Trust Me, You’ve Plant Blocked + Chunky Veggie Stew with Garbanzo Beans

Okay lover, today I want to talk about your mindset and how it relates to eating a ridiculously healthy plant-based diet.

Whether you’re new to all of this and still trying to figure out if nutritional yeast is the stuff you make bread with or not. Whether you teeter between kale and chocolate cake. Or whether you’ve been doing this for a long time and you know exactly how much vitamin B12 your body needs each day.

Regardless of where you currently sit on the healthy eating spectrum, we all have minds that are capable of getting in our own way and plant blocking our best efforts.

Yes, like cock blocking but with plants.

Oh yes, you’ve plant blocked, trust me.

The last time you walked straight past the big bowl of fruit on your kitchen counter and reached directly for the chocolate in your cupboard?
  Plant block.

When you fill up your weekends with so many activities that you have no time to plan and batch for the week ahead?
  Plant block.

When you don’t have time to make a green smoothie in the morning because you hit snooze too many times?
  Plant block.

When you tell yourself that you don’t have 30 minutes to make dinner and then order take out and spend an hour in front of the TV?
  Plant block.

We all plant block from time to time. I did it just last week when my girlfriend, Luanne was on a cake bender. I stuffed two pieces of apple cinnamon cake and one piece of lemon cake directly into my mouth just because it was there.  #classicplantblock

The kryptonite for plant blocking has everything to do with your thoughts. Here’s the secret sauce to staying out of your own damn way and winning at eating plants.

1: Instead of telling yourself why you can’t, tell yourself why you want to. 
This is the simple act of dropping your excuses and making it work. If eating healthy is really important to you, there’s always a way to make it happen consistently.

You might have to juggle some things around. You might have to wake up earlier. You might have to go to a few different grocery stores. You might even have to tell other people no.

All of this stuff becomes much easier once you stop it with the excuses and just do it.

The second you catch yourself thinking about why you can’t eat plant based, remind yourself that people make this work all the time, and then go over the reasons why this is important to you. And then notice how your brain starts to lead you to the solutions.

Plant block be gone.

2: Get out of your negative head space by dancing it out.

The Downward Spiral isn’t just the name of the best Nine Inch Nails album out there, it’s also the precursor to eating like shit.

The longer you’re in a funk, the less you’ll care about eating healthy and nourishing your beautiful bod. Feeling uplifted and happy gives you automatic motivation to feed yourself well. And the quickest way to feel immediately uplifted and happy (even if you’re not) is to dance.

So the next time you get in a funky funk and are feeling super sorry for yourself, take a breath and then shake your ass until you feel better.

You might look like an idiot, you might be embarrassed, it will feel awkward.

Do it anyway.

Do it in your pajamas, do it in your underwear, do it in your living room. Dance to music or dance in silence. It doesn’t matter. Just Dance.

Move your body around until the cloud starts to lift, the heaviness wanes, and you feel something shift. This is your energy starting to flow, clearing out your funk, and make room for sunshine.

Do this throughout the day as needed.

Here’s a little insider secret. I dance every single morning. It’s how I start my day. So if you feel funny about doing it, know that I’m doing it too.

Plant block be gone.

3: Don’t make eating a Whole-Food Plant-Based diet a big deal and it won’t be.

You know how when toddlers fall down you’re not supposed to freak out over it? That’s because the first thing toddlers do when they fall down is look up at the adult to get a sense of the situation.

If you freak out, they will cry and freak out. But if you’re a cool breeze, they won’t think twice, they’ll get their tiny ass up and keep trucking like nothing happened.

It’s the same thing with eating a WFPB diet.

If you’re convinced that eating this way is difficult, time consuming, and hard to stay on track, it will be.
Here’s why.

Our thoughts create our feelings. Our feelings create our actions. And our actions create our results.

Let’s work this out.

If we think that eating Whole-Food Plant-Based is hard and unrealistic, we’ll feel discouraged and unmotivated.

When we feel discouraged and unmotivated, our action will be to reach for convenience foods instead of taking the time to make nutrient dense plant based meals.

When we reach for convenience foods the result will be that we prove to ourself that eating a whole-food plant-based diet is hard and unrealistic.

Alternatively, if we think that eating Whole-Food Plant-Based is easy and totally doable, we’ll feel motivated and excited.

When we feel motivated and excited, our action will be to eat nutrient dense plant based meals.

When we eat nutrient dense plant based meals, the result will be that we prove to ourself that eating a plant-based diet is easy and totally doable.

This demonstrates perfectly why your success with eating a plant-based diet starts with your thoughts you choose to think.

It can be an uphill pain in the ass battle or it can be smooth sailing on the Caribbean, with Johnny Depp as your co-sailor and me as your personal chef. I’ll even dance it out with you.

Make it easy in your head and it will be.

Plant block be gone.

4: Let us do the planning and thinking for you by signing up for our weekly Plant Fueled Meal Plans. 

We give you everything that you need (including your weekly grocery list) so all you have to do is follow along. Think of it as affordable insurance against plant blocking.

Let’s wind this party down. 

Even if you follow these steps, you still might plant block from time to time (ie, my cake episode last week). This happens sometimes and when it does, don’t beat yourself up. Just keep following these steps and plant blocking will be the exception and not the rule.

Today’s recipe is a nutrient dense powerhouse and it oozes with comfort and yum.

Chunky Veggie Stew with Garbanzo Beans

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Author: Molly Patrick of Clean Food Dirty Girl

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 cup yellow onion 1/2 of an average size onion // 120g, diced
• ▢ 1 cup carrot 120g, chopped
• ▢ 3 celery stalks about 1 cup // 110g, chopped
• ▢ 1 cup sweet potato about 1/2 cup. Boil the other half of the potato for your green smoothies // 125g, chopped
• ▢ 3 garlic cloves minced
• ▢ 1 tablespoon vegan worcestershire sauce I use Annie's
• ▢ 2 tablespoons tomato paste 35g
• ▢ 10 turns black pepper
• ▢ ½ teaspoon sea salt
• ▢ ¼ cup rice flour 35g
• ▢ 3 cups water
• ▢ 2 bay leaves
• ▢ 1 cup cooked garbanzo beans 160g
• ▢ ¼ cup packed parsley 16g, chopped

Instructions

• Chop all of your veggies and measure out all of your ingredients first. This will make it easier to throw together.
• After you have chopped all the veggies and measured everything out, heat a pot for about a minute so it gets nice and hot, and then add the onions.
• When the onions start to stick, add two tablespoons of water to the pan and stir. This will help caramelize the onions and get the stuck bits off from the pan. Continue to cook for 5-7 minutes until the onions are nice and brown, adding a tablespoon of water at a time when the onions start to stick.
• Add the carrots, celery, sweet potato, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, black pepper and sea salt and stir until everything is combined.
• Add the rice flour and stir until everything is incorporated and then slowly add in the water, stirring as you go.
• Add the bay leaves, cover the pan with a lid at angle and simmer for 30 minutes.
• It’s important to stir the stew frequently as it cooks so the ingredients don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Stir it every few minutes.
• After 30 minutes, add the cooked garbanzo beans and the parsley, stir and cook for an additional 15 minutes, until the veggies are soft to your liking. Continue to stir every few minutes during this last bit of cooking.
• When serving, do not serve the bay leaf.

Notes

This recipe is perfect if you're cooking for one or two people and you want leftovers for the next day. If you're cooking for more mouths, double it.

I hope that you have a happy week. May it be filled with recognizing when you plant block and then correcting the course. Also, I hope that there’s dancing.