Tip Tuesday - Don't overdo the protein....don't underdo the veggies!

Many people who decide to eat keto get all excited about the fat...the bacon, the meat, the cheese.  The problem is, they forget that one of the most important things that you need to eat, in addition to fat, is your vegetables.  Now, I have to admit, that when I started this lifestyle, I didn't really even like vegetables.  Today, I eat 6-8 servings of them a day.  That measures up to be a WHOLE LOT of veggies.  See below how I do it:

1) Breakfast: Push vegetables as soon as you get up.  Breakfast should not only include vegetables, but it should be the main attraction.  Make your eggs (and bacon, of course) with sauteed spinach.  Slice up an avocado for the side.  I like to do this on weekends, but, during the week, I require a breakfast that I can have on the run.  My breakfast every morning, Monday through Friday, is a green smoothie.  Here is the recipe for my favorite green smoothie:

KetoRunningMama Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

2 cups spinach (or kale)

1 heaping spoonful of organic peanut butter

1/2 avocado

1/2 cup coconut yogurt (I like Whole Foods Brand)

1 scoop unsweetened pea protein (I like Trader Joe's Brand)

2 teaspoons Psyllium Husk Powder

2 scoops Nutrisource Fiber

As many frozen raspberries will fit in the remainder of the smoothie blender

Directions:

Add all of the above ingredients to a smoothie blender.  Mix well.  Drink on the go!

I assure you that, if you try out this smoothie in the morning, you will be feeling great all morning.  Your brain will be functioning at peak performance.  You will not feel hungry.  ...And you will already have had 3 servings of vegetables (and one serving of fruit) to set you up for a good, nutritionally sound, day.

2) Lunch: Think CHOPPED salad.  I don't know why, but when the veggies in a salad are chopped, it is so much more palatable.  What else makes a salad more appealing?  Bacon.  I always have a package of bacon cooked and ready to go for the week.  There is something about putting a big bite of chopped vegetables into you mouth, knowing that there is a significant chance that you will be rewarded with a tiny little crumble of bacon in that bite. I also add some type of meat to my salad. Typically, my favorite protein addition is salmon. My lunch salad is about 5 cups of vegetables.  The ladies who I eat lunch with used to comment every day about it.  "How are you going to eat a salad THAT big?"  "There is no way that you can eat all of that!"  "How does someone so little eat something so big?!!"  No one says anything anymore.  They know that this is what I do.  I like to get all of my veggies in at lunch....because this means I can relax a bit at dinner....knowing that I already met my veggie goal for the day. By this point in my day, I have already had 7-8 servings of vegetables and 1 serving of fruit.  Not too shabby.

3) Dinner: It helps me at dinner time that I have already reached my veggie goal for the day.  I can relax a bit about pushing vegetables at the time that most people are thinking, "Crap!  Did I even eat anything green today?"  One thing that I am always sure to do with dinner, though...is to add garlic and onions to everything that I make.  They make everything taste better...and they aid in setting up a healthy environment for your microbiome.  Additionally, I will make one side dish of vegetables to go with my dinner if there are not a lot of vegetables incorporated into the dinner dish already.  Honestly, I do this more for the sake of my kids seeing us eat vegetables with every dinner more than anything.  

I hope that this routine can help give you incite into how you can make sure that you are getting all of the vegetables that you need in a day.  Remember, you are what you eat.  Just as your mama used to say, don't skimp on your veggies.

-KetoRunningMama