Welcome to the blog of the year!  .....Just kidding.

But, welcome all the same.  There are two of us doing this healthy change.  I'd like to introduce myself:

My name is Rebecca.  I am a 27 years old wife, mother, daughter and PICU nurse.   In 2010, about 6 months after I married my high school sweetheart, I had a bald spot appear on the back of my head/base of my neck area.  I visited a Dermalogist and hair transplant specialist to see if there would be remedies for the diagnosis of Alopecia Areata.  The next couple months involved countless labs, steroid injections and eventually losing all of the hair on my head.  People kept giving me sympathetic eyes/encouraging words but I was sick of hearing it.  After getting through my own grieving process I decided something: IT IS JUST HAIR.  Yes...it sucks.  I had A LOT of hair. Beautiful, long, brown, luscious, coveted hair.  But otherwise? I was healthy.  And soon after coming to this conclusion, my husband and I were pregnant with our daughter who was born April 2012.

I have been intrigued with the vegan lifestyle ever since seeing the movie Forks Over Knives and reading Skinny Bitch.  With about 40-50% regrowth of my hair since the birth of my daughter, I was wondering what else I might be able to try in terms of changes/remedies to my life.  That is where my friend Juny comes in.  In December she told me she going to give me a mixture of essential oils to try using topically on my head.  Then, during another conversation, she asked if I had ever considered going vegan.  I said I had some interest in it and Vegan January was put into motion.

Now--some things have been modified for my needs.  I am still consuming eggs.  As I get better at using plant proteins, I will eat less eggs, but until then we did not want me to go into a relatively low protein state with the situation of my hair.  Otherwise--no dairy or meats.  I'll leave it to Juny to explain the GBOMBs diet we are to use as our guide to our meals.

Today--Day 1:

Breakfast: oatmeal with 1tsp organic vanilla sugar and dried tart cherries. Coffee with vanilla almond milk.

Snack: handful of mammoth pecans, blackberries and a carton of dark chocolate almond milk

Lunch: My husband got up late and wanted to have a go at almond milk pancakes.  They included 1 egg in the batter.  Real maple syrup.

Snack: Found someawesome beet chips and dried edamame at WholeFoods when I went today!

Dinner: Vegan Collards (see link for recipe) for Money and Black eyed pea cakes for luck (Happy New Years)

I've made black eyed pea cakes over the years and just kinda threw things together.

2 cans Black eyed peas (organic, low sodium, whatever tickles your pickle)
1 small onion diced small
1 red pepper diced small
1 egg
1/2 chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup or so of cornmeal
salt and pepper

Rinse the black eyed peas and put in a bowl.  Use a fork or potato masher and rough mash the peas.

Saute the onions and pepper in a slash of olive/coconut (your choice) oil until onions are translucent and peppers are softened.

Mix all other ingredients into the black eyed peas.  Heat some oil in a pan--maybe around 1/4 cup.  I used an ice cream scoop to get a paddy together but you could shape them by hand.  Place in oil and flip to brown both sides--about 3-5 minutes per side.

Serve with fresh salsa on top and garnish with cilantro.  YUM! Enjoy and Happy New Year!