What I eat in a day - Vegan Edition

I love seeing what my friends online eat so I decided to share what I am eating today. This is my VEGAN day of food!

Keep in mind that I drink herbal tea and decaf green tea all throughout the day! 

Breakfast: at about 7:45 I had a large smoothie and a bottle of hot water with lemon. 

Snacky: At 10:30 I start to get hungry, so I had a tasty Lara Bar Uber. It's a nice snack between breakfast and lunch. 

Lunch time: I ate lunch around noon today. I had some chia seed pudding with blueberries and cinnamon. I also had some Food Should Taste Good guacamole chips. I had some fresh cherries for dessert :-) 

Dinner: at about 6 I had a big bowl of delicious spaghetti squash with arabiatta pasta sauce! I really enjoy a good spaghetti squash and this one was good, even though they're out of season. Yes I know it looks sick, but it tastes fabulous! 

That is all I ate today! What do you usually eat in a day?

ELF Site Wide Sale - today only!

Today ELF is blessing us with a 40% off site wide sale. This is amazing because their prices are already so low the extra 40% makes them unbelievably inexpensive! I have had some hits and some misses with ELF but my hits are huge hits! I love that ELF is an inexpensive cruelty free line and I try to use their products as much as possible! I hope you take advantage of this offer if you're wanting to try out some fun new products! 

My favorite elf products are their studio line brushes - the black ones. 

1. Blush brush - I use this for highlighter 

2. Complexion brush - I use this for blush 

3. Small angled brush - I have two of these. One for my brows and one for my angled liner 

Their baked blush in pinktastic is wonderful. I use this as my highlighter every single day and have never found one that I prefer more. 

I also really enjoy the elf eyebrow kit. I use the medium shade, but there are other options as well. It contains a powder as well as a wax. I only use the powder, but at three dollars!? It's totally worth it! 

Their cream liner is probably the very best that I have ever used. It's so black, creamy and stays put so nicely. There are other color options that I have not tried, but I have high hopes for.

What are your favorite ELF products? 

Veganuary Results

So January is obviously over, and I had a wonderful time with my veganuary challenge. I found myself making the decision to eat more fruits and vegetables and less everything else. It took a week or so to balance out exactly how to eat to feel full and to get everything that I needed. 

Have I decided to stay the course of vegan?? Well I have decided that I am going to eat whatever I want when I want to eat it because I hate dietary restrictions :-)  I am about 90% vegan and 10% vegetarian.. What does this mean? It means that some times when we go out to eat I will eat something with cheese in it. Other than that I am vegan and it feels great! Most of my foods are fruits and veggies and whole grains. My body feels healthy and happy and I plan on staying this way. 

When I first stared out on this journey I thought it would be difficult, but it really wasn't. I just made the decision to change what I put in my mouth and stuck with it. I think everyone has the capacity to adjust their eating and would probably be better off for it. I know that it's hard to break the routine of eating junky fast foods and guzzling pop, but I promise that if you adjust your foods to clean and healthy options that you will feel SO MUCH BETTER!

Another thing that I was concerned about with this diet change was that it may cost more. It really doesn't. In fact it may even be less expensive. Less expensive and better for the body? Both wonderful things! 

Did you try the veganuary challenge? What were your results? 

Disappointing things no one tells you about being an adult..

1. You have no time off. 

This seems logical, but while I was growing up my parents worked in the school system. They had ample time off for us to do family things and go on vacation adventures. If you work in a normal 8-5 job you don't have the same freedoms. I get weekends off, during which I do chores and shop for food for the week ahead. My nights are spent cooking dinner/eating and packing lunches for the next day.. Then hopefully getting to sleep early so I can wake up at a reasonable time for my commute. 

2.  You have to cut your own canalopes. 

If you didn't have a dad who's amazing at cutting fruits and making pancakes then you won't understand this struggle. I had been living my entire life with amazing fruits cut for me. I had no idea how big of a pain it was to cut up a melon larger than a human head.

3. There are no snow days in the real world. 

If you're lucky enough to get a specified amount of vacation days you want to use them on actual vacations.. Not the polar vortex. Because of this, there are far too many people risking their lives through a blizzard to get to their desk job. 

4. There is no such thing as getting to stay home with a stomach ache, or strep throat, or getting out early for the dentist. 

When I was in school if I was sick I stayed home and got better, simple as that. I got to rest and heal. If I had to go to the dentist I would leave school early and go to the dentist. Now if I need to do either of these things I have to give up a sweet token known as a personal day. The alternative is dragging myself into work with the flu, which a large amount of people do. Which is selfish, but understandable. No one wants to give up their fun time days for a day full of phlegm. 

5. You have to pay taxes and insurance on EVERYTHING and chances are you will rarely (if ever) use your insurance. 

You pay taxes till you die. I was under the interesting impression that if you pay off your house, it is yours. This is not the case. You pay property taxes on it. FOR-EV-ER. And if you fail to do so, the MAN takes your home. Also, you have to have health insurance, home owners insurance, auto insurance and possibly a few more.. These insurances are to 'protect' you and the people around you from something that's probably never going to happen. 

Veganuary Challenge

Well friends I have embarked on a very interesting journey starting at the first of the year. I have been participating in veganuary. Which is a sassy way of saying that I am going vegan for the month of January. I had many resolutions this year and going vegetarian or vegan was one of them. So far I have been finding it pretty easy. I RARELY ate meat before but I did have a cheese heave diet.. The cheese has been the biggest challenge for me. Day seven is here and I am actually very proud of myself for my progress. 

For anyone unfamiliar with the terms vegan or vegetarian. A vegetarian diet does not include meat.. No animal flesh of any kind. While vegan takes it a step further and eliminates any animal product out of the diet. This includes meat, milk, cheese, yogurt.. Basically anything that originates from an animal. 

I am giving myself a personal challenge and I am working on eliminating processed foods (or anything with ingredients that seem foreign or harmful) from my diet as well. Again, I rarely ate them but it's good to nix them completely. 

So far I am feeling great and loving it! Any tips from fellow vegans out there or vegan newbies like myself?

Thanks for reading:-)

Aubrey