What are you trying to achieve by increasing greens or “nature mades”?
I realized today, it’s less than a month til Summer.
It made me think on what I’m trying to achieve.
So I thought I would pose the question to the group - what are you trying to achieve by increasing your greens or less processed plant foods? (I like to call them Nature Mades. 😊”
What are you trying to achieve by increasing greens or “nature mades”? 4 votes
4 votes
Replies
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A mixture of all the above!
i would say I’m a mixture… I have some stress pudge right now that I’m trying to banish… and also want to be my healthiest self. I find when I eat better I have more energy, sleep better.. etc..
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A mixture of all the above!
After I was knocked off my feet, realized I do not want to need help - I want to be able to do what I can, as long as I can - so a major goal for me is health.
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I meant to answer this - when I first read it, I didn't know how to answer! Probably the best answer is a mixture of all of the above. After I type, I'm going to copy a reply from another challenge, that reminded me that I didn't come back here and actually answer! (sorry, SG!) (Also, SG, I typed love letters to you in two places in May, I'll have to find them and repeat them here. One was in our Spring Challenge, one was in my Hogwarts Challenge; the copy / paste I'll put in below is from my Biggest Loser Challenge - which I just re-added, after a 2 yr hiatus, 4 wks ago.)
When I first started trying to lose weight, in late July, of 2021, my general goals were to improve my diet after eating basically 7-eleven food for almost 5 yrs straight (holicrap!). My husband used to own a 7-eleven, we finally off-loaded it in Apr '22. The last 5 yrs were intense - I worked 16 or more hours a day, 6 days a week, ate ALL my meals there, and ate 'write-off' 7-eleven food on my day off :o. Between April and Jun of '21, I quit smoking. AGAIN. I had been 5+ yrs smoke-free, but somewhere during that stupid crazy time at my husband's store, I picked it up again. (2019, maybe?)
So, my first goal was just to IMPROVE that shitshow of a diet (lol). I set am ambitious goal of consuming 3 cups of veggies and 2 cups of food/day. Up from zero and zero (!), b/c I knew that 'fruits and vegetables were good for you'. I didn't like them - but I knew I should eat them. I set out on a program of trying all kinds of ways of cooking veggies, in a quest to find a way of cooking, and a stable of veggies I could tolerate (lol, I was like … REALLY bad on the freggie score!).
After logging my food for a very short time (a few wks?), I realized, I only hit my fiber goals on the days that I hit my 'fruits and vegetable' goals, but sometimes not even then! So, I added 'try for 14g of fiber per 1k of calories consumed' as a nutrition goal. Then I became vaguely aware that my protein intake was super low. Usually in the 10%-14% range, sometimes even lower. Yup, I'm a rice and beans and cereal and breads girl at heart ;-). I bought a bunch of Orgain vegan protein powder, with the goal of learning to make a smoothie (never did), but implemented instead a habit I continue to this day - drinking 'protein tea'. Instead of lightening my morning hot beverage with milk, or oat milk, or light cream, or whatever, I started adding half a serving of protein powder, and a full serving of non-fat dry milk, to my cuppa.
I embarked on a late summer/early fall program of cooking lots and lots of veggies, and stuffing them into morning scrambled eggs. (heh) That, plus a half can of Irish baked beans, and I was hitting my veggie goal by breakfast ! ( I landed on a full tomato, a half a large onion, broiled til charred, added to my eggs, for 2 veg servings (notice - no green), and a half can of Batchelor's Baked Beans for my 3rd veggie serving (well, the UK guidelines said 1 serving of the beans per day could count towards my 5 a day ;-), so I counted it!). I ate this daily for a few months (!), and started using Carb Balance tortillas to hit my fiber goal. These, plus my protein tea, were the backbones of my diet. I would make HUGE batches of broiled tomatoes, broiled onions, and scrambled eggs. I wouldn't even chop up the onions or tomatoes, just slice them in half, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper, and cook them - for a long time. The eggs, I'd make 18-egg or 24-egg batches at a time, then just 'assemble' each morning. Two eggs worth of scrambled eggs, 1 oz of cheese, 1 full tomato, 1/2 an onion, half a can of beans, cook in the mic, & eat.
After just a couple/few mos on this veggie program, in Oct '21, I got a huuugggee steam burn on my fingers, when I was opening the oven to pull out a big batch of broiled veggies. I forget if it was the onions or the tomatoes, it was one of them, tho. That wasn't so bad, nothing that wouldn't heal - except I have super-reactive skin. I'm 'allergic' to getting wounded, and break out in rashes after a cut or scrape, quite often. I'd had a few pretty bad rashes as a kid - over 2 weeks, full body rashes - and 1 in my early 20s. But nothing since then. Well, this time, it got away from me. I had a rash for 7 weeks. Palms of my hands, bottom of my feet. Meds from the doc helped, but only for a short time. (Prednisone, they don't like to use long courses of that.). Anyway, enough of that, the only point was, I lost my veggie intake habit during these 7 weeks.
When I was (finally) better, I put my attention back on trying to lose weight. I took up a daily stepping habit of 10k steps/day in Dec '21 (continued that until early Sep '23!). I continued my focus on fiber and protein, but satisfied the fiber with Carb Balance tortillas, and didn't return to my Freggie focus.
In May '23, after Fitbit had exploded their challenges/community features, I migrated to MFP. And I saw a 'May Green Smoothie" challenge on the Challenges board, took a big sigh, and signed up ;-). That's where I met the lovely and inspiring Mary, aka @SafariGalNYC ! I did 'my best' or what I thought was my best, and tried to add veggies to my diet, somehow/someway. I never did make a smoothie, that whole month (lol).
Drifted away from MFP in Fall '23, after injuring my (2nd) knee on a cobblestone street in Istanbul. Wandered back in the Spring '24, after I'd re-gained the 30 lbs I had lost between Jul '21 and Sep '23. (sigh)
That summer, MFP decided to blow up THEIR communtity features, and ax their Newsfeed. I had re-connected with SG on the Newsfeed. She reached out, and asked about starting up a new Greens challenge. Took me some hemming and hawing, and dragging my feet ;-), but I finally got on board after buying myself a Vitamix, so I could finally (!) make a freaking smoothie 🤣. (I've only made a handful of them so far, since last fall! lol …. I got those batches of juices and smoothies, and used those for a while).
Well, Mary knows how much I fought myself the whole process. And I'm still not doing great if I use her as a measuring stick, but I'm doing SO freaking well if I use my former self as a measuring stick. And well, let me just take this opportunity to thank you once again, Miss Mary. You've been such an inspiration to me, and fantastic influence. I'm sorry I'm not the same for you, but what I can do is I can give you my gratitude! Xx
Okay, that was a book ;-).
WAY too long, didn't read version: I started on this journey simply to 'eat better'. Then I also considered it as part of my weight loss strategy. And THEN, after getting an elevated LDL cholesterol and elevated A1c reading, I also considered it as part of a medical intervention strategy. So, really, my reasons are a mixture of all. But it started out as simply trying to eat better/healthier.
Copy/paste from BLC:
Reflection for Week 4 BINGO board :"
Reflect on your exercise progress - Where can you improve? What are you doing well? Share with your team if you like"I can improve on my consistency with PF workouts and PT exercises. Stretch/Flex, too. I'm doing well with steps, that's pretty much it, tho. My knee(s) keep swelling every time I ramp it up, it's discouraging :-(
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As for all the rest of it. The only thing I'm REALLY doing well is improving my green freggies specifically, freggies overall, nuts, and fermented foods intake. My labs show great improvement after a full 12 mos of effort (from May '24 to May '25 - (normalized LDL, brought total chol down further (it was normal before, but better now), normalized A1c (down from 5.8 to 5.3) ), and my doc is happy (as am I!).
As I told my doc, starting from my first elevated LDL (but not total chol) last May of '24, when I said I'd pay attention to my diet and make improvements, and to hold off on statins, I did well the first 6 mos, losing weight ~12 lbs), and normalizing the LDL (and avoiding statins), from May '24 to Nov '24 checkup & labs. Then in the fall and winter '25, I really gave my focus to freggies, and green freggies in particular, and stopped paying attention to calorie counting. I've made great improvements in the freggie zone, but I gained back about 6 lbs over those 6 mos (between my Nov '24 and May '25 checkups/labs). I told my doctor that it's time that I started trying to marry meeting my freggie goals with staying inside my calorie budget. She smiled and agreed, but said, you should be proud, your labs have told the story of the improved quality of food intake - and said, you know, you CAN be healthier when heavy with good diet than skinny and less-good diet!
I am letting my swelling knees interfere with my exercise progress, tho. My goals for 2025 include adding strength training, and adding flex training, to my routines - consistently. I went from none to some, in both areas, so there's def an improvement ;-), but it's not consistent yet, and I know I can do better.
As for my weight … well, I guess I already hit the high and low notes, on that score ;-).
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A mixture of all the above!
Wow... that's quite a journey and awesome results from adding vegs into meals. Sounds like you are on a good roll except the knees - hope those get better! Strengthening might help. Hope so!
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Hope so, too! Xx
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A mixture of all the above!
Had a thought last night… so thinking a bit out loud here...
Last night we had spaghetti and green beans. I noticed my green beans were more quantity in size than the noodles and I 'felt' 'yum!'
Then surprise, 2nd thought, 'I might not even miss noodles' (generally eat low carb.) I was almost shocked at those 2 thoughts - 'not miss the noodles, do want the veg' ????
Occurs to me the survey is whys and desired goal results - still amazed how much it helps to add freggies.
A great goal
- Wanting to eat freggies
- Wanting to help our health, future self…
- Actually desiring freggies
Occurs to me, those are 'mind shifts' - never guessed it could actually happen - the 'actual desire' - so much easier when we desire freggies!
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WOW that is fantastic, yakky! Quite a transformation, indeed. Looking forward to the day that happens to me ;-). Actually, I shouldn't be that negative, I have undergone quite an attitude adjustment with regard to greens, and like you, I consider that to be a straight up victory :D
Cheers!
~ mk :)
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