How Many Cups of Veggies a Day?

I tend to be a meat-based, by meat-based I mean totally a carnivore.  So, when I read Terry Wahls book "The Wahls Protocol" I knew I needed to change things up to fight the inflammation and aging that was creeping in on my body.

If you haven't read that book it is well worth the read, the gist of the book is that paleo is the way to go, but you have to add in a ton of veggies especially if you have inflammation.   Her goal is to get you up to 6-9 cups of vegetables a day.  

While that sounds like a lot all you have to do is make an effort to have some veggies with every meal!  Something like 2 cups with breakfast, 3 cups with lunch then 4 with dinner and you're good!  That being said I understand life is crazy and sometimes we need convenience, and for me, I needed to be on even the high end of this scale when I am recovering from workouts.  To make sure I got there I started adding in Green Vegetable based smoothies!

Many of you have heard me rail over the years to not drink your meals you end up being gluttonous and I still hold that as mostly true.  I have slightly backed off the anti smoothie dogma, but I still follow a few strict guidelines for my smoothies.

Rule #1:  Never blend and drink more than you would eat on your plate!
This is gluttony and will overload your digestive system.  To make sure I stick to this I never use the big blender, which means I use the nutri/magic bullet to make personal sized smoothies.

Rule #2: More veggies than fruit!
I normally go 3:1 vegetable to fruit in my smoothies if you can get organic and frozen without added sugar fruit and best would be to freeze your own fruit.  

Rule #3: Make it a mini meal!
To do that balance it out with Protein and fat.  A high-quality protein source NOT Whey or other mass produced crap.  But rather collagen or other beef type based protein.  For a fat use avocado or MCT oil to help make it a complete meal.

Rule #4: Finish it quickly-ish.
Just because you are eating vegetables doesn't make you a cow so don't graze all day on the smoothie! First off its a little gross as it warms up and defeats the purpose of a mini meal as the smoothie.

That simple see the video above for a quick tutorial on what I do.

So my challenge to you is to increase your veggies daily to at least 6 cups a day! 

Good luck and let me know how you do!

Until Next time Make Health Easy!