Friday, January 11, 2013

Week #1 - Fruits & Veggies All. The. Time.

It's a new year, it's a new month, so it's time for a new routine. This month we turn our focus to including fruits and vegetables at every meal, and if possible at every snack.

When I'm planning how to attack our meeting topic each week, I like to think about these routines in terms of what I'm doing. Am I following the routine that I'm about to introduce? It helps to practice what I preach, and even after 15 years of Lifetime membership, I find there are still lessons to be learned. And sometimes lessons I've learned have to be RE-learned.

I'm happy to say that fruits and vegetables have a large place in my life. We get along really well. Here's an example of how I've followed this routine over the past week:

Breakfast - this week I made myself some buckwheat cereal, and I topped it off with some thawed frozen berries (a combination of raspberries and blueberries).

Lunch - I used up some leftovers from the prior week's kitchen adventures, so lunch was, depending on the day, a tofu stir-fry that had a bunch of bell peppers, bok choy and snow peas, or else it was a squash stuffed with things like onion and cauliflower (I used a recipe from the Nov/Dec Weight Watchers magazine).

Dinner - I made a one pot casserole that had some sauteed onion, bell peppers and zucchini, and a few of the days I served it with a salad on the side. There were plenty of vegetables there!

Snacks - my snacks were (and usually are) all about the fruits and vegetables. I love snacking on grape tomatoes and red, orange or yellow bell peppers. I have a banana every day (and I did that even when we had to spend TWO POINTS on them - remember those days?!?), and then usually some other sort of fruit. Right now it's mostly apples or citrus, and I can't wait until we get into the summer months when I can throw more variety at my fruit snacks.

So there you have it. This particular routine is one I'm already on board with. And you'll probably find that as we make our way through the year and the routines sometimes what we focus on is something you're already doing. And then other months it will be something that maybe you've always intended to do but weren't quite there yet.

I think for the remainder of this month, my living the routine will involve making sure that on the weekends I'm doing just as good of a job as I do during the week. Once Saturday and Sunday rolls around, my life is much different, so I need to be extra mindful that I add enough fruits and vegetables.

5 comments:

FogDog said...

I actually love fruits and vegetables and I'm always amazed at how much better I feel when I'm getting enough of them in my diet! FogDog Weight Loss

Outsmart the Fat! said...

So true! As much as the unhealthy stuff tastes awesome, I never feel as great afterwards as I do after a healthy, light meal.

Crabby McSlacker said...

I'm with you on eating tons of produce! As a temporary experiment I'm lowering carbs and going easier on fruit, but am eating TONS of veggies. Current fave: Kale chips. A bunch of kale tossed in a little bit of olive oil and some garlic salt, roasted at high heat for 5-8 minutes depending on oven, and yumm.

Outsmart the Fat! said...

One day I'll try making kale chips - I'm probably the last person on the internet that hasn't!

Olumide Oluwasegun said...

Now, my mouth is starting to water! Fruits and Veggies. Toss some cabbage in with some cucumber, then white onions to make a salad. Yum