The Importance of Snacks AND What's for Dinner

I am mostly surviving on fruits, veggies, and whole grains now, and am ecstastic about it. However, this means my metabolism has already started doing it's job better, esp. since I've been having a lot of citrus. This is wonderful, and I already have more energy than before. So why the however? It means I am hungry more frequently. A fact that I was unaware of on only day 2 of my journey, and when I had a late lunch, thought I was fine to attend a three hour rehearsal. Nope. Actually, only thirty minutes in to my evening rehearsal I suddenly felt really shaky and hungry. Luckily my business partner was there, and our rehearsal space is above a grocery store, so I had a Luna bar and a trial size Larabar and felt totally fine. If you have never had either, then you definitely should. Luna bars are specially fortified with vitamins and minerals most helpful for menstruating women (bonus feel-good for people with PCOS) but they are delicious for anyone all the time. They taste like cookies, look like granola bars. They are a little more sugary than what I should be eating, but in moderation or if you are actually menstruating I highly recommend them. Larabars are just bars made with reconstituted fruit and with nuts. They are bars, but still a really pure form of food; each bar has 8 ingredients or less, and every ingredient is an actual food and not corn syrup or anything like that. For example, the only ingredients in the peanut butter cookie ones are peanuts, dates, and I think apples but I could be wrong on that last one. I know it's only three. In addition to introducing these two wonderful snacks to you, the main point of this post is to remind anyone who has recently gone on any healthy diet plan or changed their lifestyle that snacks are of the utmost importance. If your meals are not ladled with fat, too much sugar, heavy stuff, your body will react accordingly. It will be hungry more often, but the good news is that it will take a lot less food to fill you up each time! I was totally fine after what amounted to a granola bar and a half.

After rehearsal and the drive home, I was hungry again, so the roommate and I decided he would make peanut rice and vegetables for dinner. It should be noted that he is not on this exact journey with me, but has realized he feels better the better he eats, so we still agree on a lot of meals. He sauteed up some chicken for his, and for both of ours sauteed snap peas, onions, and mushrooms in the same peanut sauce with some extra spices. I am not kidding you when I tell you that vegan or not, it is one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. We intended to have wine with dinner but we broke our corkscrew, so I had the Goji Berry flavor of Urban Detox (I love how clean they make me feel, but because of price it's definitely a splurge item) to drink.

I think the most pleasantly surprising thing so far has been how supportive people have been. My friends tease me just for being a vegetarian, so I really thought I'd come across some resistance now. I think everybody gets that this is really important to me for health reasons as well as other reasons, and are reacting accordingly. It means a lot, so if they are reading...thanks!