Aside: Below you can find the hyperlinks to the books I mention below, by clicking on them it will bring you to the amazon link directly. Happy reading!
Recently, I watched the Netflix documentary “What the Health”. I don’t think I have gone anywhere, including work in which one person hasn’t brought this documentary up. It did spark in me and my significant other a want to return to our vegetarian diet we were on a few years ago. We were inspired to try the plant-based diet not due to being fear struck by the documentary, but because we want to live a healthy lifestyle and were inspired by our role models who are ultra marathoners and athletes that are plant powered and fueled completing human feats in the heat of competition. I will say, please take “What the Health” with a grain of salt, as there are many diets that work for many people. I like to think of a diet as committing to a healthy lifestyle, not just something we go on and off constantly to shed a few pounds here and there.
Maybe 5-6 years ago, I read Finding Ultra by Rich Roll and Eat and Run by Scott Jurek both whom are world wide renown endurance athletes. I had started running in my late 20s and was looking for inspiration to up my mileage to marathon length. I thought, if they can put their bodies through these fantastic journeys of 100+ miles and triathlons, I can finish a marathon. I learned more from these books about a well rounded and balanced life than just about running. These two books brought to my attention the importance of diet. Both athletes are completely plant-based tackling these long distances in less than friendly terrain. I had toyed with the idea of being completely plant-based and I was already a vegetarian that dabbled in some fish and still ate dairy. I am now fully converting to plant-based and these books offer an abundance of reasons to choose a plant-based diet. For more info on the books themselves, refer to the Running page of this blog.
There are many websites and books I use to meal plan. But there are a few that are my go to meals.
Thug Kitchen and Thug Kitchen 101. I have both of these cookbooks, they were recently published in the last couple of years. The meals are delicious, filled with new spins on seemingly boring vegetables, incorporating everything from pan fried and baked dishes . One of the things I like is that the ingredients necessary do not break the bank. Also, I have found that my non-vegan friend also enjoy these dishes as well. The recipes are hilarious to read given the amount of cursing (so don’t let your kids go about reading them without permission), but if you’re not into that, then they truly offer a variety of vegan/vegetarian friendly meals. Featured recipes have asian, latin, and classic American flavors available. Both books contain grocery lists of regular ingredients you will need for a lot of the dishes.
Passionately FIT 