Feel Good Friday: Top 5 tips for eating more veggies
Everywhere I turn it feels like COVID-19 has changed my life!
This could be the overly obvious statement of the century, right?!?!?!?
From social distancing to homeschooling to working from home to curfews, self-isolation and quarantine - this thing that you can’t even see with your naked eye has managed to change the world in a few short months. It’s enough to make an island girl wanna scream!
One thing that I’ve realized more and more is that we cannot control the virus (outside of limiting out contact with others), but we can control the host…That’s us! This is a point that I hammer home in my recently-published book, Wellness in the Time of COVID.
What do I mean by this?
Well the virus is going to do what viruses do. It’s going to try to find potential hosts and spread as quickly as possible and make as many of us as sick as possible. Of course we’re following all the guidelines laid out by the Ministry of Health and Wellness for social distancing. However, we are more in control than just that.
WE ARE EMPOWERED!
We have the opportunity to do something different with our diet and lifestyle and mitigate our risk. You see my friends, we control the potential host environment for the virus; our bodies that this virus wants to invade. We can make the efforts to be our healthiest, happiest selves and this means that WE ARE NOT HELPLESS.
Changes in your diet and lifestyle today can improve your health in a very short space of time, making it less likely for you to get sick and reducing the length of time and degree of illness if you do get sick. It’s no secret that people with chronic diseases are having a worse outcome than people who are healthy. So let’s take this time to focus on being the healthiest you can be.
Last week we spoke about breaking up with sugar I’d love to know how you’re doing with that. Please drop me a line.
This week I want you to focus on eating more plant-based foods. No…no….no, I’m not telling you that you have to be vegan or vegetarian. But I think you need to eat a lot more vegetables than you really are eating already.
Like seriously, when’s the last time you sat down to a massive salad or a big bowl of steamed broccoli? If that sounds boring, how about a parsley pesto sautéed shrimp and broccoli over a bed of romaine lettuce.
Mouth watering yet???
Plant-based meals and eating lots of veggies do not have to be boring. Plant-based and lots of veggies can be super exciting. They can be super tasty and super sexy.
So here are my TOP 5 TIPS for getting more veggies in:
Have the veggies at home. Start with the basics:
stuff you eat raw like lettuce, tomatoes and carrots
stuff you can snack on like cherry tomatoes or baby carrots
stuff you can cook like broccoli, cauliflower and pack choy
stuff to make smoothies like spinach or kale (BONUS! You can eat these raw too).
Have veggies with every meal:
Start your day with a green smoothie
Have a large salad for lunch with your protein and carbs
Include steamed, sautéed or roasted veggies with dinner
Prep your veggies ahead of time, keep a salad bar in your fridge so veggies are always accessible and ready to go.
Swap out veggies for things you would use bread for
Use ½ sweet peppers (red or yellow or green) to “hold” things like tuna or egg salad.
Use romaine lettuce as wraps instead of tortilla wraps.
Search up recipes on line and experiment!
Originally posted on Loop Jamaica