I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I love vegetables.

I like them, but I will be forever traumatized by the canned gray peas that I eventually smeared with mustard so I could be excused from the dinner table. 

Don't judge. You do what you gotta do to go back outside and play more baseball.

Anyone else have these growing up? Somewhere I've still got the peach. 

I like vegetables just fine. I eat broccoli, spinach, green beans, peas and other veggies on a daily basis, but I still don't get enough. Especially on days when I practice intermittent fasting it can be difficult to get enough veggies. 

According to the USDA though, I need to try harder. Really, that’s exactly what they told me.

Dear Kim Lloyd,

Try harder.

Sincerely, the USDA. 

Recommendations vary based on your age, gender, and level of physical activity, but for me, and most of the other people on the planet, we should be consuming at least two and a half cups of veggies every day.

According to www.choosemyplate.gov, a serving of is one cup of raw or cooked vegetables. 

Consuming fruits and vegetables can help reduce, among other things, cardiovascular disease, various cancers and obesity. 

So if you’re coming up short on the veggie train on a regular basis, what can you do to help ensure that you are coming closer to your totals?

1. Sign up for your local farm share

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a great way to get more vegetables and support a local farm in your area. Every year, we split a share with a friend and each week we get a hefty supply of whatever vegetables and fruits are in season.  

A share always includes a plethora of fresh greens, including kale, spinach, and swiss chard, and then a few servings of whatever is in season. 

It was through a CSA that I discovered kahlrabi for the first time. (Pronounced cool robbie. I mean it wins on name alone).  

Because we've already paid for the vegetables and need to use them before they go to waste, we come a lot closer to meeting our daily veggie goals in the summer. 

2. Add them to a smoothie

A lot of our summer CSA greens end up in my smoothies, and I don't even taste them. 

Sure it makes the whole thing turn green and sometimes I end up with spinach in my teeth, but at least I know I’m getting the nutrients.

A sample recipe might be:

2 c. unsweetened almond milk
1 scoop low carb protein powder
2 tbsp. chia seeds
1 tbsp. peanut butter
1 banana
1 c. of spinach 

Sometimes I throw a serving of PB Fit in place of the peanut butter to reduce the calorie and fat content, but either way, I never really taste the spinach. 

3. Make crunchy chips out of leafy things

When I eat Kale, I don’t eat it raw and I don’t really like it sautéed either. Sure collared greens are good for you, but the end result is akin to the seaweed you pulled out from between your toes at the beach last summer. 

So slimy. Just, so, so, slimy.

Instead, I prefer to bake my greens. And by that I mean Sheila bakes them. 

With kale, I like to:

Take a bunch of kale, drizzle it in olive oil, and feed it to the dog. 

Kidding. 

Kind of.

Seriously though, cut the stems out of the kale or swiss chard, and tear into bite size pieces. Wash and dry the kale in a salad spinner, drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil*, sprinkle on some salt and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees until the edges are brown or the smoke alarm goes off. 

Approximately 10-15 minutes for the first, and probably an hour for the second. 

Somewhere in those instructions I ask Sheila how to preheat the oven. 

* Don't overdo it on the olive oil. This is one of the more common ways to get more calories and fat than you intend. Measure out one tablespoon and stick with that. 

4. Use a lettuce wrap in place of tortillas or sandwich wraps. 

Sure it’s messy as a two-year-old eating spaghetti with no fork, but you’re saving yourself on some calories and adding a little nutritional value as well. The tortilla is really just a vehicle to get burrito filler in my face anyway. 

Boom. 

Plus it's crunchy. 

5. Add a raw green supplement

First and foremost a supplement is just that; something to supplement your diet. Whole foods are always your best option, but I know very few people who won't benefit from the addition of a green supplement. I'm currently using Greens Plus Superfood Raw which doesn't taste as bad as it looks. And by the way, if you're looking for a taste test, the folks at Precision Nutrition have done just that for you right here.

Greens supplements can help boost your energy and immunity and I notice a big difference in digestion when I use my greens. If you're hitting 10 servings of fruits and veggies a day, you probably don't need a supplement, but for anything less than that, adding some raw greens powder is a great way to meet those needs. 

If you want to read a little more on the benefits of using a greens supplement, check out this post, again from the folks at Precision Nutrition. 

Happy Saturday!

My first full week of being 40 has been filled with the norovirus. I'll wait while you google that if you're unfamiliar.

You're welcome. Hopefully I only share that special kind of hell verbally and not physically.

Also, when I renewed my driver's license, I was informed that I had to take an eye exam because I'm "over 40."

This isn't on the list, but smoothies are a great way to get some quality nutrition. In the picture above, I've got almond milk, a scoop of vanilla protein powder, greek yogurt, berries, and a greens supplement. 

Let the games begin.

I joke, but a friend put it best the other day: enjoy the privilege of aging. 

Anyway, a full four days of ginger ale has me thinking full steam about nutrition and the kinds of food I plan to eat when I starting putting solid food back in my system. So with that in mind, here are five random thoughts on nutrition:

1. Track your food for a week

It sounds so basic, but the best way to figure out how to make changes to your diet is to spend some time tracking everything you eat.

And I mean everything.

Apps like MyFitnessPal have made this process much easier, as you can scan a barcode, type in the serving amount, and voila! You have your total calorie amount.

The catch is to track everything and to be totally honest for one week. This includes salad dressings, drinks, snacks, apples, chocolate chips, supplements; track it all.

2. Measure your food

This goes along with the first thought, but measuring your food for a few days can be very helpful. Let me tell you how I felt when I measured out an actual serving of Trader Joe's Trail Mix versus what I felt was a serving.

Very. Sad. In. My. Heart.

Measuring is especially important with any oils or dressings your using. I've seen folks who practice clean eating and don't  see the results they expect. Often it comes down to something as simple as recognizing you were using three tablespoons of olive oil on your salad instead of one tablespoon.

Three tablespoons equate to 360 calories and 42 grams of fat. 

But it's easy to over-use if you don't measure. 

3. Find like-minded people who support your nutrition changes  

When you begin to turn down the sweets around the office or french fries when out with friends, others often react to what your personal changes mean about them. If you're cutting down on carbs and I'm not, I might suddenly feel guilty that I'm not joining you. So my reaction, sometimes without even thinking about it, is to pressure you. 

"It's just one night."

"You're going to the gym every day."

"It's just dessert." 

The bottom line is finding a supportive group of people who respect your wishes. Sure it's ok to indulge now and then when you're making these changes. But if you're constantly swimming upstream because no one around is supporting your decisions, it will be a lot harder to stay the course.  

4. Make small changes 

Overhauling your entire nutrition plan is a lot to ask. And yet almost all of us do it, and many of us are caught in a cycle of doing it over and over again. First of all, we're overwhelmed with the amount of options out there, and it's hard to decide which one is right. 

Whichever route you decide to take, practice changing one habit per week. (Tracking your food intake can help you make these decisions). 

Start with the empty calories in drinks. Sodas, iced teas, even some types of flavored waters can have 45-90 calories. 

Are you eating two breakfasts? Do you eat when you get up and then eat again a few hours later? Try eliminating one of those meals and see how you feel. Sometimes we eat out of habit, and not out of hunger. 

5.Practice the 80/20 rule.

Some of the simplest nutritional advice I've ever seen is from Tony Gentilcore. "Don't eat like an a**hole." It's concrete, to the point advice, that might lack some details but sums up the basic idea behind clean eating.

Most of us know what we need to do, it's just a question of doing it. Eating clean is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

It's also nearly impossible to eat perfectly all of the time. Thanksgiving is next week; there will be pie, and turkey and gravy and pie. The 80/20 rule means that you're eating clean at least 80% of the time, and understanding that 20% of the time you're going to be at family gatherings or on vacations where you can't stick to all of the same habits. Allow for those times. 

And enjoy your Saturday.