You Can Always Get Better

I've been eating clean for seven weeks now and so far it's going great!  Next week I'll be doing my 60-day check-in (weight, pictures, measurements, etc.) and I'm confident it will show good progress.  *As a reminder, after the first 30 days I had lost about 7 pounds*

Now that eating healthy has become a habit, I'm looking for ways to fine tune my daily meals to make them even more nutritious.  I've been reading a book about vegan nutrition, Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis (recommended to me by a friend who's a long-time vegan) and it's very interesting.  I'm only up to chapter three (grad school readings have taken precedent) but so far I'm intrigued.  According to what I've read so far, plant nutrition is just as good, or better, than meat-based diets.  I'm certainly not ready to jump into a vegan lifestyle, I think there are some basic changes I can make to move toward a healthier diet.

On the subject of meat, I decided this past Sunday to eliminate red meat and highly processed meats from my diet.  The amount of energy that goes into raising cattle and then the amount of waste they produce is rather gross, and there have been plenty of studies that show the dangers of eating too much red meat.  So, no more for me!  I will continue to eat chicken and lean turkey for now (I also eat pork occasionally but I'm not really a big fan).

As far as dairy is concerned, I already don't drink milk and almost never eat cereal, so I will continue to keep milk out of my diet.  I rarely eat cheese so I will continue to limit my cheese consumption until it's gone, too.  The only dairy I'm currently eating daily is Greek yogurt.  Taste-wise I'd be happy to give it up, but I'm not sure what I'd replace it with.  I have yogurt and grapenuts everyday for breakfast (usually at work) so I'll need to find a suitable alternative that is super easy to pack and eat at work before I drop that as well.  If you have any ideas, leave me a comment!

Finally, I will be trying out some vegan recipes once or twice a week.  As it is, I only really eat meat in two of my daily meals, so it should be too bad to swap one out occasionally.  I'm looking forward to trying my friend's chili recipe and I'm contemplating swapping meat for beans in tacos!

Stay healthy!