What do you EAT??

by Tessa

"What do you EAT??"

This popular question typically follows a realization that all of a person's previous favorite foods are no longer eating options.

So I will show you what I eat in a day!

Breakfast:  My Green Smoothie was made of raw spinach, banana, apple, and strawberries.  It's a delicious powerhouse!  I feel clean and light after drinking it.

Simply use spinach because it doesn't change the flavor, add a banana for sweetness, and just add one more fruit (apple, orange, ripe pear, etc) into the blender.  Delicious!   Half your blender should be filled with spinach, kale, or another green.

I take a multi-vitamin (not sure if it's helpful) and one 1000 mcg B-12 tablet that is methylcobalamin based (not the cyan based).  My B-12 level in April was great.  Vegans need to get B-12 from a source other than meat, but some plants have it too.

Also for breakfast I had cereal:  Muesli (1/2 c), oats, about 20 raisins, ground flaxseed (to cleanse the liver), sprinkle of granola, and some cold almond milk:

For lunch, I had two corn tortillas with black beans, vegetarian no-fat refried beans, salsa, tomato, and a little guacamole (only one is shown below, but I made another).  Ate 4 blackberries and 4 strawberries too!

Drink lots of water during the day, of course, so you feel good!

Mid-afternoon Snacks:  Into a nice cup of Detox Tea, I added half a stevia (natural sweetener) tablet.  Since toxins are stored in your liver, it's good to de-tox.  My tea was a little too sweet, so I shouldn't have added the stevia.

More Snack:  An organic apple cut into chunks with a little cinnamon, muesli, oats, ground flaxseed, and raisins with some almond milk tastes like apple crumble!  So good!

Dinner:  We ate Black Bean Burgers from the Engine 2 Diet book.  I made the burgers in about 10 minutes using my Vitamix blender (Vitamix and Blendtec are high-speed blenders) and then baked them for 15 minutes.  They are made of 2 cans of black beans (rinsed) and instant oatmeal.

Since it's important to get lots of raw food in your diet, we topped our burgers with spinach, tomatoes, onions, and avocados.

For buns, we use whole wheat buns, bread or pita pockets.  Always make sure all grains that you buy say "whole" before the "grain" or "wheat".  Pasta and rice must always be whole grain too. Just buy the brown stuff and look for the word "whole".  Simple!

We munched on a salad too to eat more greens today.  Spinach (organic), shredded carrots, avocado, onion and tomatoes.  I mixed together a simple mustard, balsamic vinaigrette to put on it.  Fresh cantaloup to finish off a great meal!

Bedtime Snack:  I promise I will also have before bed a half cup of muesli with almond milk and a banana.  It's healthier if you can avoid eating after dinner, but I get too hungry in the night and can't sleep.  So I eat before bed, but limit the muesli amount by using a 1/2 c. measuring cup.

Some days I crave muesli, other days it might be avocados, dates, etc and I while I do limit my intake, I think my body must crave it for a reason, so I eat it!  I just limit the portion size.  Today, I think it is muesli.

See how simple we keep it?  Just get everything bad out of your house:  processed packages of food, sugars, extra oils, etc and then load in a great variety of produce.  You'll start craving the good stuff while losing weight.

Losing Weight, Gaining Health:
My weight is down:  I weighed 140 pounds in August but am down to 121 today, just 2 pounds from my high school weight!  I feel great!  My body will determine my ideal weight once all the fat (which is a risk factor in most diseases) is off my body.  It is likely lower than my 119 initial goal.  But my ultimate goal is exceptional health!

So that's a typical day of eating.  No muss, no fuss, no starvation, no worries.

Enjoy your plant-based diet!  You will be amazed at how good you feel while the fat slides off!

Tessa