{Menu Monday} Vegan/Vegetarian Recipes!

Well, hi there.  Appears my blogging has slowed down a bit, huh?  I have diagnosed myself with “quick onset summer syndrome.”   Shortly after my husband graduated, we started our summer with a 3 week vacation which included a trip to New York City, a trip to St. Louis and finally, a trip to the beach.  And as soon as we got back home, it was Vacation Bible School time.  Summer hit, and we took off!  My summer blogging, now that I am home, will look more like 3 posts a week or so.  Even though I am so not a fan of hot weather, summer means fun and now that I am a mother of a toddler, its way fun!

Since I am trying to get back into somewhat of a routine, I have been working hard on our menu plan this weekend.  This menu plan will look different than my past ones though.

That’s because I am in the middle of reading VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good.  While visiting STL and going on 20 mile bike rides, my uncle told me about this book/style of eating.

Let me introduce you to my UT, aka Uncle Tim.  2 1/2 years ago, UT was at 267 lbs and on diabetic meds.  This photo was taken just a few weeks before he had to have a heart cath.

 Around that time, UT decided it was time to make some diet changes.  He started working out but still ate whatever he wanted and he lost about 20 lbs.  Last December, he decided to give his diet a makeover with Vegan Before Six and fill his body with whole foods, the good kind of calories and sugars.  In the past 6 months, he has lost an additional 45 lbs, weighing in today at 202 lbs (UPDATE- I was about to hit publish and UT texted me that today he reached a major goal- 199.5 lbs!!! YA!!!!!! Make that 47.5 lbs lost since December!).  Obviously he is feeling awesome!  So awesome in fact that he is biking 130 miles a week and running about 20 miles a week.  And he just signed up for his hometown’s mini triathalon!  On top of that, he has been able to go off his diabetic meds!!!  Complete proof that eating healthier and getting rid of processed foods can fuel your body to go longer and stronger in your workouts AND that the food we put in our bodies is the real medicine that we need to stay healthy!

Vegan Before Six is just what it says it is.  You eat vegan (no meats and no animal products) before dinner time.  Meats are not bad, but they can be in excess amounts.  This cleaner way of eating also keeps you away from eating all the processed foods.  Our bodies were designed to digest whole foods.  It wasn’t designed to digest overly processed, full of mystery named ingredients crap! It all comes down to how our bodies digest, convert, and metabolize these foods.

This book is awesome because it goes into the actual science of food, science of eating, the role of hormones, digesting and gives you specific comparisons of nutritional info of a more whole food option vs a similar processed food.

There are 6 rules to developing this eating style:

1.  Eat fruits and vegetables in abundance.

2.  Eat fewer animal products.

3.  Eat (almost) no junk food.

4.  Cook at home as much as possible.

5.  Consider quality over quantity.

6.  See your weight as just one component of good health.

The idea behind Vegan Before Six is that you eat healthy during the day eating mainly fruits and vegetables, and at night, you can include meats in your dinner.   And because you are filling your body with healthy foods, it will start to crave healthy foods and thus, you will start to cook healthier dinners.  Because I know us, we have to do babysteps to stick with it (although I would say that going from a mainly meat eating family to vegetarian is less babystep-ish lol).  So rather than doing strictly vegan, we are doing a combination of vegan/vegetarian, simply because we don’t want to completely give up eggs and milk.  We know ourselves and these small modifications will help us be able to stick with the plan.  And as for the flours, we are using spelt flour, garbonzo bean flour, whole wheat pastry flour etc; flours that are mainly used in vegan recipes.  Snacks will be fruit and veggies !  And as usual, Dr. Smartypants is the weekend meal planner! 🙂

So without further ado, I give you our rather detailed meal plan!

Monday

Breakfast-Vegan Spiced Apple Cake (yes! Cake for breakfast!)

Lunch- Vegan Black Bean Soup

Dinner- Chicken Ranch Burgers and homemade french fries

Tuesday

B- Leftover Vegan Spiced Apple Cake

Lunch- Leftover Vegan Black Bean Soup

Dinner- Spinach, Ricotta and Pesto Lasagna

Wednesday

Breakfast- Skinny Mini Banana Pancakes

Lunch- Skinny Mac & Cheese

Dinner- Basil Cauliflower Pizza

Thursday

Breakfast- Skinny Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Lunch- Leftover Skinny Mac & Cheese

Dinner- Crockpot Enchiladas

Friday

Breakfast- Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Lunch- Skinny Veggie Spaghetti

Dinner- Leftovers

What’s on your menu?  Got some tasty vegan or vegetarian meals you can share with us?  Share in the comments!

 *This post contains affiliate links.  This helps me keep my blog up and running! 🙂