Health Made Simple - Week 2

As I mentioned in a couple posts last week, I'm doing the Health Made Simple challenge from No Meat Athlete. It's an 8-week meal plan focused on whole foods, plant-based meals. The first two weeks are a ramp-up to the full meal plan. Last week, the only diet change was to have green smoothies for breakfast every week day and healthy, heartier breakfasts on the weekend (more on that in a few).

This week, it's all about snacks! I'm still having the green smoothies for breakfast, but I'm now adding two healthy snacks a day from the meal plan. Next week, I'll be on the full meal plan with breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner recipes all planned out for me.

But let's back up to the weekend. I want to show y'all the healthy foods I ate Saturday and Sunday morning. My Saturday breakfast on the plan was Tofu Scramble with baby spinach, onions, garlic, and nooch. I added a slice of sprouted grain toast spread with coconut oil.

My Sunday breakfast on the plan was Avocado Toast — one of my faves! With tomato slices, pink salt, and pepper.

Snack week/Week 2 started out strong with a healthy green smoothie. The Greens Fruit Flax Smoothie had green apple, spinach, banana, and flax seed. I thought I'd be tired of smoothies by now, but I'm not!

Morning snack was more fruit! We were supposed to have a bowl of any Mixed Fruit we wanted. I made mine with banana, grapes, kiwi, and strawberries today. One of the snacks every day is a fruit bowl, so I bought other fruit to mix these up throughout the week. Later in the week, I'll add apples and mangos to my bowl. It felt pretty good to only eat fruit until lunch time!

The fruit kept me satisfied until noon, but I had a meeting that ran through lunch time until 1 pm, and I was famished by then. I should have taken my afternoon snack into the meeting, but I didn't think of that. Oh well. I was very happy to have this Seitan Deli Sandwich with avocado, Violife provolone, tomato and sprouts on sprouted grain. Plus, Baby Carrots and Hummus on the side. I'm trying to use up my vegan meats and cheeses before the lunches and dinners on the plan begin next week! Excuse the terrible lighting. I had to eat my lunch in the art gallery today.

Afternoon snack was Trail Mix with almonds, cashews, dates, coconut, dried pineapple, and pumpkin seeds. Rather than make the mix from scratch like the plan suggests, I used some trail mix I already had in the pantry (it was a cashew, almond, cranberry, blueberry blend), and I added some of the ingredients called for in their recipe (the ones I already had, like dried pineapple, dates, and coconut). I wasn't terribly hungry for a snack since I'd eaten a late lunch. But still fun to eat!

Dinner was another attempt to use up plant meats. I've had a Tofurky in the deep-freezer for months, one I'd found on clearance for $5!! I roasted that and served with a recipe from Rich Roll's book, Finding Ultra. His mashed potatoes are made with olive oil and Vegenaise rather than margarine. And he tops them with steamed broccoli, mushrooms, bell pepper, spinach. So good!

The Crosstown CDC, which I'm on the board for, had its monthly meeting tonight at Midtown Crossing Grill, where pints are $2 on Mondays! Everyone always drinks at our CDC meetings, so of course I had to get a beer. I've decided I will not be giving up alcohol on this plan, so beer will still be a regular thing. Carbs, am I right?