achieve optimum health

(and to give me a hug too).

But she was splendidly nice.

I’ll write more when I find my notes, but she was able to give me practical suggestions on how to incorporate more veggies and healthy grains into my diet, even while having very little money and dealing with braces (it’s very hard to eat solid food when my braces are tightened).

I’ve got plenty of ideas and have started putting them to use.

I’m also starting a general multivitamin.

And I’ve been walking every day (and the days that I can’t, I do double the next). Yay exercise.

Stir fries are amazing too. You can add all sorts of veggies, and then a source of protein (tofu, tempeh, some grain/pasta).

made an appointment with a nutritionist.

Let’s see what I can do to be more healthy…..

in the meantime i need to make a list of favorite foods
and a list of foods i generally eat in a day

have been walking every day after work….

and drinking watr all day while at work…

and making fruit (sometimes using soymilk) smoothies before and or after work. they’re so easy, especially with this super magic bullet blender.

i’ve been walking every day since moving back home. usually i recruit my mom to come along, and we walk around the block (which is almost 3 miles). it gives us a chance to talk (since i didn’t see her nearly as much while away at school) and an opp to get some exercise.

also have been consuming mass quantities of fruits and goodness. the parents got me a magic bullet as a graduation present and it makes blenderizing anything so so so easy, that i just can’t stop. and have been making all sorts of amazing drinks: coconut milk, frozen blueberries; frozen banana, almond milk, soy milk, cinnamon (and of course vanilla extract and sometimes some maple extract or agave or cocoa powder or flax seed oil); frozen strawberries/raspberries, soy milk; orange juice (either from blenderizing an orange or just store bought stuff), soy milk, unsweetened soy yogurt, vanilla extract, a tiny bit o’ sweetener and some ice (to create a jackie-friendly orange julius). when i do use sweetener, it’s not in the form of silly white sugar, and instead a milder more natural agave nectar/syrup (so that’s good). i can only see this magic bullet as being a help to my health-quest :)

alsooooo…. at the local organic health food store i picked up a lunch box (though not just any type of lunch box- this one is especially awesome, and i’ll probably blog more about it in my bemoregreen goal, so be on the lookout). this particular lunch box makes me excited about creating my lunch for work. i had been on the creators’ mailing list for the past few years, reading their blogs in envy- the women initially started the company when they were unimpressed with the lunches served at their kids’ schools and wanted to create healthy lunches for their children and be more environmentally friendly at the same time. today’s lunch (and i have a picture i’ll put up later) was enriched long grain rice (wish it was brown rice), soy chicken nuggets (a little bit too processed so i don’t usually eat them, but awesome on protein and made from soy), slices of fresh cucumber (pretty soon they’ll be up in the garden and they’ll be super fresh), and a blueberry muffin i had just made the night before (next batch i make will use flax, more whole wheat flour, and less sugar- but i had wanted to try my hand at veganizing an old family recipe). i have lots of healthy ideas that i want to try, so let’s see how long this ambition will last- hopefully long enough to transcend into actual action and get everything pretty healthy.

today i was cold at work and had a cup of coffee. i don’t like black coffee, so i put some white sugar in it to offset that a little. the sugar really bothered my teeth and i didn’t like it (good thing, though, i’m coming off my dependence on that sugar). had a few cups of water after that. water=good.

Walked for a few hours a couple days in the past week. Not for exercise- doing work- but I don’t mind getting two things done at once :)

the weather’s been perfect. mostly walking “accidentally” or hm, or as a byproduct of what i’m already doing. on sunday my friend and i had to survey people so we walked all around worcester for an hour or two.

been drinking more water.

must go out to the grocery store though, all out of food.
soon it’ll be much easier to eat healthy- when all the local fresh foods come into season! yum!

got up at 5:30 yesterday to go for a 2.5 mile walk with some friends. the air at that hour is wonderfulwonderfulwonderful. maybe i’ll start doing this regularly (of course, i had to take a nap later on)

also, took part in the relay for life last night with a friend, where we walked straight for 2 hours.

guess i got my exercise in yesterday, eh? (maybe i should invest in a good pair of sneakers?)

lotsa berries and citrus fruits

and pizza dough made from whole wheat flour and flax seed- yes!

Fruit intake is amazingly excellent. With fresh strawberries, blueberries, clementines, and bananas. Woo.

(Now to work on greens intake a little).

I’ve also gotten over my hesitations with soy yogurt. It’s ultra healthy. Well, mostly healthy. And I had some the other day with a little almond milk and some berries <3

Also, nuts are excellent. Seeds too. My cupboard has plenty- pecans, cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds.

Exercise has been good- maybe a little too intensive though? Maybe that 70 mile bike ride to Boston should have been coupled with training and stretching- but still, moderate exercise is good. And playing ping pong for an hour today with the guys was good too. It’s full contact ping pong.

It had been bothering me for a long time
and so today I decided to make a change.

Salad dressings. Look at the nutritional facts on the back. The ingredients. They’re full of unhealthy garbage, and half of the ingredients, heck I don’ even know what they are! And, ick, monosodium glutamate. Unnecessary.

So I made a lovely salad of romaine lettuce and some organic sprouts.

And created some salad dressing.

Using organic extra virgin olive oil, sesame seed oil, apple cider vinegar, a speck of lemon juice, organic sea salt, grated pepper, garlic salt, onion powder, dried basil, and dried oregano. (Usually I have no time to make salad dressings, but this time I had no thyme). And whisked the ingredients together.

It was tasty.

Though next time I’ll put less oil and more vinegar and maybe a few more spices.

It’s kind of exciting to make salad dressing right before you eat the salad. That way I can customize it based on what I feel like. I mean, I do that when I make fruit smoothies, so why not with salads.

This way, there are no preservatives and excess silly ingredients. I can choose the healthier ingredients and not feel bad about eating salads because of the unhealthiness of the dress.