Summer’s coming up and it’s that time of year where you ask yourself if you’ve incorporated enough fruits and vegetables into your diet. No need to feel bad, it’s hard to get your daily intake of these foods. However, there are easier ways and recipes that make these foods taste yummier than simply eating them raw.
Fruits are high in vitamins, minerals, and fiber which is great for your digestion. Vegetables, on the other hand, are a great source of potassium, folic acid, and lots of vitamins as well. Studies show that a person who has a diet that is high in fruits and vegetables has lower risks of developing heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and inflammation.
Here is how you can incorporate more fruits and vegetables into your diet.
Breakfast is obviously the most important meal of the day. It can actually be really simple to add a piece of fruit with your very first meal of the day. On top of your cereal, toast, oatmeal, or whatever it is, add an apple, banana, or an orange. Not only will the extra bit of fruit keep your fuller throughout the day but it really is a “complete balanced breakfast” as they say as you’re getting your grains, vitamins, and fiber. When you start off the day with fruit you can immediately start to make a dent in your fruits and vegetable intake.
Juices and shakes can replace a meal altogether if they are made with your necessary daily nutrition intake. There are lots of recipes online that can help you create delicious and healthy shakes that incorporate both fruits and vegetables. They can be made to taste like yummy desserts and refreshing juices. These are also inexpensive due to the limited number of ingredients and they are usually ones you already have in your kitchen like milk, yogurt, or honey.
Have you heard of celery juice? It is literally just the juice you get from juicing celery stalks. It has become the new craze in health and fitness. It is basically supposed to “clean you out” by flushing out any toxins, make you go to the bathroom, can help acne, chronic fatigue, and much more. It is amazing what different fruits and vegetable juices and shakes can do for you. So, give them a try!
Instead of grabbing the bag of chips or cookies in-between meals, choose to snack on some fruits or vegetables. You’ll be amazed to see how much you cut down on calories when you replace your usual snack foods with some healthier fruits and vegetables.
Some great snack options for fruits are virtually endless. There are grapes, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, pretty much any berry! For vegetables, there are classics like carrots or celery sticks also cucumber, and tomato slices.
Replacing your snacks will not only be better for you in the long run but also help you energized and your mind sharp unlike those greasy bags of chips.
Dinner doesn’t always have to be heavy meats, pasta, or potatoes. That’s a common misconception; that dinner has to be a big and hearty meal that will keep you full. Dinner can just consist of just a salad or lots of veggies. Just like breakfast is easy to incorporate fruits, dinnertime is easy to incorporate vegetables.
There are so many recipes online for salads, roasted vegetables, skillets, casseroles, and much more. Don’t be afraid to change up your meals and incorporate something a little lighter or healthier every once and a while.
Dessert is usually our time to indulge in sweets, chocolate, and things of that nature. While this is all fine and well, in moderation, of course, it can put a wrench into your new, healthy fruits and veggies diet. Fortunately, there is a way you can add them without taking away all the fun.
Try some healthier fruit options for dessert. You can eat strawberries dusted with a little sugar, diced up a banana with a little chocolate syrup, or apple slices with a scoop of peanut butter to dip. You can also look up more healthy fruit desserts to find one that you would like to try.
Although these fruit-dessert-alternatives are not completely healthy, they are much better for you than say cookies, cake, or ice cream. It can also begin to make your mind and body adjust to fruits and healthier options by maybe making you reach for them more often than non-healthy options.
If you keep eating the same carrots and celery in your lunch, the same celery juice in the morning, or even the same sugar and strawberries for dessert, it can get pretty mundane and boring. You want to keep the upbeat motivation for your fruits and veggies diet so you don’t fizzle out and give up completely. One way to do that is to keep adding and changing your fruits and vegetables and even how you consume them.
Maybe one week you do celery juice in the morning and next week you do a berry, fruit smoothie to start your day. Be sure to change your snack and meals as well so you’re not getting into a routine of eating the same things every day. Also, try different fruits and vegetables all together as well. There are so many out there that you maybe haven’t tried or can cook in a way that you’ll like or add to a meal to make it better or different. I once dated a guy who was 23 who had never tried asparagus before. After I grilled them up and squirted some lemon juice on top, he found his new favorite vegetable.
You never know what you’ll get, what you’ll like, or how you’ll grow if you don’t continue to branch out and change it up for yourself.
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