How to Eat Macrobiotic the Easy Way!

How to eat macrobiotic – the easy way! ➤ Tips and tricks on how to have a healthy macrobiotic diet ➤ Step-by-step macrobiotic recipes ➤

New Year – New Beginnings! 2015 is a very important year for me, for both my personal development and my career. I want to be in perfect shape so I can face all the difficulties that may appear, and to achieve this I decided to be more careful regarding what I eat and develop new healthy habits.

I decided to tell you what lifestyle changes I decided to make, how easy or difficult it is to create new healthy habits and how to live a balanced life, nutritionally and spiritually speaking. I hope that my journey will also help you start yours and the advice and personal experience presented here will help you reach your goals a lot easier.

First of all, I decided to change my diet. I’ve been eating vegetarian for the past 4 years. Because I’ve been going through a stressful period in 2014, I began eating totally unbalanced. I rarely ate fruits, I ate lots of potatoes, started drinking wine quite often and occasionally ate vegetarian junk food like pizzas, sweets, and other calorie-rich stuff. This chaotic diet combined with sleepless nights and stress was not good for me at all. Even though I take pride in having a strong immune system and not getting sick easily, I felt like I was submitting my organism to a very bad treatment and sooner or later I will feel the consequences.

So, starting 1st of January 2015 I changed my diet and along with it, I decided to create some new healthy habits to help me get into a better shape. Here’s what I did:

How to Eat Macrobiotic the Easy Way!

1. I turned back to a macrobiotic diet. 

I think 2013 was the year I first heard about macrobiotics. I kept the 10 days Ohsawa diet and decided to introduce some macrobiotic principles into my diet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until I started having a regular vegetarian diet again.

A few days ago, while I was in bed I decided to watch a documentary on my phone. Coincidence or not, it was a short film about an old French guy who adopted the macrobiotic lifestyle after meeting Georges Ohsawa. He was a student when he first met Ohsawa and his food habits were far from healthy. He ate mostly junk food, just like other of his fellow students did. Now he’s 80-something and he looks young, he’s active and full of life! He was truly inspiring. Then, I thought to myself that I want to get to 80+ too and look that young! Most 80+ people around me look like they’re about to die any minute, this man was younger at spirit than most 40+ men. He must be doing something right!

The next day I read again Zen Macrobiotic book by Georges Ohsawa. It reminded me why I was so intrigued about macrobiotics in the first place and why I felt that this diet would fit me so well. I immediately decided to eat macro again.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with macrobiotics, you should definitely take a look at my Macrobiotic Diet 101 article. 

2. I work out daily.

Working out has always been a problem for me. I’m just not a sports person at all! I’m more of a couch potato really. With the help of my boyfriend, Costin, I started working out at home. I began slowly. I wake up at 7-8am and work out for 10 minutes. I use my indoor bicycle. It’s good for cardio especially if you push yourself a bit and get to 30-35km/h.

It’s a good start for me. Maybe I’ll increase the “dosage” and go to the gym too. Maybe. 🙂

3. I create new healthy habits. 

• I drink warm water with lemon juice and a dash of sodium bicarbonate on an empty stomach, every morning.
• I use the Ohsawa method for cleansing the body of parasites – 1 Tbsp uncooked brown rice, chewed for at least 100 times before swallowing.
• I drink more tea, in the morning and in the evening. I drink only 100% natural tea. I usually drink green tea with dry fruits and pollen (sea buckthorn, rose hip etc.) in the morning, to energize and vitaminize my body, and lavender/chamomile/valerian/others in the evening, for a good night sleep.
• I make my own superfood capsules. I am now taking turmeric+ground pepper capsules which are extremely antioxidant!
• I read more instead of just watching movies and TV series.
• I am more organized.

These being said, I will go on and tell you how I planned my meals, what recipes I ate so far and how you can eat macrobiotic the easy way too!

My Current Diet – vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, macrobiotic. 

I currently have a vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, macrobiotic diet. I still eat eggs so I’m not vegan. Also, I eat pure honey. I tried to eliminate potatoes from my diet too. I ate so many potato-based recipes in the last few months that I just don’t want to see them anymore. Sugar is gone too. I wasn’t eating too many sugary foods anyway. I now use stevia powder for baked stuff (which I rarely make, mostly for my gluten-free baking classes) and honey. I feel so much better without the sugary poison! Ditch the sugar!

My diet is not 100% macrobiotic.

I try to implement as many macro principles as I can, but some just don’t work for me. For example, I will never give up fruits, especially avocados and bananas! The macrobiotic diet doesn’t encourage eating tropical fruits if you’re not living in a tropical environment. According to the macro principles, one should eat only local fruits and not too many either. Well, this won’t work for me. I love fruits and eat some daily. Also, I dislike algae and they’re pretty damn expensive too!

I eat fermented foods at every meal! 

Pickles, sauerkraut, pickled cauliflower, these are my favorite and I eat them multiple times a day. Fermented foods are extremely healthy as they are natural probiotics. Your digestion will significantly improve you start eating these on a daily basis.

Gomasio is the new salt! 

I absolutely love it! Gomasio is made of raw, whole sesame seeds, lightly fried, combined with natural salt. I recently discovered that this is absolutely amazing with brown rice, but I think it goes well with lots of other recipes.

This is a NO SUGAR ZONE!

Yes, sugar is out of my life. I believe that refined sugar should be banned. It is just as bad as any drug. It just messes with your brain, taste, and immune system. Bad, bad, bad! I use only healthy sweeteners.

I eat lots of protein-rich foods.

All veggies have proteins. There, I said it. So let’s stop with the “where do I get my proteins from?” stupid question. A normal person needs somewhere around 10-15g of protein per day and if you have a balanced vegetarian diet you shouldn’t worry about your protein intake.

The thing is that if you want to build muscle mass, you’ll need about 1g of protein per pound, this is around 2g of protein per kg. This means that you will have to eat some more protein-rich foods to get the needed amount of proteins. For example, if I want to build muscle mass I’ll have to eat around 110g of proteins per day. That is something. It may look like much but it’s not that difficult to achieve.

I eat legumes, tofu, and mushrooms a lot! So I don’t worry about proteins at all.

I eat legumes daily; lentils and chickpeas are my favorite. I also eat beans, mostly Aduki beans. Because boiling chickpeas or beans takes forever, I came up with a great solution. I boil 500g of chickpeas at the beginning of the week and then store the boiled chickpeas in the fridge and use it whenever I need it. This quantity lasts me a couple of days, for two people.

Tip: When boiling chickpea or beans, add a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in the water. It will be ready in 40-60 minutes. 

I eat a lot of brown rice. 

Brown rice, millet, and cornmeal, these are the main cereals that I eat. I usually cook 2/3 cup of brown rice a day and eat it for lunch and dinner (quantity for two). It’s great served with gomasio or stir fry. Millet is also nice and polenta is one of my favorite meals, so I combine them throughout the week.

I shop twice a month.

I created a meal plan and a shopping list so I know exactly what foods I need. I shop twice a month and it is enough. Being organized will also help you spend less money on food. Do you want me to help you too? Check out my personalized meal plans services.

I cook quick/easy/budget friendly meals.

The breakfast is usually sweet – chia pudding, GF muesli, smoothie, fruit bowl, and sometimes salty – tofu scramble, eggs (rarely), leftover hummus with veggies.

I make soup once or twice a week (for two). One soup pot lasts 2-3 days, so we have soup for the whole week. We eat soup for lunch.

Dinners are usually quick stir fry with root veggies, rice, broccoli, cabbage, legumes and other awesome veggies.

Easy macrobiotic recipe inspiration | How to Eat Macrobiotic the Easy Way! 

Here’s what I ate this week so far:

Monday

• GF Muesli with soy milk + 1 tsp carob powder + 1 tsp honey + dry fruits of choice + nuts of choice. I recommend Dr. Schar’s GF muesli, it’s awesome!
• Immunity Boosting Veggie Soup (carrots, parsnip, onion, ginger, turmeric, ground pepper, salt, olive oil, mushrooms, lemon juice, mustard and lots of parsley) + Pickles.
• Brown Rice with Gomasio + Veggie Stir Fry (carrots, onion, broccoli, bell peppers, sweet corn, sesame seeds, salt + soy sauce) + Sauerkraut salad.

Tuesday

• Banana Chia Pudding
• Leftover soup + brown rice with gomasio + fermented foods
• Brown rice with sesame seeds and sauteed onion + Beets Stir Fry (carrots, onion, grated beetroot, olive oil, salt) + pickled cauliflower

Wednesday

• Tofu Scramble with Carrots, Onion, and Parsley
• Leftover soup + Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Carrots + Pickles
• Chickpea Patties Coated in Sesame Seeds + Sauteed Cabbage with Carrots and Onion + Sauerkraut Salad

Thursday

• GF Muesli
• Creamy Carrot Soup + Leftover chickpea patties and sauteed cabbage + Fermented Foods
• Warm Rice Salad Bowl with Beans, Onion, Carrots, Broccoli and Soy Sauce + Sauerkraut salad

Friday 

• GF Muesli
• Creamy Celeriac Soup + Azuki patties and sauteed cabbage + Fermented Foods
• Macrobiotic stir fry + Sauerkraut salad

 >>> Macrobiotic Recipes on my blog <<<

 >>>Macrobiotic Recipes PinBoard <<<

>>> Free Macrobiotic Meal Plans <<<

Books and Ebooks about the Macrobiotic Diet

I strongly recommend you to read these books. I absolutely loved them and I think they’re very useful if you want to start a macro diet.

The first book you should read is Zen Macrobiotics by George Ohsawa.  It is very easy to understand and you’ll love the way it is written. It offers you the basic knowledge you need in order to change your diet.

The second book I recommend is The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health: A Complete Guide to Naturally Preventing and Relieving More Than 200 Chronic Conditions and Disorders by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack. This one is very useful if you want to treat existing illnesses.

And last but not least, Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition by Paul Pitchford, which is more like an encyclopedia rather than a simple book. I LOVE it! It offers absolutely everything you need to know about healthy eating, whole foods and more. It is golden! I haven’t finished reading it all yet. It’s that kind of book you’ll get back to every time you want to know something.

Free ebook:

Kushi Macrobiotic Dietary Recommendations (English) 

I will start posting my easy macro recipes on the blog too. I just moved in with Costin so my photo studio is not yet ready. I really hope these recipes will inspire you to cook easy, healthy meals too. If you want a personalized meal plan you should check out my personalized meal plans services.

So, this is it! This is how I changed my diet and these are my tip on how to eat macrobiotic the easy way. I will stay on track. It’s been great so far and I am lucky to have Costin support me too. If I can do it, you can do it too! Remember, prevention is better than treating, so work with your body not against it! 🙂  If you have any questions, leave a comment below! 🙂