Hey guys!
Thank you so much for all of your great input on my last post. It seems like rigid eating schedules are something that a lot of us have struggled with at some point, but we can all agree that honoring our hunger is the way to go.
Now, before I get into the main topic of today’s post, I wanted to devote a couple of minutes to today’s breakfast…
Looks like a pretty standard cereal mess, right? Not exactly. I mean, you have your usual suspects – plain Greek yogurt, a banana, Kashi Cinnamon Harvest, almond butter – but this morning I threw two new players into the court:
Holy.wow 😯 Talk about a winning combination of flavors. I try to vary up what I throw into my cereal bowls to keep myself from getting bored, but I think I stumbled across a combination that I’m going to be sticking to for quite some time (or at least until I run out of pears). I completely forgot how much I love the combination of applesauce and yogurt, and when you add a pear and some roasted almond butter into the mix? It made me weak in the knees.
But enough about breakfast; breakfast is never a problem. What has become a problem is getting my veggies in. After looking over my eats from the other day, one thing immediately jumped out at me – where the heck are the veggies? I barely ate any at all. Now, that wouldn’t be too big of a problem if it was just that one day, but lately I’ve been noticing a lack of veggies in my overall diet. My salads have shrunk…
Gone.
… my roasted veggies have run away…
Poof.
… and my beloved broccoli has been banished to wherever it is that all musical veggies go…
Vanished.
I mean, my dinners went from looking like this…
… to looking more and more like this…
… and to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. I know that we’re supposed to get 7-8 servings of fruits and veggies a day, and I definitely meet those guidelines with the amount of fruit I eat, but should I be cutting down on the fruit and upping the veggies? I’m not entirely sure, and this is why…
I used to eat a lot of veggies – probably a little too much – and my stomach absolutely hated me for it. Not only was I bloated and uncomfortable all the time, but my veggie-filled meals would often leave me feeling tired and lethargic as my stomach struggled to digest the roughage I was feeding it. Not exactly the most pleasant feeling in the world…
I think I subconsciously started decreasing the amount of veggies I was eating as my mind started to rebel against the “clean eating” mentality that had held me prisoner for so long; and dare I say it, I actually started feeling better? I know it’s not a popular notion, especially among the healthy living community, but decreasing my veggies to 2-3 servings a day actually improved my general health rather than hindering it. Not only are those nagging stomach problems now a thing of the past, but my energy increased and my skin improved as well – you’d be surprised how much of a toll digestive problems of any sort can take on your body’s overall well-being.
So therein lies my problem: do I force myself to eat more veggies despite my body not seeming to take to them too well, or do I continue with eating mainly fruits with a couple servings of easy-to-digest veggies thrown in? Do I listen to what my body seems to be telling me, or go with what my head/society tells me is “right”?
Oh bother…
. – . – . – .
Do you eat a lot of veggies? What are your favorites?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated 🙂
What a refreshing post! I completely agree. I can only eat so many veggies before I feel like a balloon. So tired of society telling me what to eat! Guess I should stop listening.
I love my vegetables, but just like you…they don’t always love me back. I’ve actually had to resort to popping a couple of Beano pills every time I eat a salad…just in case. I’m partially to blame in this since I tend to get a little carried away with my “salad beasts” but I’ve learned that there is NOTHING like the pain endured for (in my case) 2-3 hours after a meal full of “roughage” and so instead of cramming all my day’s veggies into one or two meals, I try to spread them out throughout the day and pair them with foods that “stick to my ribs” so that I don’t get that awful “hollow” gassy feeling. You know the one I’m talking about? Where you’re stomach feels so full yet so empty at the same time?
Lately, I can’t seem to get enough of the “fruit” of the veggie world…sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, pumpkin…you can definitely tell my tastes are changing with the season. And really, I guess it’s the same as just eating fruit all day. I say who cares….go with what you crave! Heck, it’s better than chips! 😉
Oh my gosh, I have been lacking in my veggies a lot lately too. Most days I even feel incredibly guilty about it. Maybe it’s mostly the fact of me being so busy with college and not being able to go grocery shopping (with my mom) yet, haha! But even then, I don’t crave veggies as often as I used too. I’ve been craving fruits a lot more.. where has it all gone? Veggies come back! 🙁 Hahaha
I wouldn’t worry about it too much, especially since fruits are still a great thing to crave 😀 Your body might just be going through a phase and before you know it your cravings might just come back on their own – I’ve definitely found that to be the case with me.
I agree with you – eating less veggies always makes my stomach feel so much better. Not to mention, my digestion benefits as well. I suspect many of us, myself including, overestimate what a single serving of vegetables really looks like. While “salad beasts” the size of my head seem like a legit portion (hey, it’s just veggies right and I need to eat more to feel full?), in reality eating so much green in one serving is detrimental to our bodies.
As many said, find what works best for you. If you’re not eating enough of something, your body will let you know in the form of a craving. If you’re eating too much of something, your body will let you know…wel…in other ways 🙂 What it really comes down to is trusting yourself and your body!