Hey everyone! I am having such a hard time getting vegetables in!!! I was eating a lot of broccoli and brussels sprouts, but now I almost gag at the thought of eating them! I have been eating a lot of salad just to get my vegetables in, and sometimes I don't get them at ALL! Like today for example, here it is 4:30 and I have not had any vegetables! I can tell that I haven't getting as much fiber as my digestive system has been weird for the past couple weeks. My COD took my beloved carrots away due to the sugar in them. I don't have the budget (or taste) for asparagus or artichokes, and most of the time, I buy frozen...

Any suggestions (or recipes) on what I can do to get my 4 veggies in each day? Anything is appreciated!

Today I had homemade chicken salad. It was really easy. I actually made it at work. I opened a can of chicken, put in 1T of light mayo, chopped up my grapes & celery. Stir all together and baboom...Protein, Fat, Vegetable & Fruit. Some people but onions in it too. That would make 2 Vegetables. I also love to eat celery & PB. The COD told me to just increase my vegs at supper to like 1 cup of Green Beans with my chicken breast and that would be 2 vegetable servings.

Hope that helps!

I started out eating a bunch of cucumbers. I really got burnt out on them though and feel the same way now that you do about broccoli and brussel sprouts. But, they are good on salad. I also used a condiment with those and poured a tablespoon of vinegar over them. That may be an Arkansas thing, but it's pretty good.

Oh, and where are you in Virginia? My husband went to Liberty.

I'm about 3 hours south of Lynchburg! I thought about going to Liberty but I got home sick while I was away at a friends house...So I could imagine how homesick I would have been 3 hours away! lol

I actually live about 2 hours from all the Northeast Tennessee girls!

I thought of something else....Do you like cucumbers & tomatoes? I take a serving of each, cucumbers, tomatoes & onions and then I mix with fat free italian dressing or if I need a fat than I'll use lite Italian dressing. It is great, and I have 3 vegetables!!!

I am also very budget conscious...I only buy the produce on sale so my vegetables change from week to week as does my fruit!

Krista - I put green peppers in with that mixture and instead of italian dressing I use LF cottage cheese. Boy is it yummy. And you get your protein and veges in.

Kimberly,
my standbys are red pepper (which is also suppresses appetite apparently) and sauted mushrooms. I love to saute mushrooms in pam or olive oil and put it on top of my lettuce. I also have been using cucumbers a lot and also tomatos. I used to hate tomatos but have been getting used to them. I also enjoy steemed string/green beans with onion.

Kim--4 is nothing, I've been on 6 veggies since May, since week 2 of stabilization I actually felt like a for the most of May and June.

I do the peppers almost daily. One pepper sliced is usually about 2 cups, so that's 2 veggies right there. I do one sliced almost daily at lunch, the crunch is almost like eating chips. I can also pop grape tomatoes without a problem, 1/2 cup is one veggie. How I actually came to that was by pureeing them down until I got the 1/4 cup, it was 1/2 a cup that gave me that measurement. Favorite Counselor cracked up laughing and called me obsessive. As for mushrooms, I can eat a jar or a can in one sitting without a problem--that's a veggie right there. And I do the Cucumber with vinegar and the morton's lite all the time. It's the perfect substitute for Salt and Vinegar potato chips.

Also, one of my favorite dinners actually gets in 4 veggies. Sautee up 2 cups of uncooked frozen veggies with a protein's worth of ground turkey, chicken, beans, or beef. Then top it off with 1/2 cup of diced or pureed tomatos, it's a plan friendly sloppy-joe that can sneak in a days worht of veggies.

Kimberly

i bought a package of stir fry veggies in Trader Joes. It has bok choy, sugar snap peas, onions and I eat it raw tossed with some spray asian salad dressing (the kind you pump spray that has 5 sprays for 5 calories (I think). It is yummy with cut up grilled anything. I have used it with chicken, shrimp, beef leftover from a steak I cooked the night before (warmed a little). I can easily eat a cup raw of that stuff and sometimes I cut up tomatoes, or red peppers and mushrooms and add it in.

What about spinach? That is easy to add to scrambled eggs and really stretches the eggs. If you saute a little in a pan with pam and add a little onions and seasoning of your choice you can pour it over grilled chicken and make a 'sort of' florentine sauce. When I do this, I use frozen chopped spinach, thaw it and squeeze all the liquid out of it so it doesn't get soupy.

Hope this helps.
Roberta

I have the same problem....salads seem to be my main staple. Other ideas:
Lo-sodium V8;
I drizzle a little lo-fat blue cheese dressing on my broccoli - totally changes the taste;
I, too, do the cucumber/tomatoe/red onion in FF dressing;
Celery and Better N Butter (like peanut butter)
Super Walmart sells their own brand of frozen whole asparagus spears. It's a little pricey, but you can take out like 3 or 4 spears at a time and get several servings out of one box...yummy treat.
Fresh green beans - I like to have these cleaned and cut up and I eat them raw with a little lite ranch dressing

There's probably a LAWL recipe, but here's the WW veggie soup recipe. Use low sodium broth...

Weight Watchers Garden Vegetable Soup
Ingredients:
2/3 cup sliced carrots
½ cup diced onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups broth (beef, chicken, or vegetable)
1 ½ cup diced green cabbage
½ cup green beans
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
½ tsp. dried basil
¼ tsp. dried oregano
¼ tsp. salt
½ cup diced zucchini

Directions:
In a large saucepan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, saute carrots, onions and garlic over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add broth, cabbage, beans, tomato paste, basil, oregano and salt, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for around 15 minutes, or until beans are tender. Lastly, stir in the zucchini and heat for 3-4 minutes. Enjoy!!

One easy one that I do that takes up 2 veggies is slice up summer squash and zuchini and saute with Pam and then sprinkle some Mrs. Dash on it (b/c Mrs. Dash is salt free)

I also do a shrimp stirfry with Pam, shrimp, brown rice, red peppers, mushrooms and green onions & low sodium soy sauce - then at the end I add cayenne and ground ginger to taste (I do the rice, shrimp and soy sauce together in one pan and the veggies together with the spices in another pan so I can measure the 3 veggies easily

Another dinner idea that includes lots of veggies is a gyro:
1/2 whole wheat pita filled with grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, fresh parsley, black olives (for the fat) and then make the tzatziki sauce for your dairy - from the LAWL cookbook (plain yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, fresh mint, fresh ground pepper) This is really yummy!

I hope this helps. I will try to think of more recipes. T