Getting more veggies into your diet!

This afternoon I went to the grocery store and picked up some food as well as some tupperware containers. When we were kids, my Dad always cleaned and chopped up veggies for us and kept them in the fridge with the hope that having them ready for us like that would encourage us to eat them. Only 20 or so years later here I am really appreciating his effort and idea. Today I bought:

-carrots

-broccoli

-cauliflower

-radishes

-red + orange peppers

-broccoflower (craaazy right?!)

I cleaned them, chopped them and put them away into my fridge. Now they are ready for my stir fries, salads, and easily taken for lunches to snack on. I really think this is a good way to ensure that you will have a bunch of fresh veggies to eat for the week.

Eating healthy is all about preparation. It has nothing to do with will power, etc. If it is there, and it's all that is there, you didn't buy junk... you won't eat junk!!

I also bought other fruits and veggies in addition to this stuff. I really HATE washing lettuce, it's such a huge pain in the ass. I always buy pre-washed stuff that is ready to be thrown onto the side of my plate or into a container for lunches. 

Making friends with salad

I'm not really a fan of new year's resolutions but lately I decided that I just need to include more raw vegetables in my diet. I am a healthy eater but even though I was a vegetarian for many years, I wasn't getting enough into my daily diet. I have been omnivorous again for the past 8 months. I would say that most of my diet was composed of complex carbohydrates while I was veggie. Now it seems to be mostly fat and protein. Quite the switch for me! Anyway regardless of how much I know about nutrition I often just find it difficult to be motivated to eat heaps of salad or veggie sticks. Recently my friend Jeff send me a really great TED talk about a woman with MS who radically changed her diet and experienced amazing decreases in her symptoms. It is not possible to say that it was her diet alone but nevertheless it was something that I found motivating. Sometimes that's enough. Also I took an amazing course last semester called Phytochemicals & Micronutrients and spending that much time studying veggies will certainly make you conscious of the food you are eating. So starting in 2012 I am going to try to get an minimum of 10 servings of fruit and veggies in my diet daily (fruit 2x servings, veggies 8x).

Here is the TED talk he sent me. It's worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc&feature=share&fb_source=message

So my daily large salad is pictured here on the right. It contains:

-mixed greens (folic acid, vitamin A, chlorophyll)

-kale (vitamin K, calcium, vitamin C, b-carotene, *sulforaphane, *indole-3-carbinol) 

-radishes (B6, folic acid, riboflavin, potassium, magnesium, copper, calcium, *glucosinolates)

-red peppers (carotenoids, *lycopene)

-alfalfa sprouts (vitamin A, iron, calcium, vitamin C)

-spring onion (*various phenols)

-carrots (b-carotene)

-The Mayr's house dressing (dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, olive oil- MUFA)



*phytochemicals- these constituents aren't vitamins or minerals but have been shown to impact health in terms of decreasing cancer rates

Note: this is not an inclusive list, but it outlines important ones!

This is just an example. I am trying to have one big salad like this every day in addition to the rest of my meals. I don't have really great advice about how to look forward to eating a plate of vegetables. But I will say that it gets easier and easier to do if you just stick with it. If you fall off the bandwagon and have a day where you don't eat great (it happens!) just jump back on for the next day, or next meal. It's not always about pounds, calories, muscle growth, etc. It's about health. Personally I feel really great when I manage to pack this many veggies into my day. I am finding ways to slip them into my meals and I look foward to going out and buying lots of veggies and filling up my fridge with them.



"Nope, still not interested in salad."

Hello 2012!

I haven't blogged since November. It's really pathetic and I just keep avoiding this thing because I feel like my lack of creativity is holding me back. I really want to make some aesthetic changes to this thing. Oh well.

Lately I have been following Jamie Eason's livefit program: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-easons-livefit-phase-2.html. Today I did the day 38 workout. After I workout, usually I swim or run. I am going to get back into spinning as well. This summer I want to do a longer triathlon. I also want to gain more muscle. I think that I have gained some since last fall, but it's not really where I want to be. I have only been following this new workout plan for a few weeks but it's pretty good so far. I really need to make sure that I am eating enough in order to continue seeing gains though. All in all things are going well. My swimming is improving already, and I am actually starting to enjoy it. Last summer I really dreaded getting into the pool. I'm not sure why this year I feel like a stronger swimmer than I did last year, but it feels good. I hadn't been swimming since the triathlon in July until a few weeks ago!

I got a new computer with a huge screen. Seriously, it's 23" and takes up so much of my room. But it's awesome and hopefully I will be a better blogger with more interesting things to blog about with this computer to work on.

The semester has started out really well and I cannot believe that it's my final semester here at Guelph. I applied to a bunch of nursing programmes and I really hope I get accepted to one of them. It would make me really happy. If I don't get in anywhere this year I will be disappointed. But, who knows, it could be a blessing in disguise.