s show the world how great vegan food really is!

A Guarenteed Way to Lose Weight (but I Don’t Recommend It)

A week ago I shared that I was going on a 21-Day Diet. My report for the first week is that I lost a lot of weight – yea! I can’t credit my will power, however. I lost the weight because I had the stomach flu. Not a fun way to diet and I DON’T recommend trying it at home.

Despite the fact that my illness already made me lose all the weight I wanted to lose, I’ll be continuing my diet for the next two weeks. I’ve got a lot of company visiting this summer (including Poppy from Bunny Kitchen, Mike from Applecore and Florence from Reflections), so I want to eat light this month because I know I’ll be indulging with my guests.

That’s all I wanted to say today, but please check my blog tomorrow because I’ll be sharing about getting on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon!!!

If you’re having trouble losing weight, here’s a helpful link:

Why You’re Not Losing Weight

Photo credit

I wish that photo was me, but no matter how much weight I lost I wouldn’t look that great. The photo is courtesy of dietandweightloss.co.uk.

 

 

A Mother’s Love Knows No Bounds!

A mother’s love is not unique to humans. A happy Mother’s Day to my mom and to ALL moms! PS – I hope you get your wish for a quiet Mother’s Day mom. Love you.

Photo Credits

Giraffe photo courtesy of weruletheinternet.com. Lion and cow photos courtesy of frugalcafe.com. Rhino and polar bear photos courtesy of wOnderblogspot.com. Lamb photo courtesy of shutterstock.com. Goose and elephant photos courtesy of komonews.com. Seal photo courtesy of dailymail.co.uk.

Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Michelle Had a…

Lamb chop.

If you’re an omnivore, I assure you that I didn’t write this post to judge you. Still, when my sister, Michelle, told me she cooked her first ever rack of lamb last night, I decided to lovingly remind her of where that rack came from. Yes, I know I’m annoying Michelle, but I love you sis!

Here’s another post about lambs you might like: L is for Lamb

If We Were Perfect…

I’ve got the flu! The only thing I can manage doing today is a little reading. Right now I’m reading about self compassion and came across this fab quote.

If we were perfect, we wouldn’t be human; we’d be Barbie and Ken – plastic figurines that look good but are also dead as doorknobs.  – from Self Compassion by Kristin Neff

Photo courtesy of comunicacioncorporativa.net.

When my husband and I first started following a Plant Strong Diet based on fruits, veggies, grains, nuts, seeds and beans, we both lost a lot of weight. Over time, however; my husband got too thin so I increased the amount of nuts, seeds, avocados and olives we were eating.

This worked for my hubby, now he’s at a perfect weight. For me, however; increasing these high fat foods (as well as cheating too much on things like Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies) made me gain more weight than I’m happy with.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not fat. I still weigh less than I did before we went Plant Strong. It’s just that I liked how I looked and felt at my lowest weight and I’d like to get down to that for the summer.

I know that if I just followed the Plant Strong diet I’d lose the weight, but I’ve been trying and keep slipping up. So, I’ve decided to spend 21-days following the diet I lost 50 pounds on in my 20’s – the Fit for Life Diet.

This diet is similar to the Plant Strong diet in that it doesn’t allow dairy and discourages eating meat. It differs in that it’s very structured and is concerned with how foods are combined. I don’t believe that careful food combining is necessary, but the structure makes it easy to follow. And right now, I feel like I need the structure to succeed.

How I lost 50 pounds!

So here’s how I followed the Fit for Life Diet and lost 50 pound in my 20’s.

• I had fruit for breakfast.
• I had a carbohydrate like a baked potato or grain with vegetables for lunch.
• I had protein like chicken or beans (this time, of course I’ll forgo the meat) with vegetables for dinner.
• I had as much hot chocolate as I wanted after dinner (this time, I’ll have my I Can’t Believe it’s Healthy Hot Chocolate)
• I allowed myself one day to eat whatever I wanted.

The diet is more involved than this and the hot chocolate is not allowed, but this is what worked for me.

I’m going to follow a vegan version of this diet for the next 21-days. To keep me honest, I’ll post how I did for the week every Sunday. And to kick my butt into gear, I’m going to give a $20.00 Barnes & Noble gift certificate to one of my readers if I cheat more than twice the first week. So check back on the 10th!

I welcome you to join me in this diet, but please note that I’m not a nutritionist so I’m not qualified to give any diet advice. Thus, if you choose to follow this diet please refer to Fit For Life to do it properly. I also recommend The Engine 2 Diet, which details the Plant Strong Diet that has also helped my husband and me to lose weight (and lowered my hubby’s blood pressure and cholesterol).

Photo courtesy of marin at freedigitalphotos.net.