Let Me Brainwash You

I met a nice woman on my walking trail early this morning who actually looked up and smiled when our paths crossed.  “I’ve lost 12 pounds lately”, she said, so I gave her a deserving high five.  Apparently her motivation to start walking regularly came from a diagnosis of hypertension, and exercise became an important part of her “medicine” rather than the pills her doctor wanted to prescribe.

According to the American Diabetes Association, having hypertension, or high blood pressure, is something to be concerned about because it raises your risk for heart attack, the number one killer in the United States.  Two of their recommendations for avoiding and healing this malady are more rigorous exercise,  and increasing your produce consumption by always eating fruit with breakfast and 1-2 vegetables with both lunch and dinner.(1)

Oprah Winfrey’s dietician agrees, “Eating more fruits and vegetables is one of the most important dietary habits you can adopt to prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension and to manage your weight. Vegetables in particular will cost you little in the way of calories while offering huge health benefits.”  (2)

So why is it so hard to get those vegetables in?  Fruit at breakfast isn’t too difficult because it is sweet and doesn’t need to be cooked.  But vegetables…ugh!  At least I use to feel that way; that is until I bought a beautiful cutting board and decided that I would make using it a regular part of my life.  After making that commitment and keeping it for awhile I discovered that what used to seem like such a big deal, getting the cutting board out, lost some of it’s annoyance.

I propose that you adopt my new held conviction…if I don’t get the cutting board out to cut something,  then I automatically fell short of making a really great meal. 

-When scrambling eggs I get out my littlest board and chop up something fresh to put in…spinach, onion, bell pepper, or all of them. 
- Every sandwich or burrito that leaves the house in a lunch bag is stuffed with spinach or romaine and accompanied by fresh cold cuts like carrots, red bell pepper or English cucumber in addition to a piece of fruit. 
-Dinner is the time for vegetables to shine because I will spend more time on it and it usually gets cooked.  I choose and pass on to you entrees which are usually 50% or more vegetables, or include a way to add vegetables on as appetizers or a side dish to increase our intake.
- Learn to snack on vegetables when you just feel like chewing. Yesterday I cut an English cucumber, the kind with the edible rind, into disks and covered them with oil and vinegar. I topped that with diced olive and Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Feta would have been better, but it was good enough anyhow to eat in one sitting. Yum!

Like the lady I met walking this morning, change of any kind takes commitment and perseverance, but life is built on a framework of cause and effect.  In this case, eating more fresh produce throughout the day will have very positive effects on our health both now and later.  If you struggle in this area, check in every week so that I can keep brainwashing you slowly into thinking as I do.  If you do this, I will give you a high five too!

Molly

(1)  http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/high-blood-pressure-hypertension.html

(2)  http://www.oprah.com/health/Four-Weeks-to-Healthy-Eating
  http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/?page_id=10431

(Photo is Thai Chicken Salad on this week’s menu.)

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