Just add plants: how to make your naughty nosh nice

December 18, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

So you made your fatty, Papa John’s bed… and now you have to sleep in it.

And, a week later after fast food relapse, you’re wondering why you’re still off the weight loss wagon. How’d this downward snack spiral transpire? Not only have you blown your diet, but you’re too tired all the time to work out. Even if you could out-train a bad diet, you don’t even have the gas to go out and try. But, what can you do? These cravings won’t go away. You love your pizzas and your after dinner this ‘n thats. Is there any possible way to mitigate giving in next time?

Actually, yeah, there is.

(“Sure…”)

No, hear me out. ’cause your “bad food” bender doesn’t need to keep you from being slender. Not necessarily. See, weight loss and nummy nosh aren’t mutually exclusive things. And the reason’s the same as why I employ those quotations around “bad food”. Because, with a few tweaks, your weakness can actually transform into something friendly for your form in the long run. How’s that, you ask? By simply adding health to non-health. Specifically, vegetables. Whatever it is you’re taste buds lust after – pasta, pizza, even desserts – there’s a delectable, vegetable (or other plant based) workaround.

Now, granted, this won’t work on your typical, delivery style, grease drenched triangles. You do hafta start from scratch. (You may be able to have your cake and eat it – but ya still have to make the cake ‘fore you can have it.) That said, your DIY veggie infused concoctions can both quench your latest craving, and keep you from doing what most bad foods do – nibbling on supplemental snacks thereafter.

Example?

Well, with pizza, you can add on a bunch of arugula, green peppers, and mushrooms.

(Are we sure this’s healthy? It looks more like a splurge than a sacrifice…)

Indeed, when you do this in lieu of the usual meat frisbees you’d see glistening and curled into tiny heart attack goblets, planted in a sea of cheese, some wonderful things stand to happen. First, obviously, you’re subbing in lovely, diet friendly foods for the cruddy ones. And that means you’re no longer getting all the greasy, fatty, calorie infused food accessories that make your fave meal so bad in the first place. And, secondly, you’re also filling up faster. The fibery, filling, high water content veggies both fill you up now (so you don’t eat so much of your majestic gourmet creation you’ll get to enjoy tomorrow night anew) and help regulate any additional hankerings from coming ’round later. You know – that time of night when the desserts lurking in the kitchen initiate their temptress serenade.

And, speaking of desserts, you sweet-toothers can even plant-ify your fave confections, as well.

Sound gross? Well, maybe it’d help if I told you that we’re not talking about cauliflower cookies. Rather, I mean bean based sweets. As one delicious example, I recently encountered this uh-mazing site that harbors heaps of recipes for things like brownies, chocolate mousse, fudge, and – get this – even “ice cream” sammiches. By utilizing plants instead’ve starchy, simple carby, sugary crap that either has you pack in the fat (and leaves you lethargic and starving again in a few hours), these badboys pack in palatable nutrition you don’t have to feel guilty about.

(Cookie dough dip? Sans the salmonella? Count me in – and the calories as being 30 to 50 less than the real deal.)

And, there you have it. Just add plants to healthify your hell-sent cravings.

No more making unhealthy beds you hafta sleep in later (thanks to torpor from blood sugar murderers.)

Make, instead, a bed of equivalent energetic deliciousness that you can bounce on like a kid in a hotel.