I always eat a bunch of servings of fruits & veggies on a daily basis, but lately I’ve been really putting in an effort to ramp up my produce intake even more. I just feel that eating whole foods as often as possible is the healthiest way to eat. I’m somewhere in between a vegan who eats a high amount of (good for you) carbs, and someone who thinks that eating lots of protein is key. I’ve been trying to find balance between eating a ton of fruits and veggies, while also getting what I feel is enough protein in my diet to feed my muscles, especially on days when I have hard workouts. Today I’m sharing my eats from yesterday to show you what that balance looks like to me.
Note that every single day isn’t as clean eating as this. I indulged on Tuesday night and had tortilla chips with my veggie quesadilla dinner + fro yo for dessert, so yesterday my diet was strictly lean and green!
For breakfast, I whipped up a simple green monster:
The color is not so appealing, but I’ve really gotten used to the taste of green monster juices as long as there’s some fruit in there to sweeten it up. Plus, getting an entire day’s worth of the recommended amount of produce in one little glass? Yes!
I squeezed in a lunchtime workout, and when I got home, all I wanted was my usual chocolate peanut butter protein shake.
In the mix:
- 1 cup unsweetened chocolate almond milk
- 1/2 banana
- 2 TBSP PB 2 powdered peanut butter
- A packet of stevia sweetener
- 1 TBSP dark chocolate cocoa powder
- 1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder
With a growling stomach around 3 hours later, I whipped up a salad that I first made last week and loved:
Such a colorful dish right? I picked up a couple of endives at Trader Joe’s recently just because I thought they were pretty. Not sure what to do with them, I chopped them up with fennel and came up with this winning combo.
There’s something about the mix of flavors in this salad that I really dig – the crunchy, licorice-like fennel, sweet cherries, toasted almonds, sea salt, and a light olive oil/lemon juice/balsamic dressing.
Per yesterday’s post, of course it includes cherries! 😉 The exact recipe is at the end of this post.
Dinner was a little odd yesterday. I wasn’t all that hungry because I had this salad in the late afternoon, but I had something to attend in the evening and wanted to eat beforehand. I decided to make some garlic parmesan edamame, a recipe I saw recently on another blog and have made a couple of times.
I combined an individual bag of frozen edamame with a bit of olive oil, sea salt, minced garlic and a few TBSP of grated parmesan, then popped it in the oven for a bit. I’m a fan of edamame – it’s a great veggie protein source. A single serving has 17 grams of protein!
Later on, I snacked on a Nature Valley granola bar + a banana Chobani Greek yogurt with sprinkled cinnamon.
I <3 cinnamon.
With that, my day of eats was complete.
And now I’m off to bed, good night!
Fennel & Endive Salad with Almonds -n- Cherries
Ingredients
- 1 large fennel bulb chopped
- 2 small endives chopped
- 2 oz shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup dried cherries
- 2 TBSP slivered almonds toasted
- 1/2 TBSP olive oil
- 1 TSP fresh lemon juice
- 1 TSP balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 TSP sea salt
Instructions
- Combine first 4 ingredients in a bowl.
- Whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic, and 1/8 TSP sea salt.
- Pour dressing over salad.
- Sprinkle remaining sea salt on top.
Amy says
Everything looks so yummy! I’ve been juicing everyday lately ( I have the same juicer!) and am kind of addicted. I have so much more energy when I start my day off with juice. I’ve never juiced kale before….do you get a decent amount of juice from it?
foodielovesfitness says
Thanks, I like my food pretty! Good for you Amy. That’s awesome! I can’t say that I feel more energized with the juices, but I do just feel healthy drinking them. I picture my body absorbing all of these beneficial nutrients and being stronger from them. And about the kale – honestly, no not really. Ha. A lot of it comes out of the back, but it does make the juice green and that makes me think that at least some nutrients are getting in there!