vicious sweet tooth

Hey y’all!  Hope your week has gotten off to a great start – mine definitely has!

I just wanted to take a moment and formally mention that I’ve made the commitment to make my Monday’s – Meatless Mondays.  I’ve been doing it for a while, but wanted to make it publicly known because I didn’t write a post just for this cause until now.  I’ve been back and forth a lot on what I think is the best method for fueling my body.  I have even been vegan for a year and while I not 100% that right now, I still like eating this way and see out places that encourage and support this type of eating.  I strongly feel that eating a more plant based diet is the best thing for the body and the planet.  So, I’m hoping to be more consistent and aware of how much meat goes into my body vs plant-based foods.

Meatless Monday is a great nonprofit initiative that is promoting the impact of meat on our bodies and environment and how leaving one day meat free can significantly impact the world and our health.

The goal of Meatless Monday is to leave out eating meat one day a week in order to reduct meat consumption by 15%.

For the body: Reducing the consumption of meat helps reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, curb obesity (which is running rampant in today’s society), help us live longer through eating better foods with greater nutrition and will definitely improve your diet with high fiber, high protein replacements such as beans.

For the earth: Reducing the consumption of meat can lessen the carbon footprint we leave through less greenhouse gases emitted, minimize water usage and reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, which our country is out of control on – but that’s another post for another day.

For more information and statistical information, please check out mealtessmonday.com - it is a wealth of  information – from articles to recipes – it’s a great resource for everyone – those just starting out on the journey to those who have been vegetarians and/or vegans for years.

I also love that that this is done on Mondays – because it is suggested that if we start a habit on Monday, we’re more likely to follow through than if we started during the middle of the week.   So, Monday makes perfect sense to start out meatless and maybe it’ll even trickle into the other day’s of the week…couldn’t hurt!

Here are my meatless meals for today….

Breakfast: 1 piece of Ezekiel Bread toasted with 1 Tbsp TJ’s Raw Almond Butter & 1.5 Tbsp Fage 0% Greek yogurt and 1/2 banana sliced (198 cals)

Toast + Coffee

Snack: 1 Brown rice cake w/ 2 Tbsp of Fage 0% Greek yogurt and 1.5 tsp  TJ’s Raw Almond Butter (136 cals)

Rice Cake w/ Almond butter & Greek yogurt

Super yummy combo – the sweetness of the almond butter pairs nicely with the tartness of  the plain yogurt and I really love the crunch of the rice cake.

Lunch: I was very much looking forward to lunch – 1 cup watermelon chunks + a large green salad (203 cals)

Summertime in a dish

Veggies to go

Salad:

• 1 kale leaf
• 3 romaine leaves
• shredded cabbage
• 1/2 cup cucumber slices
• 1 Tbsp Whole Foods Goddess dressing
• 1/4 avocado

Snack: 1 cup almond milk + 1 Tbsp Nutribiotic Brown Rice Protein Powder (98 calories) – As you can see I didn’t have that much protein today, so I was trying to plan ahead and quickly threw this together while getting my lunch and snacks prepared for the day.  Boy am I glad I did.  I was hungry by 5:00, but was still at work, so I mixed this up and drank it.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. Not bad for 98 cals and the brown rice protein powder has 12 grams of protein!

Getting my protein on

I was also hoping that by drinking this, I wouldn’t be so hungry after work, but today I was.

Snack: I found this – Bear Naked Fruit & Nut bar – on sale at Publix Sunday night and thought I’d give it a world – it was really yummy – nice and chewy, but it is a little heavy on the calories.  Glad I’d eaten well during the day (240 cals).

I was so hungry that I didn’t snap a pic before I tore into it, but I did save the wrapper for you.

Fruit & Nut

Workout: I CAN’T tell you how badly I’ve been itching to get back into the gym to run and workout!  Especially after reading my Runner’s World on vacation last week and then finding some new blogs over the weekend about running.  I was so excited and nervous at the same time as I climbed on the treadmill this evening.  But I did it – I finished the goal I set – it might’ve been slow, but that matters not to me.

• 10 min warm-up – walking on treadmill
• 45 mins – running – 4.25 miles completed…tha’ts the longest I’ve done in a while
• 5 min cool down – walking on treadmill
• stretching
• The hubby and I also went on a walk around our complex/compound for about 30 mins

Dinner: once we got home I fixed me some dinner, southern-style – 1/2 sweet potato w/ a little butter, 3/4 sautéed okra and my drunken peaches over Fage 0% Greek yogurt.  I also had some Almond butter while making dinner (217 cals)

Veggie plate please - Southern style!

TOTAL CALORIES: 1092 cals

Well, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon y’all…hope you’ll follow me too.