3 Sneaky Ways to Add More Vegetables for Weight Loss

Time to add on a little to your new healthy life.

Everyday make sure you eat at least 3 servings of vegetables. Why? Not just because your mom said, eating vegetables will help you lose weight. They are low in fat and calories but high in fiber. That fiber content will fill you up so you have less room for the not so good for you stuff.  Vegetables also have so many vitamins and chemicals that help boost your energy. There is also growing evidence that plant based foods sort of short circuit food addiction and helps to control cravings. One of the biggest reasons people overeat is vitamin deficiency. If you aren’t giving your body what it needs it will keep trying to fill that need. 

Okay, some of you are now going to say that you don’t like vegetables right? So, there are literally hundreds of vegetables out there and thousands of ways to prepare them so not liking any vegetables is pretty much impossible. Open your mind and experiment. This can be fun! 

Here are a few ideas to get your started:

For a snack try celery or carrots dipped in a little peanut butter, hummus or ranch made with low or no fat sour cream and ranch dressing mix. Just don’t overdo it with the dip- it’s for flavor not the main attraction here. 

Easy lunch idea- make a giant salad and eat it for lunch all week. I get a big bag of prewashed baby spinach and dump it in a bowl. Cut up a cucumber, tomatoes, onions and anything else that sounds good. Now add some flavor. Do you like Mexican? Make it a taco salad, salsa, black beans, guacamole. I love to add a jar of drained banana peppers, garbanzo beans, low fat feta and a cut up package of all natural turkey. With all these flavors I usually don’t add much dressing.  Make a huge bowl of it and presto, lunch for the week! It doesn’t take much more time to make a big bowl than it would for one salad so do it all at once.

Another sneaky idea to add in more vegetables is to base your dinner around vegetables. No, not another salad. I try to limit the amount of carbs I eat in the evenings so I use vegetables as pasta and rice. Did you know you can substitute cut up cauliflower for rice? There is already made cauliflower rice in the frozen section. And you can mash cooked cauliflower for mashed potatoes. I made this one year at Thanksgiving and no one knew the difference.  How about spaghetti squash? Yep, poke holes in one of these babies, microwave for 15 minutes, let it cool, cut it open and shred the squash with a fork. Looks like thin spaghetti!  Okay, one more..... zucchini in a spiralizer makes fabulous noodles! You can make them by hand but this is what I use-  https://www.amazon.com/Spiralizer-Vegetable-Strongest-Heaviest-Gluten-Free/dp/B00GRIR87M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1509901192&sr=8-3&keywords=zucchini+spiralizer   It is so easy!  

Just for comparison: a cup of spaghetti has 200 calories and a cup of zucchini has 20 calories!

So how easy is that for 3 servings of vegetables a day? Veggie and dip snack, salad for lunch and substitute a vegetable in at dinner. That doesn’t seem too hard right?  Just eat as you normally would for everything else. This is not an all or nothing thing here. You are changing habits to last a lifetime not a quick fix.

You can do this!