5 a day

Recently my doctor told me that I needed to eat more fruits and vegetables. An average day for me usually consisted of about 2-3 cups of fruits and veggies so within the 5 servings a day.  He told me that they now reccemend 3-6 cups depending on your gender/age/activity level. For me, a 20-something modereately active girl it's 2.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of veggies  For a girl with a short attention span and gastric bypass, it's harder than you think. It's so easy to have a day of meals like this:


Breakfast: cereal (hot or cold) with 1/2 cup of fruit, almond milk

Lunch: Onigiri and roasted veggies (3/4 cup)

work snack: 3/4 cup fruit and yoghurt

after work snack: homemade kale chips, sesame sticks, beer

dinner: pan fried tofu, veggies, sauce over wheatberries

not bad, right?   2.25 cups of veggies, 1.25 cups of fruit, some good dairy, a little whole grain, and some beer to take the edge off.  But that's 3.5 cups of veggies still 1.5 cups away from the goal.
So I turned to my 2 best online tools: Google and Springpad. I created a Springpad that all my fellow springers need to check out (because Springpad > Pinterest)

 And now more of my days are looking like this:

Breakfast: Hardboiled egg Oatmeal Stuff Peach half (.5 F)

Lunch: Salad with dried figs, feta cheese, drizzle of dressing (1V 1F)

Work snack: Peppers and carrots with hummus (.75 V)

Dinner: lamb with roasted brussel sprouts and crispy baked potatoes, beer (1v)

after swim smoothie: 1/2 peach, blueberries and strawberries (1.5F)

Actually that was yesterday, and it was awesome.3 cups of fruit 2.75 cups of veggies. I been feeling allot better the days I eat more fruits and vegetables too. And even with beer the cal content is pretty low. Sometimes in life we say we don't have time to eat healthy but when take a little time to really think it through it's do-able.  Most of the time I'm eating them raw, roasted, or whirled in a blender, very little prep. I have the advantage of working near "the bowl" (Berkeley Bowl West - it's like a local version of whole foods) where discount veggies/fruit determine my meals over everything. But I've been eating things I rarely eat before and it's really cool.

So if you spring, be sure to add my springpad as I'm updating often with some good  recipes (and yea I guess if you "pin" them, I can forgive you for the sake of health)