Eating Vegan

Day in and day out I get the question, do you get enough protein? How do you have energy to sustain a run on a vegan diet?

It’s really, not that hard at all! I believe that eating in human's most natural form is plant based, contrary to popular "caveman" and "Paleo" belief. As humans, we are not born with the tools to kill and eat animals that carnivorous animals are. We do not have sharp enough teeth, claws, and are not agile enough to on our own without tools (have you ever seen a lion shoot or stab its prey?)

As a busy 20 something running, working, and eating, I like to eat as simply as possible since I don't have a whole lot of time to cook. Some of my staples:

Fruit and as much as I want!

I start everyday with a banana, along with some blueberries or strawberries, granola and cashew milk. Ezekiel bread, peanut butter, oatmeal, and tofu scramble are some of my other favorite breakfasts!

For lunches I like salads with as many veggies as I can fit, and a nutritious and healthy dressing to liven it up. I loveeeee The Goddess and Lemon Tahini dressings from whole foods. I crave them and cannot wait to have a salad! Putting beans, avocado, hummus on salads adds a good source of protein as well as nuts. I like making hummus and veggie wraps/sandwiches, leftovers from dinner, I really don't count any sort of calorie/fat/protein I simply eat when I am hungry and I eat as simply plant based as I can.

Dinners are never too complicated; by the time I get home I am starving and want to eat asap! I love to throw together big salads, top with tempeh, make rice and bean bowls topped with all the fixings to make it "Chipotle" style, sweet potatoes, chili (I like Amy's canned chili if I don’t have the ingredients to make my own. I also like to make tofu scramble with Whole Food’s mix, a block of tofu, and whatever veggies I have to add! So delicious, filling, and nutritious! Great post run meal.

Thanks, Dandelion Cafe for your $5 Giddyup Mondays!

dandelioncommunitea.com

Here are some staples, most you can find at a local grocer, Whole Foods, or health foods store. 

·        Organic fruits and veggies

·        Kale

·        Spinach or spring mix

·        Shredded carrots for salad

·        Whole Foods Goddess and Lemon Tahini Dressing

·        Tofu Scramble Mix

·        Nuts (unsalted)

·        Dried fruit (with no added sugar)

·        Ezekiel Bread

·        Bearly Naked Granola

·        Silk Cashew Milk

·        Silk Soy Vanilla Creamer

·        Beyond Meat Products

·        Hummus

·        Tofutti Sour Cream

·        Daiya Cheddar Cheese

·        Amy’s Organic products

·        Puffin’s Cereal

·        Amy’s Popcorn

·        Kombucha

·        So Delicious Ice Cream: Coconut milk, Almond Milk

I don't restrict, I eat what I want, when I want. If I feel sore, I eat a little more protein, stretch, and rest! That's really the magic formula :) Friends, if you have questions leave me a comment! I love to share.

As always, keep running friends :)

My Wellness Journey: The Early Years

My wellness journey has been a long and interesting path, this post might as well be put into a book; a feat I one day hope to accomplish to help inspire people to open their mind and their hearts to nutrition. This post will serve more so as an introduction to my overall way of thinking when it comes to nutrition and exercise, and I hope to share not just my knowledge on the subject but also my FEELINGS and the literature and people that inspire me to live the way I do. I think and live loudly.

 Summers spent in the great outdoors of North Carolina are my fondest memory

Horseback riding: I always talked the parents into it

I thank my childhood and the way I was raised to the person I have become today. I grew up in a small community in South Florida, and I was raised not eating red meat and with a solid mantra that movement and exercise was very important. My younger sister and I were always very active, taking yearly family trips to North Carolina where we played and hiked, playing outside everyday and learning to swim at the age of two, and we both began playing soccer early in elementary school. Luckily, growing up in Florida allowed me to be able to go outside all year round and wear shorts and bare feet almost everyday of the year. My youngest memories are from the kitchen table at our nightly family dinners and taking trips to the park around the corner to play.

I was a competitive figure skater for much of my later childhood/teenage years and was what you can call obsessed. I lived at my local ice arena (an odd sport you can say for a Floridian to take up.) I had some natural talent and progressed quickly once I began taking group lessons and soon got a coach who pushed me to train harder and to begin competing. Coming from a team sport based lifestyle, I learned to really thrive and enjoy relying on myself rather than a team to win and to grow. I incorporated cross training into my skating; doing conditioning off ice with my coach, group stroking classes to gain power and speed, and then he asked me to start doing 30 minute runs to build my endurance. I enjoyed these runs immensely, but saw them more as a tool for skating than as a sport itself. Little did I know that I would grow up to be a runner! I competed throughout High School and had to retire my Freshman year of college after winning my final competition; and it was great to go out with a bang. I do wish I still lived as close and had the time to skate, skating gave me so much in my life. It gave me the courage to try something new and the confidence to get out on the ice and give my all solo, it gave me a passion and a level of commitment and determination that I would carry with me through everything I do, a bond with my mother who continually traveled to competitions with me and supported all of my decisions, and a creative edge to make my programs and costumes to interpret the music and stories of my skating programs. I love figure skating and all that it gave me, and I miss it dearly!

The nutrition side of things was always inspired by my parents who taught us to eat healthily and very much plant based. We were extremely limited on sodas, processed foods, and desserts which formed my mindset I have today to live a vegan and plant based life while also allowing myself indulgences but in a limited fashion. I grew up eating no red meat as mentioned above, eating dairy/eggs/fish/turkey/chicken. At the ripe ole’ age of 12 I gave up my turkey and chicken after be-friending a chicken named Betsey at a friend’s home in North Carolina where we vacationed each year. Being raised to appreciate nature and animals not just as food but as living beings instilled in me a very sensitive and loving nature towards them. I am vegan today not for the health benefits (which are immense) but because I believe that animals have every right to life as humans and are not to be eaten as food. I like to say that I am vegan because I do not believe in any violence, nor cruelty.

After yo-yoing and not treating my body very well through some of High School and the beginning of college, I began researching more into nutrition and read the book Skinny Bitch which I can thank for changing my old mindset on nutrition and exercise. I cleaned up my life, threw away my packaged and processed meals I was living on in college housing and ventured into Whole Foods and began a running routine. Immediately I fell in love with whole food nutrition and running; like skating I only could rely on myself to push myself and to hit the pavement. And that was just the beginning of my random running kind of life ;)

Keep running friends~