What I Ate Wednesday #42 – The Vegetarian Edition
Happy Wednesday! I hope you are all having a great week! We have rolled around to another WIAW! I am really excited because the last two Wednesday we have been celebrating the anniversary of this site, so I haven’t been able to share many of my meals with you! But fear not…..I am back! 
This week’s edition is slightly different! I haven’t mentioned it on here, but the last 8 days I spent eating a vegetarian diet. A few weeks ago, my school lecture was about vegetarianism and veganism. As part of the assignments, we were asked to experiment with some vegetarian/vegan meals or even try it for a day. Well, I decided I wanted to try it for a week! I already eat vegetarian in many of my meals throughout the week, so I felt that doing it for a full week (maybe 2) would give me a better idea. So, that’s exactly what I did! Today I am sharing with you some of the meals I ate over the last week…….this is not a single day’s worth of food, but just a bunch of meals over the week. I tried to stay away from protein powders (except for in my nightly casein, which I am still eating) and use only whole foods……except for those darn Quest bars that I am addicted too! 
I DID notice some changes in how I felt, etc……but I am going to make you scroll through all the yummy eats to read all about it! See you at the bottom
For breakfast I was eating a lot of pancakes (which I was totally craving!!) topped with almond butter (higher in protein) and cottage cheese on the side. Don’t forget the egg whites used to make the pancakes. Or I was eating an omelet, hard boiled eggs, or oats, fruit and yogurt parfait!
Lunch was always a toss up! The weather has been warmer so I have been craving salads and grilled foods! The first one was lettuce, beans, hummus, avocado, sliced tomato and veggie pepper seasoning. The second I was craving tuna, so I had tuna and hummus nori wraps and a huge salad. Third was probably my favorite!! I was dying for a burger, so I made a veggies burger on 2 portobella mushrooms with tons of mashed avocado, sweet potato chips and of course, my brussels! I also made cod fish tacos one day and this recent recipe!
Snacks were next! For some reason rice cakes topped with avocado or almond butter were my biggest craving! So either of those happened almost every afternoon.
Other snacks were posted on Instagram…..but included almond butter, ricotta and banana sandwiches, fruit and yogurt bowls with nut butter, peanutty fig oats, etc! Of course we can’t forget my Quest bars too, which pack a huge protein punch at 21g!!
Dinner was always a tough one because I am just drawn towards meat at night! One night was a spaghetti squash and veggie bake with cottage cheese mixed in and topped with shredded cheese, another night I made fava bean and goat cheese meatballs (weird, right? but sooooo good!) I need to get more fava beans to remake and share with you! And another night I made some seared ahi tuna and veggies!
Dessert was always the same….my casein ice cream! Still topped with almond butter of course!!
I continues to drink LOTS of water as normal, etc. All else, workouts, work, etc remained the same!
Overall, I actually loved my meals! It definitely made me get much more creative in the kitchen and start eating some things that I hadn’t eaten in awhile, like beans, hummus and oats. My biggest concern was taking in enough protein, which I feel I did an excellent job at getting in! I managed to get in anywhere from 145-160g per day without using a whole bunch of powders.
On the downside, I noticed that my meals didn’t hold me over as long as my non vegetarian meals did, so I was eating more often. I also felt much more puffy, bloated and low on energy, which was probably attributed to the amount of dairy I was eating. I would wake up full of life in the morning, but was exhausted by late afternoon and asleep about an hour earlier than normal. I was also having the most intense cravings for sweets/chocolate (which never happens) and yogurt! I couldn’t get enough yogurt! I think this was my body telling me it needed more protein. But you know the funny thing about this? Yesterday morning I was listening to my new lecture and the speaker was talking about the balance of macro nutrients and how if one if out of alignment you will crave sweets. She specifically stated that this happens in vegetarian and vegan diets! I almost fell off the elliptical when I heard that! I actually replayed it to make sure I was hearing her right! Well, my mystery was officially solved!
Now, this is what my own personal experience was like. This was a great experiment for me and I learned a lot in the short time about my body and it’s likes/dislikes. I am not against a vegetarian/vegan diet by any means! My cousin, whom I love dearly, is a vegan! We are always talking about ways for her to get her protein in, new recipes to keep things creative, etc! But for those of you who believe that you can’t get enough protein on a vegetarian diet without all sorts of powders…..it’s just not the case! It is definitely possible! I will continue to have about 25% of my weekly meals vegetarian like I was doing prior to this. But I will also be adding meat proteins back into my diet…….I don’t think I have ever craved a piece of chicken or a burger more than I did yesterday!
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*Have you experimented with any type of eating plan?
*Are you a vegetarian/vegan?
*Do you know a vegetarian/vegan?
Most importantly, have you joined our WIAW party? If not, click below for all the details!!
As always, a BIG THANK YOU to Jenn from Peas and Crayons for hosting this weekly food fest!
