What I Ate Wednesday - You Must Eat Vegetables!

Hello Leap Day! Hello Wednesday! Hello Vegetables!



Today is the last day of "love your veggies" month over at Peas & Crayons.  
As you know I am a HUGE advocate of eating more fruits and veggies.  Do you even realize how good they are for you?

It's a fact. People who eat a diet higher in vegetables have REDUCED RISK OF CHRONIC DISEASE including stroke, heart disease, and some cancers.  Do I need to say more?


Fine I will - a diet high in vegetables can help you lose and maintain a healthy weight.


Some of you might be gasp veggie haters! I get that...but here's the tough love...you gotta eat the green stuff! There is no substitute for the vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals in nature's nutritional powerhouses.

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Last week I talked about trying veggies raw. Here are a few more tips for those of you with a "fear of the green":


1. Add vegetables to a recipe you already love.  Think adding zucchini in spaghetti sauce or grated carrots in meatloaf. Try: Skinny Lasagna <--what I'm having for lunch today!

2. Eat soup.  Soup is easy to load with veggies and a tomato based soup is even better.  Cooked tomatoes have more bioavailable lycopene for you! Try: Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

3. Roast them.  I hated broccoli until about 4 months ago.  I kept hearing how good it was for me so I tried different ways of preparing it.  I found that roasting brings out flavors I love and now I'm the broccoli queen! Use trial and error to find veggies that work for you and your taste-buds.

4. Drink them.  I have a low sodium v8 everyday.  It's a fast, easy, inexpensive way to knock out one of my 5 needed vegetable servings.

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5. See them.  Don't hide your veggies in the drawers.  Put them at eye level in the fridge. We also have a Whole Foods ANDI list on our fridge.  I see it every time I'm in the kitchen and it reminds me to pick high nutrient density foods.

Have fun with you veggies!

MAKE YOURSELF EAT THEM! Yes, that's a very motherly thing for me to say, but there's no way around the need for vegetables.  Find ways to eat them and know the huge impact it will have on your health.

In other health related news, my glutes are very sore today!  
Last week we posted a Great Glutes workout, but I wanted to share one more exercise.  Yesterday Kyle had me do split squats on the Smith machine.  To do them stand in a lunge position with one foot forward and one back. Do 8 squats with your right leg forward, then switch and do 8 squats with your left leg forward. Repeat doing 7 then 6 then 5...all the way down to 1.  All you will need is 1 set and you will wake up with a sore, sore bum!


I hope you make the most of your Leap Day and get in those vegetables!


What is your favorite vegetable?


Love and ANDI,
Carissa & Kyle


Other vegetable related posts:
Go Raw
Vega Team
Eat THEM!