Transitioning to a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet – Week 2 (Breakfast & Snacks)
This week you are going to:
- Implement your weekly plan for meal planning and shopping (this week you’re shopping for whole food plant-based [WFPB] breakfasts and snacks).
- Start eating a WFPB breakfast every day.
- Start eating only healhty snacks.
- Keep track of your progress using this daily survey.
- Throw out or give away all of your unhealthy breakfast foods if you haven’t already done so.
- Start thinking about some WFPB lunch options for next week.
- Start stocking your pantry with healthy staples (oats, nuts, beans, grains like bulgur, brown rice and quinoa etc).
Breakfast
Skipping breakfast denies your body the nutrients it needs to get moving and sets you up for food cravings later in the day. SO DON’T SKIP BREAKFAST !
For most people breakfast is what is called a routine meal, meaning that they tend to eat almost the same thing every day.
It’s essential that all routine meals are WFPB. You have almost NO chance of eating a WFPB diet overall if a meal that you eat almost every day is not WFPB.
You will need to find a WFPB breakfast that you like AND that will deliver enough calories so that you can make it to lunch without getting hungry. Alternatively, you can plan a mid-morning healthy snack.
Here is what I have for breakfast. If you don’t like oats, try the steel cut ones (since the main problem that people have with oats is often the consistency and steel cut oats have a firmer consistency). If you still don’t like them, you can just use chia, but realize that oats are a real cholesterol ‘sponge’.
What about juice for breakfast ? Fruit and/or vegetable juice (whether packaged or fresh) is not a whole plant food and it does not count as a serving of fruit or vegetables. It is missing the all-important fiber that makes your body run so efficiently and it also contains a concentrated load of sugar. For these reasons, many experts don’t advise making fruit or vegetable juice a part of your daily routine.
