I like taking pictures of food I cook/eat. I sometimes draw, paint and craft things for people I love. I live with a man who just so happens to be the love of my life, so it's pretty convenient.
My current priorities are to be healthy, save money for a bigger home and get back to creating things.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Are your shorts supposed to ride up your thighs when you run?
Or maybe my thighs are too meaty?
When I had an obsessed focus on health and fitness in the cold fall/winter of 2011, I wore sweatpants to jog/run every night and never encountered this awkward problem. But I’m really happy to be back on the grind. I’ve been eating much cleaner and have started back on my 2-3 mile nightly routine. When I had last been physically fit, I was doing 4-6 miles per night, so call this baby steps for the time being. I had fallen off the wagon last year in April due to life/physical complications, and just stopped trying to live a healthy lifestyle (ironically.) Big mistake. But I feel very determined right now to better myself and relive all the happiness I had felt from treating my body the way I should. I have been at it for about 3 weeks now, and I’m already feeling/seeing changes in my body and my food cravings. My biggest goal right now is to eliminate processed foods from my diet. The biggest challenge I’m facing in that aspect is SNACK FOODS. Chips, veggie straws, pretzels thins, chocolates bars.. I have to stay away all together or else I’ll never stop wanting them.
As lazy as I can be, I have slowly and happily reinserted exercise as a part of my daily routine. It’s really nice to have that alone time, when I get to enjoy my guilty pleasures on my iPod, like Eminem and Immortal Technique. And yeah, I still use an iPod because I don’t know how to listen to music on my Android phone. I just don’t.
I’m turning 27 this year, and I want to feel my best at that age.
Okay, and I want a reason to treat myself to new clothes and tattoos, too.
The first thing I do when I arrive at work everyday is to make myself a cup of green tea. It’s become an unshakable ritual over the past 9 months. Sometimes I make another cup in the afternoon as well. I absolutely love it. How do you not love something that tastes great, reduces the risk of cancer, fights heart disease, burns fat, lowers bad cholesterol, increases metabolism, and just makes you feel damn relaxed? My drug of choice is The Republic of Tea’s organic Double Green Matcha Tea. The less processed & fermented, the better! With the exception of water and the occasional alcoholic beverage, green tea is the only thing I swallow ;)
BBQ Shrimp Salad
Shrimp, baby corn, avocado, organic spring mix, drops of bruschetta vinaigrette, sweet & spicy BBQ sauce (for cooking shrimp & baby corn)
Perfect almost-summer salad.
Went on a 2.1mi walk/jog this morning. Not impressive, but a start is a start! Haven’t jogged in months, so I’m easing back into it. Let’s keep each other motivated!
My work snacks for the day: strawberries, seedless green grapes, a small Dole banana and a testicle.
Strawberries are magical, aren’t they? They’re so yummy and so good* for you that it almost seems like a scam. (*High in vitamin C, fiber, polyphenol antioxidants)
A HUGE part of becoming healthy and shedding excess body fat is planning & preparing meals and snacks ahead of time. You will never regret taking an extra 6 minutes out of your day to wash and cut fruits to bring to work/school the next day. It’s simple logic. When you have healthy foods on hand, you eat healthy. When you don’t (and especially if you’re busy & always on the go,) you tend to go for savory quick fixes to satiate your appetite. Instead, go into a grocery store and pick up an apple and banana! You’ll save money, too.
I recently purchased:
2lb strawberries @ $1.45/lb (Wal-Mart)
1.14lb green grapes @ $1.25/lb (Wal-Mart)
6 kiwis for $1 (Smart & Final)
7 small Dole bananas for $1 (99 Cents Store)
Total of only $6.33 for DAYS of snacks.
Enough is enough.
No more slipping back to my unhealthy, counterproductive ways. In recent weeks, in between all the healthy meals, there have been greasy pizzas, 3AM doughnuts, potato chips, more frequent restaurant outings, processed foods galore. I’ve found myself giving in to mashed potatoes or fries, when I used to opt for steamed vegetables. It’s as if my sense of awareness has been on airplane-mode for the past month or 2. I need to regain control. I believe in indulging, but not this excessively. Despite all this, I will never, ever deny how fucking delicious that pizza was.
Today’s work lunch: Fresh & Easy’s maple pork tenderloin with broccolini & mashed sweet yams
290 calories, 300mg sodium, 2.5g saturated fat, 19g sugars, 6g dietary fiber, 22g protein, 450% vitamin A, 80% vitamin C, 10% calcium, 15% iron
No added artificial preservatives, flavors, colors.
Marked down from $4.79 to $1.20, which gave me a damn good excuse to not cook my own meal. Very filling and tasty :)
Wake-up call
Hopped on the scale this morning for the first time in weeks, and much to my surprise, I’d lost another 3lbs. Roll your eyes if you feel so inclined, but this is a bad sign for me. I haven’t been exercising regularly nor have I been eating properly everyday (like I used to before the boyfriend moved in.) I’m 99% sure that I’ve lost muscle mass. I’m beyond disappointed in myself. I used to go jogging/walking 5-6 days a week. Now it’s 0-1. Having my boyfriend around is not a valid excuse. He’s more than willing to go with me. He’s also been out of town since yesterday morning, and I took a sick day today, so have I gone out to exercise at all during this time? Nope. And I can make all the “busy holiday errands” excuses I want, but the bottom line is, YOU MAKE TIME FOR WHAT IS IMPORTANT. If my goal was weight loss, then this would’ve been a cause for celebration. I’d rather trade in the 3lb-loss for nutrition & fitness.
Garlic spinach, wee bit of seaweed, 2 dumplings, blurry broiled chicken
Force-fed myself dinner even though I wasn’t hungry, now that I know the importance of proper meal times and portions. Before, I would’ve just eaten nothing, then justified it later with something awful(ly delicious) from the drive-thru when I did get hungry. Whole new ball game now.
Thanks for putting up with my constant posts about healthy eating. This is a way for me to keep myself accountable. It also gives me motivation to continue trying out new recipes. I hope to have shown that one can be healthy on a tight budget. While I know my posts may incite some eye rolls and rapid scrolling, I’ve also received a lot of feedback from friends saying that they feel inspired to eat healthier and cook their own food. I honestly didn’t expect that at all, and I’m happy to hear it every time. I don’t take it as a pat on the back, but more as hope that others will also see the same mental & physical benefits that my lifestyle change has generated so far in just a little over a month.
