Eating Vegetables an act of will.... and I'm getting tired!

[vareenice]

I have never been a fan of vegetables, so I knew that taking on the Whole 30 was going to be a challenge to a very ingrained mindset. I did a lot of experimenting the first week and found a lot of things that tasted good, but I'm still having to force myself to choose to eat the appropriate amount of veggies. I'm on day 8 now, and the remaining 22 days seem to be stretching out interminably. It takes so much mental effort, and I'm getting tired of thinking about it. Help!

[jhmomi]

Keep trying new veggies -there are probably some that you will discover you really like. I couldn't take it if all I ate were broccoli and green beans and salad all month. This is the perfect time of year to try a new soups and stews and chili. You can get veggies in easy without having a huge portions of spinach on your plate. 1 thing I tried after seeing it in so many Paleo cookbooks is to top veggies with a fried or poached egg. Yum.

Good luck.

[Kirsteen]

All I can really suggest is don't think about 22 days, just take it one day or even one meal at a time. You say you've found some that taste good so that's a bonus. As well as having veggies as a separate side dish, have you tried adding more finely chopped veg to things like chillies, currys, meat sauce etc. It sort of disguises them. Also I find cauliflower 'rice' and zuchinni noodles don't make me feel like I'm eating veg. good luck, you can do it

[Derval]

I put 3 carrots, an onion, a punnet of mushroom and several cloves of garlic in the food processor and blitz this as a base for my meat ragu. I often add throw some bacon in too Fry it all up in ghee before adding your ground beef and continue as usual.

[vareenice]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody!

[jillian]

My boyfriend hates cauliflower - but he loves my cauliflower pureed soup. Saute some onion in lots of good oil or ghee. Once translucent, add homemade or compliant chicken broth. Once boiling, dump in 2 bags of frozen cauliflower and some carrots, too. Add some salt, pepper and maybe some thyme, cook until soft, puree in blender and then for extra fancy soup add some dried dill at the end I love soup - and it doesn't seem the same as eating a side of veggies.

I also love mixing canned tuna or leftover baked salmon with food processed carrots and celery (so it's chopped up pretty finely) and some basic balsamic dressing - so good and fresh tasting.

Basic balsamic:

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (no sulfites added)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 clove of garlic

shake well and let it sit a bit before using - flavors meld better with time.

[1Maryann]

I've just started roasting many vegetables, and the difference in taste is delicious. I did a pound of carrots last night in salt, pepper, and olive oil. I usually find carrots boring, but these were so good I could eat them like candy. I can't wait to try a few others.

[AliceRF]

I also recommend roasting veggies. That's how I'm getting mine in. But I have to admit I have started to slack off, and just eating lettuce and green beans. I don't enjoy cooking so this is my compromise - cook the meat and nuke the veggies (if needs be).

[Fenderbender]

I've been on your typical low fat diets numerous times and could hardly choke down raw or plain steamed vegetables!! But even rutabagas taste great cooked in ghee!!!! I like to use a good portion of my fat intake sautéing my vegetables.... Brussel sprouts with almonds and diced pork belly....

Also don't forget to try a Thai curry. Chicken stock( I usually poach 4-5 chicken breasts at a time and save the liquid) and coconut milk ( green curry is a snap, jalapeño, ginger , lemongrass*** a bit of cilantro works great if you don't want to mess wit the lemon grass*****, food processor and viola.... Store in freezer ). Slice up your favorite meats and a ton of veg add green curry, coconut milk and a bit of stock..... Yummmmmmmm

[CraigS]

Fenderbender do you have a link to the recipe?

[filamentary]

well, i know it won't help you solve your problem, but perhaps it will give you a morale boost to know, you're not alone. we may not be very common, us veggie-non-likers, but you're certainly not the only one. in fact, i don't like nearly as many veggies as you do. i have strong textural aversion to chewing on anything that's a leaf or stalk, not to mention, i taste a strong bitter flavor---with nothing redeeming about the flavor, at ALL---in the stuff most people can use to get a substantial dose of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. i'm not exaggerating even a little bit when i say that potatoes are the ONLY vegetable i can eat without gagging. i can do sweet potatoes if they are thinly sliced and salty, so they taste more like normal potatoes. but i can't stand the flavor or texture of any other root vegetables, and literally gag when i try to move the food from chewed mass to the back of my tongue in preparation for swallowing. so i could eat veggies if they were always prepared by pureeing, like indian food sauces often do with them, but i am unable to cook those foods, and unable to afford to buy them prepared on a regular basis.

i'm not despairing, though, and you shouldn't either. three months into a major change in my diet (cutting out added sugars & breads) and i have improved SO MUCH, i am feeling really fabulous, and so grateful for what gains i've made. and i am not fully versed on the whole30 style of eating, but i'm sure i'm breaking lots of the "rules". my diet is really not very diverse because i'm such a picky eater, but it's still very satisfying. i rely on edamame and black beans for most of my fiber, and very small doses (1 oz/day) of artificially sweetened fiber cereal for some of it, and occasional brown rice. i wouldn't have to eat any of those if i liked veggies, but it's the compromise i can stick to. i eat full-fat cheese, drink 8-12 oz of organic milk a day, cook things in butter. i eat mixed nuts & nut butters (spoonfuls here and there, not spread on anything). get much of my protein from salame, hot dogs, organic tofu, fake crab, shrimp. i'd eat other meats if i had a bigger food budget, but i do what i can. and eat about 3 organic eggs scrambled with yummy spices nearly every day. there are some other foods i mix in there, like chopped red bell peppers, garlic, avocado, cilantro, for making scrambles yummier, when i have them, and other things i didn't mention, but those are the staples. and i still indulge in diet root beer every day. but even if i am unable to make any other changes, at least it's LOADS better than what i did before. i've lost 20 lbs in the last 3 months, and my my blood sugar, cholesterols, and blood pressure were recently measured and they are better than they were when i was in my 20s (i'm 31). they were all totally healthy, and when i asked, how much better should i be aiming for, the answer was, "you're there; just keep doing what you're doing", as best as biometric screening can say anything about health. the only one not there is my BMI, b/c i'm still losing weight (it's not because i'm muscular---in my case the BMI accurately represents an excess of body fat).

but more important to me than any of these biometrics, i had been having pretty severe joint pain. at 31 years old, i think i'm a bit young for arthritis. i was even tested by a UCLA rheumatologist to see if i had any disease that might be causing this, and they didn't find anything, suggesting only i might have bursitis, but without any clue as to why (my mom is 51 and has it, so i thought it was maybe genetically inevitable, though she never had it in her 30s). i should point out that even before my recent changes in diet, my biometrics were never very bad, and i believe i'm overall healthier than my mom (lower stress and i don't chain smoke like she does---that is, i don't smoke at all). i've been chubby, but nothing really stands out about me as being particularly unhealthy. except how i've felt---increasingly worse from mid 20s to 30. and even though i am not the poster child for cleaning up my act, as should be evident by my only somewhat good diet, the difference in how i feel is unbelievable. my mood is better (more energetic/upbeat, no longer constantly lethargically depressed), my joints stopped aching, i don't feel exhausted by simply going for an almost-daily 3.5-mile hill walk (the hill walking started before the diet changes, and it never got easier until my diet changed), i don't feel bloaty all the time, and being frequently gassy has changed to NEVER gassy (YES!), my most recent period was significantly less crampy/bloaty, and i don't feel sleepy during the day (which i had been feeling even though i got 8-9 hrs of sleep every night) or feel groggy and unmotivated about getting out of the bed to start my day. and my anxiety (especially feelings about how productive i'm being with my time) has gotten a lot better, too---and, perhaps as a result, i seem to actually BE more productive with my time.

so, if you're comparing yourself to all these spitting images of health wandering around here on the message boards, thinking you won't get there, and that's reason not to bother, DON'T! i think that if you, like me, read what people write (that one day you'll come around & start liking things you don't like now) with realistic skepticism, i don't think that should be a deal-breaker. i really do hope you like the foods you don't now, just like i have this faint hope that somehow i will one of these days. but even if that doesn't happen, you can still make SO many improvements that sticking to whatever the best version of eating you can manage is, is worth it!!!

sorry this got so incredibly wordy!