More meal planning!

So I asked Cathleen over at vegan-nutritionista.com about gaining weight and being vegan. She basically said to stick with heart-healthy fats such as: olive oil, coconut oil and safflower oils. She also recommended nut spreads like almond butter, cashew butter, and soybean butter and to add flax seeds to my diet. I definitely wanna try that. I already cook with olive oil and Earth Balance, which is soy, palm, and olive oil-based.

On my quest to gain weight I googled some other information and this pretty much sums up what I found:

• more starches: potatoes, pasta, rice, bread
• 3 meals a day plus 3 healthy snacks
• more protein: chicken, tofu, peanut butter, legumes, eggs, hummus
• choose drinks with higher calories
• add good sources of fat, as noted above
• fruit: bananas, pineapple, mango, dried fruits, avocado
• calorie-dense foods: oatmeal, granola, bean and barley soups, peas, carrots
  
• exercise to ensure the added weight does not turn into flab

So......I think I could do some of this. Since I work at Smoothie King, I could also drink a Strawberry Hulk, which is about 1000 calories. The original recipe calls for butter pecan icecream, but since I'm intolerant I substitute with vanilla yogurt and it comes out just fine. That is one of my FAVORITE smoothies. I don't know if it's gonna work, but maybe I can add the weight-gain powder to some of my other favorite smoothies so I won't have to get the same thing all the time. Either way, I'm glad I have something to help supplement my weight gaining goal of 120 lbs. I don't care how long it takes to get there, as long as I do.

So lately for breakfast I have been eating 2 eggs and/or an "everything" bagel with Earth Balance. Usually I will drink either water or rice milk with it. Lately I've been having trouble with lunch LOL which is so ironic because I used to skip breakfast. It's really hard to eat 3 meals a day but I guess I have to make some way around the schedule. Like tomorrow I have class from 12:30 to 1:25 and then work from 3 to 10. So I figure I will have breakfast before I go to class tomorrow at around 11 and then have some type of meal at 2 or 2:30 before I leave for work. For my break I might go to Just Fresh and get either the Avocado Turkey Burger or the Veggie Burger. If I'm not in the mood for something hot, then I'll get the Very Veggie sandwich from the deli. Dinner? I have no idea because I'm not sure if/what my mom is cooking so I don't know if I need to make anything. If so, then I will probably make a sandwich or something.

Oh yes, exercise. I need to push myself very hard in this area because I really don't like to do it. But once I get into it, then I start enjoying it. I don't have weights or anything so I don't know how I'm going to do strength training unless I just do pushups and crunches in my room. Not really my ideal thing, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

By the way, is turkey considered red meat?