Pregnant with Twins

...well that's how my stomach felt when I first started eating legumes.  The topic came up the other day when I was chatting with a work colleague who had eaten more chickpeas than usual and was finding her stomach was less than thrilled with her.  I then proceeded to analyse how she had prepared and cooked the chickpeas which lead me to this week's blog topic.

It's been over 18 months since I set sail on my vegan lifestyle and let me say the first few months of discovering legumes were very windy!  Actually, it took me close to a year to truly figure out how to prepare and cook legumes so they didn't irritate my stomach and in between that there was a lot of "pregnant with twins" moments and some not so silent but deadlies.  So I am going to share with you how I discovered to eat beans that are good for my heart and not make me fart.

But first, let's look at why it's important to integrate legumes into any diet especially a plant-based diet.  Beans are a great source of protein and fibre so for the meat eaters out there that are trying to have a couple of vegetarian/vegan nights each week, swap your meat in curries to these fibrous bundles of goodness.  For the vegetarians and vegans you will most likely have already discovered beans and their versatility - last week I had the most delicious chickpea brownie made by my beautiful work colleague (I am so spoilt!  Here's the recipe).

Goodies from my co-op buy.

When you're eating a plant-based diet it is important to be mindful of how you're nourishing your body and ensuring you are getting the right balance of the nutrients your body requires i.e. eating "beige" plant food (read fried chips) is not going to cut the mustard.  I was conscious of this from the beginning of my vegan adventure and beans started to go in almost all of my meals.  As I started to clean up my diet I discovered the benefits of co-op buying where I could buy dried beans, nuts and superfoods in bulk and save $$$.  I had no experience cooking dried beans and hence the many misadventures with my stomach!  This lead me to do my own research and I have a few go-to resources for beans:

From Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Wellness Website

• Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Guide to Beans - this is a great summary chart that has the water required for soaking, the cooking time required after an overnight soak, and the protein content per cup of cooked beans.

•  Thermomix recipe book "A Taste of Vegetarian" - as soon as I bought my Thermie my next purchase was this recipe book along with Quirky Cooking by Jo Whitton.  Both of these textbooks (yes, I call them textbooks - for me I refer to these books just as I would a pharmacy or a yoga text) outline how long to soak specific beans and how long to cook them for to ensure they are easily digestible.

Canellini beans, chickpeas, red and brown lentils

 soaking.

What I have personally discovered is that an overnight soak is best - I did try Jo's quick soak method but for my stomach the quick soak method was not long enough.  I thought this method would be great because it meant less meal planning.  Alas, it was not meant to be, and the only way I could workaround not having to meal plan was to pre-cook my beans and freeze them.  So now I always have a variety of pre-cooked beans in my freezer ready to use.  To prepare my beans I soak one cup of dried beans in six cups of water overnight, drain, and then cook them in my Thermomix for the specified time - if you do not have a Thermomix you can cook them on the stove top.  My only exception to this is lentils which do not require the overnight soak - I soak them for 3-6 hours before I cook them.  Sarah Wilson has a great article on lentils and soaking/cooking times which you can read here.  Finally my stomach is happy with my bean-based meals and I can leave the feeling of being pregnant with twins to later on in life.

The "H" Word

This week I listened to a lecture given by James Pawelski on Positive Psychology, which is "the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive".  This lecture inspired me to do more digging around the topic of positive psychology because recently I have been asking myself those light questions like - what is my purpose?  How can I contribute more to this beautiful world we call home?

The idea of positive psychology originated from Martin Seligman who presents the theory in a very interesting TED Talk (people who know me, know that I love TED Talks and it is why I have used 50% of my download with half the month still to go!).  Dr. Seligman believes that psychology should not only focus on healing those with mental illness but also focus on us day-to-day-ers.  Accordingly, Dr. Seligman discusses that psychology should:

• Be interested in peoples' strengths as well as their weaknesses,
• Be as equally interested in developing the best things in peoples' lives as well as repairing the worst things, and
• Be able to provide tools to people to create even more fulfilling lives by nurturing their high talents.

Dr Seligman coined three "happy" lives, each one creating more lasting happiness than the one before:

1. The Pleasant Life - this is the life that relies on experiencing as much positive emotion as possible and amplifying it.  The drawbacks of this life are that it is often bestowed to you by your parents and not very flexible (I wonder if yoga would help with this?!).  It habituates i.e. the first time something great happens it is amazing, by the sixth time it occurs it's old news.
2. The Good Life - being engaged in life.  Working out what your signature strengths are and re-crafting your life to maximise their use thereby having the side effect of increasing your positive experiences at work, love and play. 
3. The Meaningful Life - knowing your highest strengths and using these in the service of something larger than yourself, being altruistic.  I'll never forget the time that an old (read ex-) friend of mine said to me "Why would you want to volunteer your time?  You don't get paid!!" 

What I love about positive psychology is that it strives to nurture a belief that humans want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives.  And it does this by cultivating the best talent within an individual and subsequently enhancing that individual's experiences of love, work and play by maximising the use of this strength.  So how do we get to this meaningful and fulfilling life?

Let's look at the happiness formula (yes, for the maths nerds out there, there is a formula):

H = S + C + V

H = enduring happiness i.e. how you have been feeling in the last 6-9 months.

S = set range which is biologically influenced similar to our weight set point.

C = circumstances i.e. our environment - winning the lotto, becoming paraplegic.  I know, these two are pretty radical extremes but it has been shown that once the initial effects of extremely happy and extremely tragic events settle, your happiness returns to your set point.

V = volition i.e. your personal choices.  Interestingly here the question comes up - can we guide our personal choices to help make us lastingly happier?

Now how do we increase H?  There are three simple exercises that have been shown to increase your Enduring Happiness:

1. The Three Blessings exercise - before you go to bed write down three good things that happened during the day and why each of them happened.  This takes the focus off what went wrong during the day or what you didn't achieve.  The study that Dr. Seligman conducted using this exercise showed that participants' happiness increased up to 6 months after the experiment and the reason for this was they enjoyed the exercise so much they continued it!
2. The Gratitude Visit - think of someone who did something important for you whom you have not yet thanked properly.  Write down in a letter exactly what they did for you and the specific consequences that occurred in your life because of their actions.  Take care in the presentation of the letter and the content.  Meet with the person face-to-face and read them the gratitude letter (with tissues!).  Dr. Seligman demonstrated that this exercise produced a spike in happiness one week and one month after the visit but by six months the participant's happiness had returned to baseline and possibly another visit was due.
3. Find Your Signature Strengths and then use your signature strengths in new ways:
1. Work out what your signature strengths are by using the above link (you'll have to register a log in...don't sigh, just do it!  Do you want a Meaningful Life?!).
2. Think of ways you already use them.
3. Brainstorm ways you can use these strengths even more.
4. Commit to using your strengths in new ways this week.

• Dr Seligman showed with this exercise that it improved happiness a week after, a month after and six months after this was implemented into the participant's life.

My beautiful gratitude diary that I was given for Christmas from my gorgeous sister-in-law to be.

Fun vs. Philanthropy

Tying it altogether - how can we use our signature strengths to create lasting happiness?  Well let's conduct an experiment: 

• In the next week do something fun for fun's sake and then do something philanthropic that has special meaning for you.  
• As you engage in these activities note how they each make you feel - you may find that although the fun is fun, the emotion wears off; the philanthropic activity however, tends to have a lasting positive effect on your happiness.

Report in after you have done your experiment - how did both activities make you feel?  Are you more likely to repeat the philanthropic activity?  Has this helped you to find your own special and unique Meaningful Life?