Eats (Mindy)

So my diet habits are in one word confusing... my poor boyfriend never knows what I'll be eating from one week to the next.  I have been pretty solidly a vegetarian, then vegan, then pescetarian for the last 8 years and within the last few weeks I have started introducing chicken and turkey back into my diet.  I will only eat animal products if they are free range and organic and I will still not eat any red meat or pork... come on a pig is smarter then my dog and if I won't eat her then how am I going to eat Porky.  I could of course wake up with the hampering to go Vegan again tomorrow who knows... for me it's mostly about the treatment of the animals because they are all unique loving creatures who deserve a happy life.  It is also about the quality of what you are putting in your body.  If an animal is not eating the food that it's own body is by nature supposed to eat and spends its entire short life in a constant state of stress what do you think that is doing to the animal's body?  You are consuming all of that negative energy when you eat those poor Foster farms or KFC chickens!!

Another very important thing to me besides the happy energy of your food is eating food as close to nature intended.  Meaning when I buy things like salad dressings I never do low fat and choose options that have olive oil, vinegar, seasoning, cheese etc., and no weird off the wall ingredients.  I do not buy any "diet" products because they are typically full of weird preservatives and chemicals that I do not want in my body.  Basically if it is not an actual food item and requires a lab to produce then I pass it on by.

Ok stepping off my bandwagon... because I could go on for hours... or I guess pages... here are my eats from yesterday.

My very favorite Blueberry Spinach smoothie (shout out to my sis Jennie for this recipe)

1 cup blueberries

1 cup spinach

1T of vanilla protein powder

1 cup of vanilla almond milk

Usually add 1-2T of flaxseed, or some chia seed or another seed for a little extra healthy fat

Delicious!!  Mine usually looks a little green/browner but I was running low on spinach yesterday.

Lunch involved a very delicious large salad beast with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, edamame and blue cheese vinaigrette.

And more deliciousness at lunch... 

Sweet Potato Fries/Chips

These were amazing!!

Take 1 sweet potato and cut in slices or however you want, I did mine too thing, I would recommend probably 1/4 of an inch.  Toss them in a bowl with a little bit of olive oil and whatever seasoning you want to use, I used lots of chili powder and a little bit of honey.

Heat up the oven to 450 degrees and layer them out on a greased baking sheet lined with foil.

Depending on the thickness that you cut them they may take anywhere from 8-15 minutes to cook all the way through, and I would recommend checking on them every 3-5 minutes and flipping them over at around the 5-8 minute mark depending on how they are looking.  Mine were cut pretty thing using my mandolin and they probably took about 8 minutes to cook and some of the edges were burned but even the burned edges were delicious!

Make sure to slop on the Ketchup... Annie's organic or Trader Joe's variety preferred... and enjoy!

Dinner time involved BBQ'ing some free range ground turkey burgers and I made a greek style Quinoa salad.

I'm sure I could learn how to use the grill if I wanted too but there is something so manly and cute about watching the BF man the grill that I like so I will probably never learn!

While he cooked the turkey burgers I made the salad.

Quinoa Greek Salad

1 cup of dry Quinoa

Cucumber

Cherry Tomatos

Feta Cheese - lots of it

Bell Pepper

Kalamato Olives - lots of them

Follow the package ingredients and cook the quinoa and allow time for it to cool down after cooking.  Afterwards mix all of the ingredients together and then add a bit of olive oil and a bit more of balsamic vinegar and taste it... it probably needs more feta so throw some in there and a few more olives.  

Delicious and make sure there are leftovers because it's even better the next day!

BF's Plate (no room for salad booo)

My Plate (I'm not a low carb person I just have been trying to limit my starchy carbs at night)

So Mindy you say, this looks like a pretty healthy day why are you needing to lose weight, well thanks for asking and although the simple answer is wine... the truth is I eat very healthy I just probably eat too much, do not work out nearly enough and yes drink too much of the vino... so on that note dessert for the evening was this amazing drink made by the BF... it was rum, vanilla, orange bitters, and muddled lemon and mint... I think I'm missing an ingredient or two... I swear he was meant to be a bartender.. it was amazing!!

I'll be back tomorrow with a workout... tonight I went running and it just pissed me off... more on that tomorrow... for now I just want to enjoy the pretty food pictures!