Running a bit behind on this post today…like every Monday! Mondays are usually my grocery/post office/errand day and I try and get all of it done during Elin’s afternoon nap while Eric is at home working. I grab Juni and we run all over town picking up this, dropping off that. It’s fun, as long as Juni is in a pleasant mood.
What I wanted to touch on a little today in this ever-increasing “wellness” section of the blog (soon to be a menu bar item, I promise!) is how I have been easing into the plant-based/raw-till-dinner lifestyle. During the week I have been eating raw-till-dinner and so far I am super inspired by it. This is a little example of my weekday meals as of late:
Breakfast
A 1/2 liter of fresh green juice from my juicer + a probiotic + a multivitamin + heaping scoop of Vital Proteins collagen peptides. I also have coffee + almond milk + stevia to sweeten. That’s my breakie! It is sooooo filling you wouldn’t even believe it. Super excited about all those enzymes, vitamins and minerals flooding my body first thing in the morning. My energy levels have been off the charts!
Lunch
Typically a raw green salad (spinach, toms, cucumbers, peppers, olives, cashews, raw onion (fav!), homemade hummus or diced avocado, seasonings, Himalayan salt, dried oregano, fresh cilantro or basil, pumpkin seed oil or olive oil & balsamic vinegar! I make it a large salad and it’s really filling!
Snack
Either fresh fruit or mixed salty cashews, almonds, and pistachios. Dried apples, dates and figs are good too! Nothing if I am not hungry.
Dinner
Dinner is more relaxed and usually a cooked meal. Baked chicken, sometimes rice or quinoa, steamed veggies and lately, homemade whole wheat bread + butter. I also love to experiment with recipes during this time. (Tomato tart coming this Friday!)
Dessert
70% (or more) chocolate bars. I am also trying out some new recipes for healthy desserts this week…see below!
(Weekends are relaxed and I eat whatever I want with a mind to portion control.)
Books
1. This week I am experimenting with a couple recipes from Kristin Cavallari’s book Balancing in Heels. I wasn’t a huge fan of the book in it’s entirety, but I did thoroughly enjoy the You Are What You Eat chapter + Recipes. Her Green Banana Muffins & Almond Butter Sugar Cookies both really spoke to me, so I have to try them out. I love her approach to food and how she has completely removed refined flours and sugars from her diet. It was inspiring because I am currently working at overhauling our pantry/kitchen and removing all of the refined ingredients as well.
2. I have also been enjoying a couple books from storage that we recently uncovered during the kitchen reno. The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose is a book I bought when I was a full-on hippy & vegetarian in college. This book is super inspiring for anyone looking to eat raw and I was excited to find it and read it a second time. It’s not about becoming a 100% raw foodist, but it does encourage a lifestyle diet of mostly raw fruits and veggies. It’s all about achieving superior cellular health. It’s super interesting and I highly recommend!
3. The last book I have been flipping through lately is a cookbook Eric bought me when we were dating. (He knew early on that I loved cooking!) It’s called Vegetarian Cooking & Vegetable Classics by Roz Denny & Christine Ingram. It’s loaded with 300 recipes, many which are international. I used to cook out of this book a ton before it went into storage 4 years ago, so I am happy to have it back for new inspiration!
FYI I might amp up the wellness section of the blog if I see that you guys like these types of posts. I love reading about nutrition and trying new things, so it would be fun to keep you in the loop on what I am experimenting with at the moment as far as health and wellness are concerned. Let me know what you think and have a great week!