Happy {Short Week} What I Ate Wednesday!

Happy {short week} Wednesday! Do you all have some lovely plans for this coming Easter Weekend? Derek and I have lots of plans with friends and family and most of those plans involve EATING! For me, it's super easy to overeat on these types of weekends, but by adding more veggies to each meal, I'm planning to keep all those extra calories on the table and not in my belly :)

This month's What I Ate Wednesday focuses on adding one extra cup of veggies to your meals each day. Trust me, it's not as hard as it sounds. When I first started thinking about this post, I didn't think I'd ever be able to show you some veggie-ful ideas because I've been under the weather with a less than stellar appetite, but once I started browsing back through some of my pics from earlier this week, I realized that I still had lots and lots of veggies included in my meals! Could it be that I have become a veggie eater by habit?! I dare say that I have :)

Breakfast

My personal opinion is that this is the easiest meal to add veggies to. Just whip up a green smoothie full of spinach and celery and voila! there's your veggies. You've seen tons of green smoothies here on Vegvacious, but this week I've had absolutely no taste for one. To soothe my throat, I have been LOVING Angela's Homemade Berry Sorbet. Oh.My.Heaven. This sorbet is gooo-oooooddddddd!

Lunch

All I have to say about lunch is: Soup, lots and lots of soup.

All my soups are full of veggies. Lately, my faves have been cream of asparagus and cream of leek.

Snackage

I've seen these Snapea Crisps on other blogs and I've been dying to find some to try for myself. I found this bag at the Bulk Barn and it lasted maybe 48 hours. They are tasty and very addicting!

Apparently they are awesome as a salad topper. Mine didn't make it quite that long hehe.

Dinner

Last night was the first time I actually felt like cooking in about 10 days. I wanted to make something fabulous, low in fat and full of veggies. What I ended up with was half a steamed sweet potato and Jenn's Quinoa Veggie Fried Rice. YUMMY!

Not bad for a sick chick, huh?!

If you're looking for more ways that you can add veggies to your meals,

check out Jenn's WIAW page to see some ideas that other bloggers have come up with.

How can you add one more cup of veggies to your daily eats?

What do you have planned for your Easter Weekend?

Challenging Myself

Welcome to April!

Again, I have to apologize for being so absent this past week. March went out like a lion for me and I have spent the last 8 days battling a flu that went straight into a cold! I rarely ever get sick, but I've been super duper busy lately and I've let myself get run down. I swear, good food and lots of sleep truly is the magic answer for staying healthy and happy!

I haven't done much of anything in the kitchen this week because I frankly couldn't smell or taste anything, so I thought that today would be a great chance for me to tell you about a couple of new goals that I've made for myself.

I have committed to running a 5K Race on May 13, 2012, and a 10K on September 22, 2012.

Eek! The 10K is only 5 months away and I am freaking out already! I've never pushed myself on fitness goals and I am typically the type of girl who likes to stick to what I'm comfortable with: zumba, spin, circuit classes. So, to step outside of my comfort zone and push myself to meet these 2 goals is huge for me! The thought of actually meeting these goals is so freakin' exciting that I can't wait for the dates to get here. Another thing that totally excites me is that I have 2 girlfriends who have also committed to these goals. This isn't going to be easy for any of us and we are all going to feel amazing when we actually DO IT!

Originally, I was planning to follow a Couch 25K program, but I've been set back a bit due to being sick, so luckily one of my co-worker's hooked us up with this brother who is a triathelete and he's agreed to work with us to tailor a running plan that will get us in tiptop shape for May and then September.

We were given the 5K plan last week and my first reaction was "Holy Schiznit Man - are you trying to kill us?!" That wasn't my exact wording, but you get my drift ;) I'm hoping to start his Week 1, Run 1 tonight after work with the plan of running 3 to 4 times per week.

This is so true for me, but now that we have a plan and a goal, it is so much easier to get out that door!

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I have to tell you that running does not come easy for me. I'm not a natural and I have to work really hard to go any distance.

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So, I hope that you will follow me and cheer me on as I start on this journey to accomplishing these goals. My plan is to keep you updated on my progress on a weekly basis, so that you guys can hold me accountable too and maybe I'll even inspire a couple of ya to jump off the ledge and try something that is totally out of your comfort zone.

What goals are you working on right now?

What is the one must-have song that you have on your running playlist?

I hope you have a fantastic Tuesday!

Andrea

xoxo