February 5-A-Day Veggie Challenge

Maybe you've mastered your water intake and are ready to build a new healthy habit.  Or Maybe you've been trying to increase your servings of veggies for a long time and just need a concrete goal and tracking system.  Maybe you hate veggies and this will be a BIG challenge for you.   Whatever the case, if you know you're not getting the recommended 5-A-Day with a variety of veggies, this is your chance to change that.

Actually, 5 servings is the minimum you should get each day.  The range is 5-9 servings of veggies.  So if you want to sign up for more than 5-A-Day, that's cool too.

What's a serving?

• 1/2 cup of fruit
• 1 medium piece of fruit
• 1/4 cup of dried fruit
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces) of 100% fruit or vegetable juice
• 1 cup of leafy vegetables
• 1/2 cup of cooked or raw vegetables

Trying to visualize the serving sizes? This may help:

• 1 medium apple or orange: the size of a tennis ball
• 1 cup vegetables or fruit: the size of a baseball
• 1 medium potato: the size of a computer mouse
• 1 cup of lettuce: 4 leaves

How do I select, store and prepare vegetables?

For the very veggie-challenged, perhaps a fruit & veggie approach is the way to go.  [And it should go without saying, if you count fried vegetables in your total, while technically true, you are doing your body no good and cheating only yourself.]

How does the challenge work?

Just come here each day and post how many servings you had the previous day.

You might put it like this

• I had 4 serving of veggies and 2 servings of fruit

You can spell out which veggies you had if you like, but you don't have to.  If you try an unusual veggie, it might be cool if you share that with everyone.  =)  But if you do spell it out, please summarize it like above so as to make it easy for me to keep everyone's tally.  I'll convert everyone's daily goals to a monthly total in the OP so you can see how much progress you're making.

If you want, you can make a ticker at www.tickerfactory.com

However, if you already have a ticker, you might want to skip this.  I tried having two tickers and never got them sorted properly. 

Week 1 Bonus Veg - Collard Greens!

Week 2 Bonus Veg - Rutabaga!

Week 3 Bonus Veg - Cauliflower!

Week 4 Bonus Veg - Red Bell Pepper!


Perhaps we can share recipes too.  =) 

5 Veg a day >>> that's 140 veg for the month

lily42 - 5 veg a day .................. 110 + Week 1 BONUS + Week 4 BONUS

nomo - 5 veg a day .................  134 + Week 2 BONUS + Week 3 BONUS + Week 4 BONUS


5 veg or fruit a day >>>  that's 140 veg & fruit for the month

basementgirl - 5 veg or fruit a day .........158 + Week 3 BONUS 

christink - 5 veg or fruit a day.................30 

clairelaine - 5 veg a day..........................148

lauree - 5 veg or fruit a day .................... 152

sarah_11235 - 5 veg or fruit a day ..........142 + Week 2 BONUS + Week 4 BONUS

united2gether - 5 veg or fruit a day .......... 115 + Week 4 BONUS


3 veg & 3 fruit a day >>> that's 84 veg & 84 fruit for the month

3monkeysmom - 3 veg/3 fruit a day.........  100 / 63 + Week 3 BONUS


4 veg & 2 fruit a day >>> that's 112 veg & 56 fruit for the month

abcsmom - 4 veg/2 fruit a day .................. 119 / 57

siren464 - 4 veg/2 fruit a day ...................  4 / 2


4 veg & 3 fruit a day >>> that's 112 veg & 84 fruit for the month

chesna - 4 veg/3 fruit a day .....................  4 / 3

lightningmd - 4 veg/3 fruit a day ............... 53 / 50 + Week 4 BONUS


5 veg & 2 fruit a day >>> that's 140 veg & 56 fruit for the month

eliztheb - 5 veg/2 fruit a day.....................  3 / 0 


5 veg & 3 fruit a day >>> that's 140 veg & 84 fruit for the month

wants2lose - 5 veg/3 fruit a day ................. 137 / 80 + Week 3 BONUS + Week 4 BONUS


5 veg & 4 fruit a day >>> that's 140 veg & 112 fruit for the month

pisc13 - 5 veg/4 fruit a day .........................   ;124 / 61

I am in.  I promise to eat atleast 5 servings of fruit or vegetables each day.

I love the recipe idea.  :)

Sure.  I'm pretty confident I'm doing very well in the vegetable department.  But.. I'm willing to challenge myself :)

So.. I promise to eat at least 5 servings of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit a day,

Count me in!  I like vegetables but they don't always make it into my daily plan, or at least not as much as they should. 

I'll aim for the 5 veg servings a day. 

I'm going with 5 servings of veg a day too.  =)

*bump* C'mon, folks. This one's for your health! Join us!

DOLE

This site has great ideas for working the fruits and veggies into your day.

So in preparation for this February challenge I'm recording my servings starting now.  I put this in my journal but I'm putting it up here for public scrutiny.  Am I counting this correctly?

Today's Vegetables
2 leaves of green leaf lettuce
1 cup of baby spinach
2 radishes
15 baby carrots
1/2 cup sliced crimini mushrooms
1 portabella cap

I'm assuming mushrooms count as veg but I'm not sure about that one.....So how many servings is that?  Hmmm....I'll be back, let me figure this out.

So let's guess the lettuce is 1 cup shredded (1 serving) then the spinach (1 serving) the carrots (1 serving) maybe if I put the radishes and crimini together (1 serving) and then the portabella cap (1 serving).  *counts it all up* So that's 5 servings right?  Unless I'm not counting the servings right and cheating by counting mushrooms :-)

This is perfect. I'm in am already doing this challenge with our fitness and wellness center at work!  This will just help me remain accountable!

This will be easy!    >=)

I'll be eating no less than 3 servings of fruit per day and no less than 3 servings of veggies per day.

No canned veggies or fruits toward this count.  Counted servings will be fresh or frozen!  (I sometimes like to use canned diced tomato).


Lessee... Today I already ate my grapes.  I have a pear and a cup of diced canteloupe in the fridge for snacks.

Lunch will include a small portion of romaine lettuce, spinach, some green and red pepper, and onion.   We'll call that 1 serving cuz it's all pretty small.    Dinner is already planned and we're having broccoli and whole green beans.  

How's that?

hmm. sign me up for 5 veg :)

lets see if Im on track...yesterday: 1.5 - lettuce, 1.5 - potatoe, 1 - peas, 1.5 - carrots, 1 -  strawberries

hey I may be able to do this! Going to have to start buying fruit for snacks though :) Thanks for thinking of this... if I slowly improve myself a bit more month by month I should be eating almost perfect in a year or so :D

maybe I can get with claire and ix and they can come up with a bonus challenge veggie or fruit - you get bonus credit if you manage to work in a serving of the bonus veg or fruit

???

but don't want to over complicate it - it's already quite a task to figure out how many servings you have

Lily, I think mushrooms do count, btw - been reading how they're good for you....  And they're not meat, dairy, fruit, grains, or fat.  =)

I'd like to sign up for 4 vegies/2 fruits a day minimum.  :) 

I've been doing great calorie wise, but not so hot at getting all the vegies in.  This will help me stay on track.

I think this is a great idea!

Tell me though -- I think corn and potatoes should not count because they really are mostly starch.  What do yout think?

I strongly disagree. Veggies are veggies :) I think Iceburg Lettuce should count as well, even though it's basically just water :)

reid, I think that's going to be a personal call....

Personally, I agree with you.  For me, I wouldn't count more than one starchy veg a day as a veg, if that.  But for people who don't like veggies and struggle to get ANY, it might be too hard if you eliminate potatoes, corn, peas, sweet potatoes, etc.

So I think we'll let each person make that judgement... but that's why I like the idea of a bonus veg.  The bonus veg would be one that isn't starchy and has a great nutrition profile...  =)

After all, why do we want to get 5 veggies a day????  for the nutrition!

:)

reid, should I put you down for 5 a day?  :)

ooooh I like the "challenge" fruit/vegetable thing per week too - but not necessary....just in case it is something GROSS. ;)

I thought of something else. 

What about sauces, like spaghetti sauce?  Would you count 1/2 cup of sauce as 1 vegie serving?

I would say yes to the tomato sauce - as long as most of the calories in it come from the veg and not from a fat or a meat...

Check your can of tomatoes and see if it says servings are half a cup...

salome, I promise that we won't have Brussels Sprouts as a bonus veggie  LOL!

hey....I like brussel sprouts.

I was thinking......cranberries.   yuck!