Are you eating enough vegetables??

I happened across this website:

Pictures of Your Recommended Servings of Vegetables Per Day

Far, far, faaaar too often, I see on blogs or message boards or whatever talk about their eating plans, their daily menus, etc, and a really unfortunately common denominator is that vegetables are NOT prominent in those plans! Veggies are often relegated to a meager side dish at dinner or spinach added to a smoothie. I rarely see veggies be the star (I'm picturing "star" being said like they're about to be a hit on Broadway ;) ).

Today my vegetables included: a coleslaw made of cabbage and carrots at lunch, mushrooms and onions and spinach in a cheese-less omelette with roasted sweet potatoes for dinner, leftover peas as a snack, sugar snap peas as a snack, roasted beets as a THIRD snack (I snack a lot, but on vegetables, so whatever). 

I didn't have my typical big romaine and tomato salad for dinner that is pretty common for me... because I was eating an omelette and just plain old didn't want to eat a salad with my eggs :)

An interesting thing that website above mentioned was this "When it comes to salad, a cup is not a cup. It takes 2 cups of leafy greens to equal 1 cup of vegetables." Good to remember! I usually eat over two cups of romaine when salad is the star of dinner, so I've been doing pretty well.

The website (and the government) recommends a lot more fruit than I think a lot of people I know in the "healthy living" blogosphere would like because a lot of people are trying to reduce the amount of sugar they eat, which I get! I think as long as you have a really nice variety of vegetables in your daily rotation (including lots of colors!), you don't have to rely on fruit all that much. I eat about 1/2 cup of blueberries and an apple everyday. Not the recommended 2 cups, but I don't think I'm suffering. Extra veggies, please :)

I think whatever plan you follow - paleo, primal, high protein, high fat, IIFYM, WW, etc, etc... the basic rule that should be followed in EVERY PLAN: eat simple, eat fresh, focus on the vegetables!! 

Anyway, that is my recipe for success. I eat a variety of things, but make sure vegetables are the highest percentage of foods I eat. I eat fats like oil, nuts and avocado, I eat proteins like eggs, lean meats and cottage cheese, and sprinkle in a good amount of seeds into my day. But veggies are the star. Our fridge is always bursting with them!

Just a little thing I was thinking about when I realized in a comment on Gwen's blog that I no longer ate vegetables at breakfast (I used to eat a veggie egg scramble but now eat blueberries with cottage cheese) and have had to work a little harder to get in more veggies... such as often eating a big salad with protein for dinner!

Have a good Friday, everyone <3