Do you ever feel like after a vacation or a particularly-indulgent weekend, your body is just begging for some vitamins and minerals?! Even though the past week and a half wasn’t necessarily a “vacation” for my mom and I, we definitely compromised our daily healthy eating habits while in New York and while I recovered from surgery. After over 12 hours of traveling yesterday, my mom and I are home for the holidays. Felt so good to reunite with my dad and polar-bear-puppy-dog Missy last night! But it also felt good to be able to start eating regular foods again, and we wanted to add all the usual veggies back into our diet ASAP!

*I can resume my regular blogging schedule again now that the major hurdles of surgery and travel are over. Yay!

After surgery, I was on a soft-foods diet for ten days. I cheated a little bit with some chicken and carrots, but primarily ate lots of oatmeal, sweet potatoes, rice, applesauce, ice cream (shame shame, I know). Meals lacked nutritional balance and included lots of extra carbs over the last week; so today we stocked up on MEGA VEGETABLES! Our Sprout’s grocery cart was overloaded with peppers and greens and broccoli and brussel sprouts. Plus cucumbers, carrots, celery, tomato, yams, cauliflower and avocado. Holy Health! :)

Some slicing and dicing and we made a pretty colorful medley, what I’m calling the “Detox Salad.” This is a low-carb lunch that still has plenty of protein and healthy fats without anything starchy like bread or pasta (exactly what I overdosed on last week, hence the salad).

Guess what you DON‘T see here…..? Oatmeal! I must’ve had almost twenty bowls of oatmeal in the last 10 days and I will happily welcome some variety ;) Instead you see plenty of delicious and healthy toppings that add up to one very happy body.

Avocados for mono-saturated fats (the good stuff!)

Cranberries for antioxidants.

Almonds and Edamame for some protein.

Spinach for Iron!

Lettuce for Fiber and Vitamins A, C, and K.

Bell Peppers have 300% of your Daily Value of Vitamin C (fun fact: that’s 3x more than a medium orange)

Cucumbers because they taste yummy…

Salad Dressings can make or break a salad! I have never understood why someone would kill a perfectly healthy salad with gobs of fatty dressing like ranch; it negates the whole purpose of making a simple and healthy salad when upwards of 250 calories per serving and 30 grams of fat are liberally drenched on the vegetables. Today we used a Fat-Free Raspberry Pecan Vinagrette, 50 calories per serving. Even a simple homemade oil-and-vinegar dressing, while not fat-free, would be preferable as a salad topping than something creamy like bleu cheese (more calories than a slice of pizza!)

It’s the perfect lunch for the holiday season when you need to balance out party food or baking treats that this weekend may bring. Your body will thank you for the extra shot of vitamins and minerals and a break from starch, salt and sugar. Feel free to share any additional favorite salad toppings!

Pin This Here: