Who wants to do a 10-a-day challenge with me?

[Titsywoo]

I've put this in weight loss as I'm hoping it will help me lose weight but really it's just a healthy eating challenge! I reckon I eat an average of 3 portions a day of fruit and veg and I'm feeling pretty unhealthy in general. Advice now says 10 portions a day are what we should be aiming for and I figure I'll be able to eat a lot less junk if my meals and snacks are based around fruit and veg instead of crisps and chocolate .

So the rules are:-

• You should eat more veg than fruit - no more than 3 of your 10 can be fruit (I'll be sticking with 2 fruit and 8 veg as I'm not a fruit fan anyway)
  
• You need to eat a variety of colours each day this may help
  
• Potatoes don't count I'm afraid
  
• Make sure your portion is the correct size (salad in your sandwich is not likely to be enough to be a portion)
  
• If you make a smoothie it only counts as one portion due to the lack of fibre and the sugar content
  

I'll keep posting even if noone else joins in as I'm interested to see if it works for weight loss plus I'll add what food I have eaten each day so people can see how (and if!) it's possible to eat this much fruit and veg in a normal diet and how to make veg more interesting. I'm not going to limit anything (bar the fruit) outside of this as I don't stick to things that way but hopefully natural appetite levels will mean I'm able to eat less of everything else.

[lurkingfromhome]

I will join you! I do eat well with plenty of fruit and veg but I think it's a good thing to actually monitor quite closely what you're eating so that you can keep on top of things and not slide into bad habits. Also I suspect I don't eat 10 portions a day although I do eat at least 5 every day.

I never eat potatoes anyway so that's fine. I eat tons of fruit, probably more so than veg (I probably eat 4 portions of fruit a day), so the fruit/veg balance is something I could improve on. I never drink smoothies or fruit juice though.

Ready when you are!

[Titsywoo]

Hooray! I'll be starting in the morning so will start some sort of menu plan tonight or I'll end up buying loads of veg and will have no idea what to do with it . What sort of thing do you normally eat in a day that you always get at least 5 portions in?

[lurkingfromhome]

I pretty much have the same breakfast every day - Greek yoghurt, a teeny sprinkle of sugar-granola plus a giant handful of berries - any combo of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, so probably 1 or 2 there.

Lunch I either have home-made veg soup or some sort of salad affair with rye crackers, bit of cheese etc. Plus another piece of fruit. So probably 2 portions in total, 3 on a good day.

Dinner varies but there is always veg on the side or home-made coleslaw made with lots of different raw veg or an aubergine and roasted pepper bake thing or a chickpea salad - all sorts of things really but prob 1 or 2 portions again, plus another piece of fruit.

Will start tomorrow too - I could do with a bit less fruit and a bit more veg so let’s see how we get on!

[TerryTucker]

This is an excellent idea and it will work because I did it a while ago with a challenge on Myfitnesspal. The portions need to be 80g each for veg/fruit and 100 ml for juice (1 portion per day) and I think only 30g for dried fruit (1 portion per day) but I expect you could Google this.

Glad you reminded me about this as I'd like to try it again after the Summer holidays 😁

[Titsywoo]

Fab Terry hope to see you here in a couple of weeks!

Today was good but I didn't make it to 10 as I hadn't been shopping - fail to prepare and all that!

Green veg is easy but I need to plan better to get other colours in too. I did have some aubergine today though so that's a good start.

I will write a menu plan tomorrow - I just need to get my act together, luckily I now have 2 weeks off work (although I'm away next week which is tricky). Things will be so much easier from 5th Sept when the kids are at school and routine returns!

[lurkingfromhome]

I had a mixed Day 1 - def got my 5 a day but not much more, mostly because my lunch was a bit rubbish as I realised too late I didn’t have enough veg in the house! I did manage to eat:

Big handful raspberries
Big handful blackberries
A nectarine
A big orange
A portion cherry tomatoes
A portion green beans
Also cucumber, red onion, green pepper, black olives and rocket but it wouldn’t have been a portion of each. Let’s call it 7 in total.

I’m going to the supermarket tomorrow to stock up on more veg!

[FATEdestiny]

I've been doing this for several months now. I aim for 8-10 vegetable portions a day. I use this <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Documents/Downloads/5ADAY_portion_guide.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjUufLN4oLdAhVIBcAKHUoJBRQQFjAMegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0WEwzrl4MDQPQJzd1x5ZVh" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">portion size reference

My standard lunch, I have this most days, is 6 veg portions:

• Half tin of chickpeas (1 portion), blitzed up with 2 garlic cloves and the juice of a lemon to make a dip
  
• 3 whole sticks of celery (2 portions)
  
• 1 whole peppers, sliced (2 portions)
  
• Half to a third of a whole cucumber, sliced (1 portion)
  

If I'm especially hungry I add another (different coloured) whole pepper to my lunch. That's an extra 2 portions.

It's a really filling lunch with masses of veggie portions in it.