My Plant-Based Friend | Vegan food + positivity for all

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Recipes

tofu peanut noodle dish

Delicious Tofu Peanut Noodles (Nut Free, High Protein)

birthday cake mug cake

Easy Vegan High Protein Mug Cake Recipe (Birthday Cake Flavor)

Vegan Mac and Cheese Recipe: High Protein with Buffalo Chick’n

The Best Creamy Vegan Chicken Rigatoni Recipe

pumpkin protein bars

Pumpkin Protein Bars Recipe

chocolate baked oats

Amazing Baked Oats Recipe: Healthy High Protein Chocolate Cake

vegan belgian waffles

Easy Vegan Belgian Waffles Recipe Four Ways

The Best Double Chocolate Chip Cookies (Vegan and Gluten Free)

vegan taco

Vegan Tacos: The Best Walnut Taco Meat Recipe

Lifestyle

healthy vegan high protein & macro friendly snacks you'll love

Healthy Vegan High Protein & Macro-Friendly Snacks You’ll Love

vegan digestion 101 blog post

Vegan Digestion: 10 Tips to Avoid Bloating + Optimize Energy

go vegan

Go Vegan: 10 Tips For a Successful, Sustainable, Meaningful Life

the best sources of vegan protein

Vegan Protein Sources: Great Taste and Nutrition

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By Melissa Donovan

I love creating tasty, balanced, and healthy vegan recipes for people of all diets. Whether you’re looking for high protein, macro friendly vegan recipes or positive encouragement in adopting a more plant-based lifestyle, you’re in the right place!

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myplantbasedfriend

What if the most loving thing you could do this we

What if the most loving thing you could do this week was choose yourself?

Not because you’ve been productive enough to earn it.
Not because you’ve reached a breaking point.

Simply because you felt worthy of your own care.

So many women have learned to prioritize everyone else’s needs before their own. To keep the peace. To overgive. To push through. To abandon themselves in the process.

If that feels familiar, this space was created for you.

Join me for a FREE virtual Women’s Self-Love & Self-Worth Group Hypnosis this Sunday.

Together, we’ll explore why self-abandonment isn’t a personal flaw, but a pattern your nervous system learned to keep you safe.

Then you’ll be guided through a gentle hypnosis designed to help you:
💗 Release old patterns of people-pleasing and self-sacrifice
💗 Feel safer trusting yourself and honoring your needs
💗 Build deeper self-love and self-worth
💗 Leave feeling calmer, lighter, and more connected to yourself

This is your invitation to come home to the version of you who has been there all along, waiting to be chosen.

Comment WORTHY to reserve your free spot.

Send to a woman who deserves more love, self-compassion, and space to reconnect with herself 💗

You’ve spent enough time proving your worth. Mayb

You’ve spent enough time proving your worth.

Maybe you’ve been so good at showing up for everyone else for so long that choosing yourself feels uncomfortable or even completely unfamiliar.

You fill every hour of your day, tell yourself you’ll rest once everything is done, and somehow that time never comes. There never seems to be anything left to give yourself.

I know that feeling because I’ve lived it.

There have been many seasons of my life where I kept myself so busy that I never had the opportunity to sit with what I was really feeling.

I had so much resistance to slowing down. Part of me believed that if I stopped pushing, I’d fall behind, or that slowing down meant I wasn’t the driven, goal-oriented, service-driven person I wanted to be.

Making this time for myself ended up being the first time in YEARS that I felt my nervous system finally exhale.

I realized my worth was never something I had to earn through productivity, achievement, or how much I could give to others.

It was always there. Something I could reconnect with anytime I chose to come back home to myself.

If you’ve been craving a space to slow down, reconnect with yourself, and remember the feeling of already being enough, I’d love to invite you to my free Self Love & Self Worth Group Hypnosis for women this Sunday.

Comment WORTHY and I’ll send you the details 🤍

I almost gave up on becoming her. I was constantl

I almost gave up on becoming her.

I was constantly longing to feel more aligned, confident, and fulfilled while believing I was doing everything wrong or wasn’t good enough.

I thought if I could just be more disciplined, consistent, and motivated, I’d finally become the person I knew I could be.

But every time I fell off, got overwhelmed, or couldn’t keep up with my own expectations, I took it as proof that I couldn’t trust myself to show up.

That maybe I just wasn’t capable of feeling better or creating the life I wanted.

What I wish I knew then is that I wasn’t failing. I was exhausted from constantly overriding my capacity and putting myself last.

And I know I’m not the only one who has felt this.

To the woman who shows up for everyone else, but struggles to choose herself.

The woman who carries everyone’s needs, emotions, and expectations while running on empty.

The woman who has dreams and a vision for her life, but feels like she has nothing left to pour into herself..

I want you to know: you don’t need to keep pushing harder and hoping something changes.

You need to feel safe enough to trust yourself.

That’s what changed everything for me.

Learning to listen to my body instead of overriding it.

Working with the parts of me that believed I wasn’t enough.

Creating evidence that I could trust myself through small promises I actually kept.

And allowing myself to receive support instead of believing I had to figure everything out alone.

Becoming this version of me didn’t happen through hating past versions of myself.

Everything shifted when I chose to come home to the version of me who operates from love, worth, and belief.

If you’ve been feeling stuck in people-pleasing, burnout, self-doubt, or constantly feeling behind, @vegansquadcoaching created a space just for you.

This Sunday, I’m hosting a free Self Love & Self Worth group hypnosis to kick off the Empowered Wellness Sisterhood:

A women’s only space to reconnect with yourself, release what’s been weighing you down, and practice choosing yourself.

Comment WORTHY and I’ll send you the details 🤍

Would you try this? Nothing beats sharing good fo

Would you try this?

Nothing beats sharing good food with even better company 🫶🏼

When I first went vegan over 10 years ago, I didn’t have a community like this. Most of the people around me didn’t really understand my choice, and I spent a lot of time feeling like the odd one out.

Now I don’t take moments like these for granted.

Getting to share incredible food, laugh until our bellies hurt, and be surrounded by people who genuinely care about each other is one of my favorite parts about the @vegansquadcoaching family 🤍

Everyone deserves friends they can share good food and good conversations with 🥰

Share with your favorite vegan foodie, and tell me your favorite vegan food below!

I used to think strength was something you could s

I used to think strength was something you could see.

Being strong was defined by the muscle I built, weight I could lift, and discipline it took to keep showing up.

And those things still matter to me.

But the more I really started to tune inward, my definition of strength started to change.

I realized strength wasn’t pushing through when everything in me was asking for rest.

It wasn’t proving my worth by how much I could do on my own.

The strongest version of me is the person who knows when something no longer aligns and has the courage to walk away.

The person who uses her voice, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Who asks for support instead of believing she has to do everything alone.

Who trusts her intuition.

Who keeps showing up for herself after falling off track, instead of letting shame convince her she’s failed.

That’s the kind of strength that changed my life.

It changed the way I coach.

The way I love.

The way I run my business.

The way I care for my body.

The way I connect.

My fitness routine is one of the many places I learned that real strength isn’t just about how much you can lift.

It’s about how safe you feel to be yourself.

If something in you is craving this kind of strength, not just in your body, but in the way you move through your life, I want you to know it’s possible.

This is the work I do with my 1:1 clients.

Together, we help you rebuild a strong relationship with yourself so you can stop abandoning your needs, trust your intuition, and create a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.

If you’re ready to build this kind of relationship with yourself, DM me WORTHY. I’d love to share more with you 🤍

If you’ve been in that in-between space where part

If you’ve been in that in-between space where part of you is evolving, but another part still feels like it’s struggling to catch up, you’re not alone 💗

I used to think feeling confident in myself and worthy of the love I craved would come from changing my body.

When things felt off, or when I was tired, or when life didn’t go perfectly, the empowering thoughts and feelings about myself were suffocated by this harsh inner critic.

Even when things started to look like they were working on the outside (I was succeeding in school, eating healthier, finding the courage to leave my career path and start a business)... there was still this underlying feeling of not being good enough.

I thought it was because something was wrong with me, but now I know it wasn’t that at all.

It was about me not really trusting myself, not showing love to the parts that felt broken, and not feeling worthy of taking time for myself because it wasn’t “productive enough”.

What really helped me feel more confident & safe in my body was learning to treat myself with the same care I so freely poured into everyone else.

I started to show myself more compassion.

I learned to be more honest about how I was actually feeling.

I removed the pressures I was placing on myself that I would never expect from others.

And by practicing this regularly, I started to feel more grounded in my body. Which helped me make clearer decisions.

Over the past few years, I kept creating evidence that I could actually trust myself to come back to me, even when I felt disconnected.

Now, I feel at home in myself in a way I didn’t before.

Even through discomfort, uncertainty, and growth, there’s this underlying steadiness I didn’t used to have.

So if this is you, if you feel like there is a piece missing and you’re unsure what it is, you’re not alone. And, I have the perfect space to support you in.

@vegansquadcoaching is opening up a women’s only group to rebuild self-trust while you’re growing and becoming more authentically you, where you will receive support through it all in real time.

Comment TRUST and I’ll send you more details! 🤍

I’m so grateful to feel more like ME. Sustainable

I’m so grateful to feel more like ME.

Sustainable progress comes from working with all parts of ourselves instead of overriding our capacity.

Sometimes that looks like slowing down to speed up.

It’s bittersweet, but my body has made it clear this week that she’s done with this cutting phase.

And I’m so grateful not only to hear this message loud and clear so early on, but to have the self trust and respect to listen. 🙏

Of course it sucks to suddenly feel so many aches and pains seemingly all at once.

But I have no doubts that fueling my body more and prioritizing recovery is the best move right now.

And I’m incredibly thankful for everything this season has given me.

I’m stronger than ever, still hitting PRs across the board.

My relationship with food is healthier than it’s ever been.

I feel deeper belief in myself as a bodybuilder, coach, and leader.

This is the most confident and comfortable in my skin that I’ve felt in my life.

Most importantly, I trust myself and my path.

After one of the lowest periods of my life in 2025- high cortisol, chronic insomnia, no appetite, debilitating anxiety, needing to step back from training, weight gain, the trauma of a narcissistic discard, heartbreak..

I’m so unbelievably grateful for how far I’ve come in such a short period of time 🥺 it honestly makes me so emotional.

I know how deeply it can feel like those hard seasons will last forever. They won’t ❤️‍🩹

I’m excited to return to the stage when the time is right.

But even more than that, I’m excited for the journey that’s continuing to unfold right now 🤍

Huge shoutout and gratitude to my coach: @thebodybuildingvegan. Thank you for always seeing me, guiding me, pushing me, and helping me grow in all ways 🌱

When you have big dreams and goals, the logical wa

When you have big dreams and goals, the logical way to achieve them feels like more discipline.

For me, this looked like forcing my routine even when I was exhausted. Training on little sleep, restricting myself from enjoying food (until I’d fully rebel and go way overboard), and slowly losing the joy in most things.

It all looked like “consistency” from the outside, but internally it felt like pressure. Like, how long can I actually keep this up before I burn out or give up again?

I was constantly judging myself instead of actually trusting myself.

I realized that I was really good at discipline, but not at trusting myself.

So I started doing the uncomfortable work to shift that. Getting curious about where these patterns came from. Whose voice I was repeating in my own head when I was being hard on myself. Why I didn’t feel worthy of holding myself and the people I allowed into my life to higher standards.

Now, self-trust looks like being able to eat something like this, enjoy it, and not feel like I need to compensate or start over the next day. It looks like knowing when my body needs rest, and also knowing when I need to show up even if I don’t feel like it.

And most importantly, trusting my intuitive nudges about where my time and energy are actually meant to go.

I don’t feel the need to control everything anymore, because I actually trust myself to stay aligned.

And that’s what created real consistency for me.

If you’re moving through this too, I see you 🤍

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