8Things - Improved Eating

As the trip to Greece looms closer and closer, and the weather is getting warmer and warmer, I'm reminded that I'm still in the same place that I was in the beginning of the year.  That is, I haven't lost a single pound.

If anything, I might have gained a couple of pounds, though I am staying positive and saying that it's just muscle weight.  I have received a lot of compliments in the past couple of months about whether I'm losing weight, but I think I'm just learning how to dress better for my body type.

That being said, here are my 8Things for improving my eating habits.

1.  More water!  I mean, c'mon.  What kind of mermaid am I if I'm not guzzling water all the time?  I've actually noticed that I'm drinking less water, for some reason.  AND, I know that it makes me snack more.  Maybe I will move back to carrying my BIG water bottle instead of my little portable one.

2.  More veggies!  I've been saying this forever.  Again, in the past several months, I feel like my veggie intake has gone through ups and downs.  I was really good about salad for lunch for 2 weeks, then I had a whole day of eating chili (ya...umm....it was really good chili...and my belly wasn't too angry at me for it!).   I really like Rachelle's idea about eating 2 all-veggie meals a week.  I might try to go for the same, and more if at all possible

3.  More variety!  So, not only do I need to up my veggie intake, I think I need to vary the types of foods I'm eating.  I've gotten interested in exploring quinoa recently, but I've yet to make something with it.  Time to look through all the recipe's I've collected from magazines, websites, and books.

4.  Less eating really late!  I'm a busy girl.  My extremely considerate boyfriend, who does most of the cooking, will sometimes plan it so that we can eat together.  Sometimes, that means that we eat close to 9pm.  That's bad.  I know that's bad.  It means I stay up later, usually, as well as storing a lot more fat.  Bad bad bad.  I know this.  I know that sometimes it can't be helped, let's say if I had a belly dance class at 6-7:30, and I get home at around 8:30.  But we've already started talking about it, and we're both going to try to make an effort at this.

5.  More juicing!  The other day, I woke up and felt like I really wanted to juice some fruits.  I haven't juiced anything in a long time, and my poor juicer looked it.  But it felt really good to have that fruit juice, though I really wanted some greens and ginger in the mix.  I think I would like to start my weekends with juice.  I'm generally pretty good about having breakfast during the week, though it's mainly bagels or cereal.  On the weekend, I wake up later and usually just have brunch (seriously, last Saturday, my 3 meals were of chili....no regrets...).  But, if I have juice in the morning, I feel like I might do better about my choices during the day.

6.  Finish "The Omnivore's Dilemma"!  I'm currently in my non-fiction book reading phase.  But I haven't necessarily had time to read for recreational purposes.  Though I felt like I knew quite a bit about healthy and ethical eating just from things I've read and talking to my ethical-eating friends, reading the book is bring a whole new level of consciousness to me.  I don't know if it will make me go completely local, organic, or grass-fed, but I will definitely try.  It could be a good experiment to find substitutes for Filipino meals.

7.  Try really hard to stay local, organic, and grass-fed...but recognize when I have to make exceptions1  Philippine Dried Mango?  Well, shoot.  I'm not going to give that up.  I know that everything can't fit nicely into all of those categories.  But if I can at least stay within one of them, I think I'll feel pretty good about myself.

8.  Just say no!  Or, well, I don't have to say no.  The problem is that I'm a very social creature.  And when I get social, I get snacky.  I need to be better about balancing my social nature with not eating while chatting.  I often grab lunch with another social worker in the school.  We chit chat, talk about nerdy things and our kittehs.  But sometimes, I go out to lunch even though I already have something packed!  Then I just feel like I'm wasting food, even though I'll eat whatever I packed later on in the day.  It's not a good feeling.  So, I need to be okay with saying no, or just bring my packed lunch with me (the little cafe we go to usually doesn't care).

I really like these lists.  It helps me put everything into perspective and keeps me on some sort of track.

Ya..that's a sausage.Wurstküche Restaurant, Los Angeles, CA
February 2010