Day 653, How You Can Get More Vegetables in Your Life

 

“Vegetables are the food kingdom’s holy grail for a variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.  You could give up carbs, meat, or dairy and still live a long healthy life, but if you skip out on vegetables, all bets are off.  The problem with the “eat your vegetables” message is that for too many people, it makes eating vegetables feel like a chore.  We should focus on what is truly exciting about them–the mind-blowing diversity of colors, shapes, sizes, and textures, and the incredible potential for flavor.  Consider the color spectrum alone, and you’ll see why I find more inspiration in vegetables than any other foods,” Marco Canora, A Good Food Day

 

 

Each day, I pray for the guidance of the Lord.  I have discovered that when I need help, I need to ask for it.  A day generally goes much better when I start it with an attitude of gratitude.

 

My: new increased productivity level girlfriends new menu planner activity planning mindmaps husband Android app JV Life Tracker Cronometer data brief success meditation clean condo (cleaned by Castle Fresh) values connections to others my salad yesterday

 

Yesterday, I experienced some stress.  However, I worked through it and scored 162 points for the day–not bad.

 

	0-100	comments
mood:	75	I did not get enough sleep last night, so my frame of mind is lower.  Still, I am doing quite well.
energy:	65	I got a shower first thing this morning!

	accomplishment
1.	I  scored 183.27 JV Life Tracker points on the average since June 7.
2.	I have completed 100% of my Top 5 since June 7.
3.	I have started a menu planner to improve the way I am eating and make it shareable.

 

 

Yesterday, I made a garden salad for lunch.  It was tasty and nutritious.  I could not eat it all in one sitting, so I stretched it over lunch, repast, and dinner.  That helped me stay in my calorie budget for the day.  I was short on spinach.  Alternatively, you can use more than the recipe calls for.  Lettuce would work as well.

 

 

 

Note that the salad has 656 grams and 309 calories.  That means it has a calorie density of .47, which is considerably less than one.  My cookbook has all of the calorie densities calculated for it.  Almost all of them are less than one.  Barbara Rolls supports a theory that a calorie density of one or less will aid weight loss.  All of the vegetables in the salad contribute to the low-calorie density.  The cucumber especially does.

 

Caloric density is only one reason vegetables are so critical in a diet.  They also happen to be the best potassium source, a crucial electrolyte that is sometimes hard to get enough of.  Potassium helps maintain healthy blood pressure.  This morning, after eating the salad yesterday, my blood pressure was in the healthy range, where sometimes it tends to be too high.  My doctor took me off of my blood pressure meds that I been prescribed for years.  That puts the responsibility on me to eat right, so I can keep my blood pressure in the healthy range.

 

 

When I was in Toastmasters International, I spoke on nutrition-related topics.  One of the members of the club told me he hated vegetables.  Per calorie, they tend to be expensive, and they generally take more work than other foods to prepare.  So in terms of convenience and economy, they do not score really high.  However, nutritionally they are superstars.  I decided to mend my ways.  Since getting married, I had not eaten the quantity of vegetables I ate before I was married.  I belonged to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and a bag of fresh vegetables, usually with a large quantity of leafy greens, was delivered weekly.   Now, we still get delivered groceries, but we have been choosing many foods besides vegetables.  

 

 

How do you get more vegetables in your diet?  One trick I have tried lately is to give myself a point each day for each vegetable serving in JV Life Tracker.   Except for a dip for the pandemic, this strategy seems to be encouraging me to eat more vegetables.  I intend to keep scoring in this manner and bring my numbers up even more.

 

 

Month in 2020	Average Serving of Vegetables per Day
February	3.17
March	2.48
April	1.67
May	4.42
June	5.53

 

It is now Friday and almost the end of my 16-hour Recovery 2 Fast.   I name each of my fasts, so they have special meaning to me.  I believe that helps me abstain from food.   Each day, more and more, I am making intermittent fasting a part of my lifestyle.  It is getting easier to do.   Now, it is time for breakfast. Cronometer shows a timer, so I can see how much time has elapsed on my fast.

 

 

I may wait a few minutes before breakfast.  It does not harm me to fast longer than I planned.  I am listening to Strauss and writing:  two of my favorite activities.  Let me do them a while before I head for the kitchen.  Mahatma Gandhi of India fasted once for 21 days.  I do not intend to do that myself any time soon.

 

 

I typically have a blueberry-walnut-chocolate concoction for breakfast.  However, an omelet may be the thing today.  That way I can eat a few vegetables.  Four vegetables that work well with eggs are spinach, tomato, green onions, and mushrooms.  I have all four in stock.  Rather than going for the routine breakfast, let me think of something better.  My husband would probably like that too.  I will have to ask him if he wants some.

 

However, he likes it with cheese and without green onions.  Maybe I should make this just for me.  I love cheese, but it is constipating.  My medications already constipate me.  I do not need to make it worse.  I am preparing the recipe and plan to include it with this blog post.  I like pasture-raised eggs.  They have a better nutritional profile.   I said one-tenth of a gram for each of the spices, but you can use as much as you like.  The sea salt is hard to get right.  I am going to use a tiny scale that weighs to a tenth of a gram.  It has not been working that well, so we shall see how it goes today.

 

 

I am writing this while over sixteen hours fasted, so it is making me hungry.   However, I do not want to rush into it.  That is what I typically do with food.  Food is too costly and special to waste it with rushing it.

 

Now, let me write the instructions.  There.  They are ready.  If you cannot follow them, please comment below.  I am hoping to make them usable.

 

 

Let me check the nutritional content.  I will not give it the moniker “Perfect Food,” but it is not bad.  Onions, mushrooms, and spinach can help prevent cancer if they are used often.  We learned G-BOMBS at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition:  Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds–cancer-preventing foods to include in your diet.

 

It has now been 16 hours and 46 minutes since I have eaten.

 

I made the omelet and got a photo of it for you.  It is always easier to make something if you can see it. My tiny weighing device worked.  The omelet turned out terrific:  5 stars.  It has only 10 grams of carbohydrates and 5.48 grams of net carbs.

 

Let me show you.

 

 

(Notice this recipe has a caloric density of less than one, even with the olive oil.)

 

 

 

I learned from Jeff Haden in The Motivation Myth to pay close attention to the process we follow to reach our goals.  That is even more important than remembering the goal itself.  Tracking how we are doing with the process is helpful.  It may also be crucial.  If you have followed the last few blog entries, you know that I have recommitted myself to my Top 5 since June 7, 2020.

 

Here is my progress since that day.

 

 

One hundred percent so far!  This chart motivates me to do all five things because if I miss, my cumulative scores will be less than 100%, forever.  That will require me to calculate the percentages from then on.  To better ensure I get them done, I put these things in my Morning Ritual to complete them by 8:00 AM.  However, if I do not finish by then, I have the rest of the day to catch up.  Two of the items require work from the day before, so I am always focused on what I am going to have ready for the next morning.

 

Is this hard or easy to do?  If I were doing these activities for the first time, this would be hard.  However, doing something the nth time is not always easy either, because you can get burned out.   I suggest doing something like this with your Top 5 and not to make it too easy or too hard.  Create flow with it.  Choose projects that will naturally set up your day and that are meaningful to you.  Make those undertakings be those that define you, that are part of your identity.  There should be some necessity in it.  For instance, if I do not log my food in Cronometer, I gain weight.  Some kind of diet diary is necessary for me to even maintain my weight, let alone lose any.

 

 

 

The above JV Life Tracker report shows my progress with fasting.  In the past 15 days, I have eaten within an eight-hour window four times, a nine-hour window 12 times, and within a 10-12 hour window every day.  ETM stands for Eating Timing Management.

 

EVENING PRAYER

Dear Lord,   Today, yesterday, and the day before were challenging.  Let me have the perspective that life is happening for me rather than to me.   The night is over, and a new day has dawned.  I am playing joyful music as I write.  Lord, I believe it is not what happens to me that gets me down, but my story of it.  Today, I have new hope, which arises from getting enough sleep.   I lost more weight last night.  That helps.  I have already removed the weight I gained at Santa Fe House.  Now, I am taking off the kilos I put on from the pandemic.  Then I will reverse the increase from on-again-off-again depression since last December.  Lastly, I will get down to my goal weight.  (Last December’s reading on the scale was close to it.)   I have recorded 24 fasts since I returned from Santa Fe House.  Fasting is less painful than it was.  Practice helps.   Lord, besides fasting, I believe the key to my success is eating more vegetables.  Vegetables not only aid weight loss, but they also support overall health.  I have tracked my vegetable servings since last February.  The more I have eaten, the better my weight control.   Lord, help my readers get the message to eat more vegetables.  I know, they are not convenient, but we can make them tasty.   Amen.

If you would like to join me on this journey from the beginning, please start with Day One.  If you wish to download a FREE copy of my ebook (with no need to enter your name or email), click on the book below.