The Aftermath of Christmas & Veggie broth

The beginning of Veggie Broth.

My last post I talked about going into the Christmas celebrations and food without a diet in mind. Seriously you can’t diet during the holidays. Why bother, all you do is beat yourself up every time a cookie or glass of wine lands in front of you. My advice was to go for it. So you did, and here we are now, feeling bloated as a stuffed turkey, because you swear you ate the entire stuffed turkey, and all the sides in one sitting. You probably roughly consumed about 4000 calories  or more on Christmas day. And that wasn’t the first day you ate that many calories. If you’re like me, my calorie count shot through the roof for the past two weeks.

The large stock pot

What did I do? I planned ahead.

I knew this just wasn't coming, but was here. So while buying Christmas dinner, I bought a lot of winter veggies and brightly colored veggies, for planned preparation for a fast. I made my favorite veggie broth to help clean my body out.

Draining off the broth

The day after Christmas, the first thing I did was get rid of  high sugary foods, cookies, cakes, candy, whatever was left. Tomorrow, any snack stuff, like dips. By Friday the leftovers from Christmas dinner should be consumed. I sent a lot home with family.  Hubs wants his leftovers, so I kept a couple meals worth for us. Not that I can blame him, they are good. I’ve put my house back together, while searching for my sanity, I lost it somewhere in the rum spiked eggnog. Today I got back on my exercise routine. I fell off the wagon or treadmill the past two weeks, now I’m ready, at least mentally to get back to it and plan on hitting it really hard.

Cooked down veggies

It isn’t hard to recover from the aftermath of the holidays. Really it isn't, its all mental. After a few days of cleansing out the system, and you’ll be ready to go and get back to the diet plan and exercise routine quickly. Have faith. You can count on at least the first 5lbs of weight gain during this period to be water weight. If you've gained that much, it will come off easily as soon as you change your eating habits back to plant based and lighter meats, such as skinless chicken and fish. Don't wait for January 1st to start. Get back on the diet bandwagon now. It make its easier when the New Year rolls around. 

For Veggie Broth:

The end results. A dark colored healthy broth.

It is very simple, put into a large stock pot, lots of colorful veggies, deep greens, spinach, kale, chard. Then bright orange, carrots, sweet potato. I add a parsnip, a sweeter cousin to the carrot and bit paler. I also add two cinnamon sticks, two star anise, and two nutmegs. You can add any kind of herbs, for taste, and salt and whole pepper corn. Cover the veggies with water. Bring the pot to a boil, simmer for 30 mins. Turn off and let sit for 1 hr, then drain off veggies and save your broth. I run it through cheese cloth once to make clearer, but that’s just me. Drink it like a tea.One thing about making your own broth, you know whats in it. One piece of advice, scrub your veggies thoroughly. This broth is great if you're feeling a bit sluggish, the bright green veggies are loaded with magnesium, which is essential to your energy levels. It freezes beautiful.  

Saturday I’m going into a juicing and broth fast for three days. But, I will consume healthy calories in the form of solid veggies and light fish for dinner. This should help to kick start me right back into my regular eating habits. Fingers crossed.