Julie and Julia Review- Falafel with Yogurt Sauce

Falafel with Yogurt Sauce- Recipe by Shobha Tallapaka

(Find the full recipe in The Official Bright Line Eating Cookbook, Page 73)

When I first got “The Official Bright Line Eating Cookbook” I was so excited to get started. I had listened to the whole thing several times on Audible but had never tried the recipes as those are provided in a separate pdf you have to download and I just never got around to it. So when I decided to buy the hard copy, I was stoked. I flipped to the recipes section, which starts with breakfasts, and wham! Falafel with Yogurt Sauce…

I thought, “What? Why?”

I know, I am showing my ignorance here. But to me, this seemed like a strange recipe to start the book off with, especially for breakfast. I have only had falafel a couple of times in my life, most recently I believe was circa 2006 when as an exchange student living in Brisbane, Australia, I stumbled out of a bar and in to a food truck at 2:00 in the morning. Falafel? Yes, please.

No questions asked.

This recipe looked like a challenge. Part of the Bright Line Eating method is to prepare, “simple”, “not sexy” foods. Things that don’t take a lot of math to work out the portion sizes, ingredients that are hard to categorize or can’t be brought down to their basic components. This recipe did not feel like one of those. It seemed exotic and like a lot of work. Again, I am a country kid from Western Colorado, Mexican cuisine is about as far from apple pie and steak and potatoes as I ever got growing up.

But I decided I won’t be intimidated. I would get the ingredients and work my way through the recipe.

Here is what I found.

This recipe is not basic. It is actually pretty involved. To be honest, I would not recommend this recipe if you are just starting out. I have been at this way of life almost two years now and I have built up some resilience to feeling triggered when “baking”, but it took time. The reason SPT (Susan Peirce Thompson) recommends simple food is that baking things, even if they are BLE compliant can trigger some people into going off plan. Also, especially if you are hungry, making elaborate and complicated meals can wear down your will power, so proceed with caution. At one point in my journey, I had to step away from all things that even looked remotely like “baked goods”.

Also, fun fact: Before Bright Line Eating, the only time I ever really ate chick peas was served on cold salads obtained from over priced salad bars and drowned in too much ranch, sunflower seeds and bacon bits during some attempt in my former life to “be healthy”. Guessing how many cans of chick peas are needed to constitute 13.5 oz was not in my skill set. Suffice it to say I learned the hard way, you’ll need two cans of 15 “net” ounces to get what you need after draining.

Also, this recipe calls for 1.5 oz of “green chilis and cilantro”. In my real life I am an engineer and this did not compute. Was that 1 oz of green chilis and 0.5 oz of cilantro? Vice versa? Perhaps it was intended to be split 50/50? I need specifics or else I go off and make up my own recipes which is not the goal here. In the end, I went with the 1/0.5 split first noted, but mostly because I got tired of chopping cilantro. You can apparently decide this one for yourself.

A note on the cucumber. I personally feel like the “yogurt sauce” as the fruit/veggie portion is a tough sell for me. I wasn’t sure how much sauce was supposed to go on each falafel and I ended up with a ton of left over, which basically meant I was shorted on my fruit serving and I saved the other serving for another day, but the sauce won’t save. It also tasted a lot like my moms cucumber salad, (minus the vinegar) and really did not thrill me.

As for the kids, this was a flop. If I am an unlikely candidate to choose falafel for breakfast, they are next to impossible. A big part of my “why” with Bright Line Eating was because at one point before I started, my then 6 year old daughter made me pick the “green stuff” (aka parsley) out of her pasta because she was so averse to vegetables. Needless to say, I took it on the chin that my parenting style, the life I was leading, was not an example I wished for my children to follow. So I set out to change my nutrition, my palate and my life, dragging them along as I went. I am happy to report, they have come so far, and now they have many veggies they like, cucumbers being an absolute favorite. But this recipe did not make the mark. In the end, I tossed the yogurt sauce and I ate the remaining portions of falafel over the next several breakfasts begrudgingly because I still hate to waste food.

All in all, this recipe won’t be making it into our rotation if for no other reason than it took me over an hour to complete. I just don’t have that kind of time in the morning, especially if I am the only one in my family who will eat it. I am glad I tried it, it was good to branch out a little and learn about a new type of food (did you know that at one point falafel was on the breakfast menu at McDonalds Egypt (The “McFalafel”)? But in the end, I think I will leave the falafel making to the food trucks.

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My BLE Breakfast Favorites

I love breakfast. It is easily my favorite meal of the day. And with the delicious choices you have with Bright Line Eating, I often find my brain using it as the carrot to get me through night time cravings because I know I will get my “reward”, first thing in the morning (peanut butter anyone?).

So what is a Bright Line Breakfast? (On the women’s weight loss plan)

1 Protein serving

1 Grain serving

1 Fruit serving

In a later post I will go over easy, basic beginner breakfasts but for now, here are my 3 top favorite BLE compliant breakfasts:

1. OMG Oats!

Prep Time: 5 mins

In a bowl, weigh and measure 1 oz dry rolled oats, fill with water to a 1/4 – 1/2 inch over the oats and microwave for 1 minute. Setting the bowl back on the scale, add 0.5 oz chopped almonds, 0.25 oz chia seeds, 0.25 oz ground flaxmeal, 3 oz blueberries, 3 oz banana and top with 1 oz peanut butter (I use Adams brand, it’s sugar free).

This is a warm and delicious meal that really makes me happy in the morning. I have it about twice a week, as I don’t want too many nut/nut butter servings while in the weight loss phase. Also, the chia and flax are good to include to aid digestion digestion with all those vegetables. 😉

OMG Oats!

2. BLE Omelet and Country Potatoes

Prep time: 20 minutes

Often I save this one for weekends when I don’t have to hustle to work in the morning because it isn’t one of my quick and easy breakfasts, but it is super delicious and makes me feel like I am getting my IHOP fix, which I have missed in these strange pandemic days.

I use my air fryer because it makes the best fries! I start by turning it on to preheat while I do my prepping, using the “fries” setting. Then I wash and chop one small white potato. (My BLE buddy recommended this chopper and it works great!) In a bowl, spray potato bits with cooking spray and toss with garlic salt and pepper. Add to fryer and let cook according to the preset time, approximately 15 mins.

In a bowl beat one egg with 3/4 oz shredded cheddar cheese and a tiny splash of milk (I don’t actually know the oz portion, but I cut the cheese back by a quarter to try to keep the protein portion correct- I know it is not exact, but there are no Bright Line police!)

In a separate bowl chop up 1/2 red bell pepper, 1/2 white onion and 4 oz spinach. In a small skillet, spray with cooking oil (I don’t count this either) add veggies and sauté on medium heat until soft, separate 3 oz into a separate bowl and save the rest for later. Pour the egg mixture into the skillets and cook on medium. (I put a lid on top as it helps cook the top side of the egg). Once cooked add the sautéed veggies and fold with a spatula.

Plate the omelet, add 3 oz of fresh fruit, 4 oz of county fried potatoes and enjoy!

BLE Omelet and Country Potatoes

3. Bright & Sweet Potato, Breakfast Bowls

Prep time (day of) 5 minutes- I pre make cooked, mashed sweet potato, to use throughout the week, other wise (25 minutes)

To be honest, before BLE, sweet potatoes were not something I would have considered as a breakfast food. But since starting BLE I have really come to love them. They are super versatile, come in many shapes, sizes and colors, go with tons of different flavors and leave me filling full all morning.

Like most of my BLE meals, I mix and match grains, proteins and fruit to come up with different combos. Here is one of my favorites from this winter season that combines whole, plain Greek yogurt with a (purple!) sweet potato and seasonal fruit, pomegranate and apples.

In a bowl measure out 4 oz cooked, (pre-prepared-clean, cut and boil) mashed sweet potato, reheat in the microwave for 1.5 minutes. Add 4 oz plain, Greek yogurt, 0.5 oz chopped walnuts, 0.5 oz chia seeds, 3 oz pomegranate seeds, and 3 oz apple. Don’t be intimidated by the funny color, my brain just likes bright and bold colored foods, a simple, normal, orange sweet potato works great too!

Bright & Sweet Potato, Breakfast Bowls

What are your favorite BLE Breakfasts? Let me know in the comments!

Bright Line Eating As A Family- It’s A Process.

I started Bright Line Eating in January of 2020. To date, I am down about 60 lbs with another 40 ish to go. When I started, to really get going, I had to “mind my own plate” and take care of my needs first. I had to focus on myself. Which, being a mother to four young children (2 year old girl, 4 year old boy, 6 year old girl and 8 year old boy) was sometimes hard to do. This family keeps me busy trying to sail the ship of career, family, housekeeping and of course, the never ending question of “What’s for dinner.”

After years of putting my needs last, where I wouldn’t even bother making myself dinner, where I would just eat the left over scraps off my kids plates because, “we don’t waste food”, this new mindset was a big shift. I ended up making two meals most nights, one for my family and one for me. That is what I had to do to get started because if you have ever cooked a home cooked, from scratch meal just to have EVERYONE refuse to eat it, you know what it’s like to have to save your sanity and do what you must to get by. You think, “let’s pick one battle at a time.”

Yet, I found comments from people who made the same thing for their families as themselves and just “added the grain” for the family to feel judgmental. I thought, “They clearly do not understand what it is like to have four, young, needy, picky eater kids.”

But really, some of them probably did understand. It was me who didn’t understand. I didn’t understand that I am the one who had trained my kids to not like “healthy food”. I am the one who makes them chicken nuggets and mac n cheese. I am the one who let’s them eat granola bars by the Costco box. Me. They are picky kids because I have trained them to like certain foods and the vicious cycle of poor eating habits plagues another generation.

I was determined to stop the bad habits, but growth takes time. Honestly, it wasn’t until my tastes started changing after months of BLE that I really realized theirs would also, if I lead the way. And so began my attempts to bring them, unknowingly, under my BLE influence.

I set out on a mission, I would become one of those “judgmental” people that annoyed me. I would make one meal that was adaptable to their needs and mine. We started with tacos. Simple. Easy. I get a bowl, they get a tortilla. They ate it up. This wasn’t a big stretch for them, they often ate tacos and burritos. But these tacos had more veggies. I put all the fixings out on the table and let them choose what to put in their tortillas. My 4 year old added meat, beans, lettuce, cheese and peas. I said nothing, he ate it all.

Eventually, my kids have started asking questions about my food selections and started making comments of their own. My six year old has decided she wants a salad at every meal so she “can be like me.” When she says, “Mom’s on a diet.” I gently correct her and tell her, no, “Mom eats a healthy diet.” Talking to your kids about eating healthy is a challenge. Clearly, the messaging got mixed up for me.

But everyday I work at it a little harder and try my best to share my food choices and new positive habits with my kids. It is a work in progress, but it gets better every day. Making separate meals for everyone in my house multiple times a day is just not sustainable. Learning to be BLE as a family is going to be an essential component to my success. So finding kid approved BLE influenced meals is going to be a major focus of this blog. We’ll test recipes and food combinations and give feedback on Bright Line Eating as a family.

Bright Line Eating- Hamburgers for my kids, BLE burger for me with all the fixings.

Emotional Eating-Learning to Cope

I keep hearing that Bright Line Eating is not a “diet”, it is a lifestyle. I have heard that before with other plans as well. Heck, the whole reason I knew I could do the 14 day challenge was because of the last “new lifestyle” I tried, Whole 30, which is where I got the inspiration for the name of this Blog. I did Whole 30, for a whole 28 days. And then, I broke the rules. But instead of “starting over on day one” as the book suggested, I quit. And within about 3 weeks, I gained back the 15 lbs I had lost. Story of my life.

So what makes this plan different? Why is it that now all days are “Bright” and if they are not, the next meal is and I just keep going? I don’t know, other than to agree with the notion, that this is not a diet, and that weight loss is a side effect of healing your brain and changing your habits, which are the real plan.

In the past when things in my life got difficult, I would almost always default to soothing myself with food. Over the course of this year I have started using other techniques to calm my anxiety when things get hard. Difficult work situations, Covid, stress with the kids, and now a wild fire is burning 1.5 miles from my parents, threatening my childhood home and turning my stopping grounds to ash. These things stress me out. But after 8 months of practice and patience with myself, instead of raiding the refrigerator for leftovers or scooping myself abundant portions of ice cream, I have a cup of tea. I go to bed early. Snuggle down with a book or take a bath. I might do some art or sometimes, I take a walk. Sometimes, I set a timer and meditate for 5 minutes focusing on slowing my breathing and easing the tension in my chest.

A year ago, none of these things would have crossed my mind as an option for making myself feel better. A year ago, I would not have even recognized that I was reacting to a trigger. I certainly would not have had the thought pop into my head that recognizes I am feeling bad and suggests I be easy on myself, that I “put on my bunny slippers” and treat myself with kindness. But I do, these are the things the voice in my head now suggests when I get the itch to panic. All by itself, no weight loss considered, I would call this a win. Recognizing these actions and reactions is a true non scale victory (NSV).

This is the power of Bright Line Eating. Go beyond the diet and learn to cope with difficult feelings, the right way.

• 

The Road Map Out

Bright Line Eating is where this weight loss journey really begins for me. No more false starts. No more “diets”. I listened to Bright Line Eating and the words just resonated with me. “This woman, (Susan Peirce Thompson) gets it.” She gets me. Or really, maybe she helps me understand how to “get” myself. So many of my own thoughts have been echoed in this book:

“Why can’t I get my weight under control? Why can I be so successful in so many arenas of my life, but not this one!?”

“Why is watching family and friends suffering and dying from weight induced illness and death not enough motivation for me to change?”

Because, it is an addiction. I am an addict and I am suffering from obesity.

Saying those words, it is like a light bulb went off in my brain and suddenly I could understand why I have been doing the things I have been doing. In the book, Bright Line Eating, Susan walks you through the science of why we do what we do and as an engineer, for the first time, the facts, the data, the research, I get it.

There is a road map out of this hell. There is a plan you can work to become the healthy, vibrant person you have always dreamed of being. In Susan’s words, it is instruction in “basic adult, self care”. Lessons that I somehow never got. I get it now and I am marching toward that end with my whole being.

Join me as I navigate the rest of this journey and eventual, long term maintenance lifestyle following the Bright Line Eating way through the lens of a busy, full-time working mom to 4 young kids.

This is my weight loss journey and path to a more happy, whole person each and every day.

My Story: The Origin Of My Food Addiction- Final

After the birth of my last child the fog of my life was so thick I didn’t even realize how bad things were. I was lost in the haze of having a new born and 3 other young children, working full time in a demanding career and just trying to survive. In this time my health habits had hit an all time low. My reaction to every emotion was to suppress the feeling with food. This was how I coped. This was how I got through every day.

But even with that cloud over my head a little spark was there. It was there because during my ninth month of pregnancy, I was given the opportunity through work to attend a leadership training course put on by the University Of Denver’s business college. It included 3 days at a mountain camp and 3 on campus where we were focused on content like The Seven Habits, Blue Ocean Leadership and the Servant Leader. Though well known material, this was the first time I had been exposed to it in a light where this content was valued. I took a lot a way from the course, but I think the biggest thing I took away was a desire to learn more. More about self improvement. The lectures lit a fire in me to ingest more than the mindless content that had been carrying me through to this point.

But time was a precious resource of which I had little. Then someone suggested I listen to to books instead of read them. I downloaded Audible and I was hooked. My commute to work was 45 minutes one way and I started consuming new content. For the first time in a long time I started to think about my life, my habits, my motivation. I listened to the full book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in follow up to the class. I struggled at the time to have the desire to go back to work, because babies. The schedule was hard, home was hard. We were not thriving. I downloaded “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandburg and leaned hard into my career. The words and encouragement was like a guidebook to me. Things got a little easier. Then I listened to “Girl, Wash Your Face” By Rachel Hollis and I picked myself up and started to dust myself off. Next, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo and I started clearing the filth in my house and my head! Finally, one day while driving home craving sweets, willing myself home where I knew I could go in, grab a hand full of Halloween Candy and eat it, quickly satisfying the urge in my brain “to scratch that itch” I had an “aha” moment. It occurred to me this behavior was a habit, a bad habit that I had developed.

The next day, at the same time I felt the same need. I willed my self to stuff my face with cauliflower instead of candy. I crunched. I did it again the next day. Habits. Over and over it kept coming back to habits. I searched Audible for “habit formation”. I listed to “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Oh, the science of habit formation! Maybe I could change for the better. Next I listed to “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg and “Mini Habits for Weight Loss” by Stephen Guise.

In my life I had tried every diet imaginable. From Weight Watchers to Keto and Whole 30 and everything in between. Each “diet” would work for a time, I would lose the same 15 lbs over and over again, each time gaining all of it plus an additions 3 or 4 back. In the end, I never changed my habits and immediately my old self would check back in. One slip up would turn into a 3 month bender and I would be back to square one, or worse.

Then one day while I was looking for a new book to listen to, Audible suggested I try “Bright Line Eating, The Science of Living Happy, Thin, and Free” by Susan Peirce Thompson.

My Story: The Origin Of My Food Addiction- Part 7

As I stood there looking at the positive pregnancy test, I was overcome with emotion, excited for the joy to come, scared for the unknowns. Instantly in love with the tiny person growing inside me. But as I stood there, my weight was on my mind. Being overweight was not a good thing to begin with, mixing it with pregnancy was worse. As it was my doctor had been on me for years about PCOS and the risk of gestational diabetes. She had warned that if I didn’t lose weight there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant in the first place. Well, surprise, surprise.

I knew the risks and I was still excited. But as I stood there looking between my reflection and the test I swore, I was not going to be one of those people that gained a ton of weight in pregnancy and then blamed it on the baby. I was going to be different.

As it turned out, I wasn’t different. Don’t throw stones. The nausea set in almost immediately. I had severe nausea from dawn til dusk throughout the whole pregnancy. At first, I lost about 10 lbs. Eventually I discovered saltine crackers and orange juice settled my stomach and vitamin b suckers became a staple. As long as my stomach was never empty the nausea was manageable. Besides that, my regular bad eating habits of quick, convenient, mostly processed food did me no favors and the “eating for two” excuse came up more than it should have.

Over the first six months of the pregnancy I gained about 20 lbs. Then, between 6 and 9 months my weight shot like a rocket, up and up at about 15 lbs a month. 65 lbs in total before my first son was born, a healthy 7 lbs even.

I was amazed that within 7 days of giving birth 30 lbs came right back off. I never developed diabetes and everyone was healthy. I felt good, now that I was relieved of the misery of that much water retention and lumpy baby.

But those extra 35 lbs remained. I tried and tried but not diet did it. The exhaustion of the early days of parenthood prevailed. Before I knew it, I was pregnant again. Then, I ended up having back to back losses and the emotional derailment that goes along with miscarriage can be unparalleled.

Finally I conceived again and carried my Rainbow baby to term, gaining only 14 lbs in the process. Again, I lost 20 lbs immediately and by her first birthday, was pregnant again. Up and down. Up and down. Never sleeping. Another 25 lbs on and off. This time with the elevated weight in combination with my age, I didn’t escape diabetes. In fact, I was introduced to new complications, blood clots. The birth was really difficult, the cord was wrapped twice around his neck, his heart rate was dropping. My blood sugar dropped to 55. The doctor told me he had to come now! So I pushed and his face was bruised in the process, though at first I thought he had been strangled. He had NICU time, he was too big, the product of a diabetic mother and he couldn’t regulate his blood sugar.

Finally, two years later, my fourth baby. This time, more diabetes, more blood clots, and a placental abruption. Childbirth is not for the faint of heart…

All told, by the time I was ready to deliver my last baby, I had ballooned up to 282 lbs. It was misery. Everything hurt. I couldn’t bend over, I heaved myself around. I couldn’t sleep. My bones ached from the swelling. The tendons in my feet splayed to the point that walking caused bone to touch the ground and I could no longer walk barefoot, even to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I woke up that last day before a scheduled induction due to medical issues, so puffy and swollen I could barely open my eyes or speak through Goldie Hawn lips.

I prayed this would be the highest number I ever saw on the scale.

I had the baby and just like before, I dropped about 27 lbs in a week. I stabilized at about 255 lbs, a full time working mother to a 6 year old, 4 year old, 2 year old and a newborn in desperate need of her health and control in her life.

My Story: The Origins Of My Food Addiction- Part 2

By the time I was about 8 years old, I was the subject of relentless teasing for my size at the small Catholic school I attended. I was quiet and stayed in my shell, afraid to draw attention to myself. I was sad and painfully aware of my weight problem. I was the “fat kid”.

At some point my mom mentioned an article she read that reported a “famous gymnast” had died of complications from anorexia nervosa and bulimia. I didn’t know what she was talking about and she explained that tragically, this gymnast had a disease where she thought she was fat and either starved herself or threw up after eating in order to control her weight. I asked how and she said they stick their finger down their throat. Looking back on it, I imagine my mom was talking about Christy Henrich, former US Olympic Gymnast who was only 60 lbs at the time of her death.

I am positive this off the cuff remark from my mom was mentioned in passing and had little bearing on her, I would be shocked if she even recalls the conversation. But it’s funny how some things we stay will stick with our kids. I did not hear “disease”, “tragic” or “death”. I heard, “weight control”. And suddenly something in my little brain snapped and a “blue print” was born.

I don’t even remember what I ate the first time I tried it. But I remember realizing how easy it was to gag myself. It worked! And just like that, new habits were formed. I started throwing up after meals. Sneaking into the bathroom to rid my self of whatever devil treat I had just consumed. This was before the days of smart phones and internet searches. My skill set developed on trial and error.

Within a few months I would regularly binge and purge everyday. I was only about 9 years old. My mom eventually took notice. I complained of stomach aches constantly, (a reasonable excuse for the need to vomit after meals). I would vomit blood and had constant heart burn.

Eventually I went to the doctor and had a barium test. I was diagnosed with stomach ulcers and prescribed Zantac. The Zantac calmed the pain and the “stomach issues” covered the lie. I lived this life through middle school. Still fat, but not so fat that any “childhood obesity” interventions would come. I loved sweets and would eat and eat.

“My, you are getting fat”. My great aunt would say.

“You had better be careful, that’s a moment on the lips, and years on the hips.”

A long road a head was forming.