Happy
Friday! The weekend is upon us and I
could not be happier about that! I hope
you have something fun planned for your weekend. Our weather is predicted to be dreadful with
freezing rain and snow which does not make for a fun weekend around here. The picture above was taken just about this time last year. Marylanders are true southerners when it
comes to driving in frozen precipitation they are dreadful. If you want to be safe around here it makes
the most sense to stay off the road. It
looks like we will be sticking close to home all weekend due to the
weather. I hope Mother Nature will be
treating you better this weekend. What
do you guys have planned for your weekend?
Yes I am asking because I want to live vicariously through your planned
adventures. ;-)
We have a
really productive January together haven’t we?
I am very pleased with all the work we had done so far and hope that you
are too. Have the exercises helped you
to get in touch with your feelings? For
those of you who are just joining us or here is the recap of what we have
accomplished so far to remind us all of how much we have covered during the first
19 days of January:
Day 1 –
Defined Success and What is/was Holding Us Back
Day 2 –
Determined our Purpose and Looked at PassionDay 3 – Listed Our Goals for January
Day 4 – Listed the Things We Have Needed to Work on for a While
Day 5 – Looked at Optimism vs. Pessimism and Fear vs. Intuition
Day 6 – Practiced Conscious Eating
Day 7 – Hara Hachi Bu
Day 8 – Taking the Stress Out of Meal Time
Day 9 – Acknowledgments
Day 10 – No Excuses, Do it Anyway
Day 11 – Is it True?
Day 12 – Have You Really Connected With Someone Today?
Day 13 – Motivation is a Decision
Day 14 - Successfully Navigating Dinner at an Unfamiliar Restaurant
Day 15 - What Do You Want, Have You Asked?
Day 16 – Treating Others as You Wish to be Treated
Day 17 – Food as a Budget
Day 18 – Silence Your Inner Critic
Day 19 – Replace I Have to With I Want to
·
When it is nice outside I go for a long walk/jog
in the morning. I always have my phone
with me and I stop to take pictures when I see something that I want to share
with you or Dan. Also I make it a point
to smile or say hello to everyone that I pass on the sidewalk.
·
If I am feeling down I turn on some quiet jazz
and sip tea while curled up in my favorite chair. When it is cold I find it
comforting to wrap up in my favorite throw while I sip the tea and listen to
music. This act of listening to music I
enjoy while having tea is very comforting to me.
·
I make time to stay up-to-date on what is
happening in health and nutrition. With
as rapidly as nutrition changes I think it is important to know what the
current wisdom is on the topic.
·
I connect with at least one friend each day
either by text, email, phone or in person.
This is something that I do because I believe that having good
relationships is important to our emotional and physical well being.
·
I try to eat a big salad each day. Most days I
make this happen but some days I don’t.
However I continue to try my best and remind myself that we all need to
eat more raw veggies especially the green leafy ones.
·
I made a big pot of soup at least once a week to
add to our meals for days. In the winter this is typically a bean soup because
those are very comforting, filling and IMO perfect cold weather food.
·
When I need a few things from the grocery store
I always walk there. This isn’t a
possibility for everyone but you can add variations of this to your day. However you could make it a habit to park as
far away from the store door as possible.
Alternately you can change things are work to get in more steps. Instead
of sending a colleague an email you could walk to their office to have a
conversation. You could even have a
walking meeting instead of sitting on your tush in the conference room. The
possibilities to add movement to your day are really endless.
·
When we are out of the house I look for the
stairs so that I can get in additional movement. This is difficult at first but you will be
surprised by how much activity you can add to your day with this simple ritual.
·
Our house has 4 stories and I will intentionally
make multiple trips up and down the steps. Instead of carrying everything at
one time I will grab one or two things knowing that it will mean more flights
of steps later in the day.
·
I got us a PO box at our local post office and
do go there by car to get the mail. This forces me to get additional steps in
during the day. All these little things
add up.
1.
As you go about your normal day identify your
rituals. Write them down in your journal.
You may need to do this on both a week day and weekend day as your
rituals may change.
2.
Look over your rituals which you listed in
item 1 above, are you happy with all of them?
Do they serve you or do they harm you?
If they are harmful now you have the ability to change them into healthy
rituals.
3.
Develop a list of healthy rituals you can use
to replace your unhealthy rituals.
4.
Work on one habit/ritual at a time and replace
it with the healthy alternatives that you developed in item 3 above. Don’t try to change too many things in your
life at one time. Concentrate on one (or
at most two) item at the time and once that habit has been replaced with a
healthy habit work on changing another unhealthy habit.
Progress on
my goals:
1.
Newsletters – Thursday was another productive
day for me which feels great. I love
being able to see the progress that I am making. *woo hoo*
2.
Body Bugg – I continue to wear my bugg and I
have gotten back into using the way I had intended when I purchased it. Go me!
J
3.
Date with Dan – The hubby and I have spent a lot
of time together this week. I am always
surprised that after more than 2 decades we never run out of things to talk
about.
4.
Measuring
calorie dense food – I have not been eating seeds and nuts again. I seem to
have a mental block with this, probably growing up the “low fat” era. However I will continue to work on this.
5.
Working on my business – I spent an hour on a
webinar yesterday and picked up a few more things to talk with you about. It still amazes me that there are always
things to learn.
I have been
very surprised by the firestorm of commentary about Paula Deen in the popular
press. I found the entire situation to
be infuriating but I did not expect most people would be as annoyed as I was by
it. However I was very surprised in a
good way to read that Time and the Washington Post were also critical of Paul
Deen. Maybe people in this country are
starting to wake up, at least I hope that is what happening. Two vegan medical doctors have also weighed
in on Paul Deen and I thought you might be curious to see what they have to say
on the topic. Follow the links here to
read what Dr. Greger and Dr. Barnard have to say about the situation.
·
It was good to get back to my daily morning
reading which was on hold during our Hopkins experience. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until
was able to do it again for a few days.
·
Being home more and eating my own cooking has
had a tremendous impact on my mood and my GI system. I didn’t realize how much things with me were
out of whack until they returned to normal. Even though I wasn’t eating
unhealthy during the hospital time by most people’s standards it was enough for
me to feel the difference. I am very
happy to be back to my healthy habits/rituals.
*woo hoo* I wish that all of you
could feel how I feel living this way.
If you could it might be enough to get you to try living like this for a
month. I believe you would be surprised
by how much of a difference this type of eating has on your body and your mood.
·
My Dan and Dan Jr. made plans to get together
for lunch on Friday. As much as I wanted to go with my Dan to lunch I decided
that he doesn’t really get much time to spend with Dan Jr. and that they need
boy time so that they can just hang out together and do whatever men do when
women aren’t there. I used the time by
myself to do some additional exercise and to work on the blog. It made me feel good to do that little thing
for my husband.
·
While Dan was out for lunch with Dan Jr. I
pulled out the pressure cooker and make a pot of split pea soup with
mushrooms. Given the freezing rain that
is predicted for Friday evening and Saturday I felt like a thick pot of split
pea soup would be wonderful to have in the refrigerator. Is there anything better than bean soup when
it is cold outside?
Thursday:
·
Dan’s temperature is still normal and he
continues to feel more like himself. It is wonderful that things are going well
enough that he will be heading back to work on Monday. I hate the idea of spending less time with him
but I am very happy that he is feeling that well.
·
We have discovered that a triple earl grey green
with fresh orange juice is something that we both enjoy.
·
Dan brought me home veggie sushi from the
restaurant today for lunch without my having to ask for it. I have a very sweet husband. J
·
I mentioned that I signed up for new training and
so far I am enjoying it. However it is very different from what I have done in the
past so it may take me a while to comprehend it completely. But since I like a good challenge this is something
that makes me happy.
·
While I am not looking forward to the wintery
mix that is heading our way I am happy that the refrigerator is full and that
we have homemade split pea soup on hand to keep us warm. Sometimes it is the little things in life
really do matter more than anything else.
·
The fur children have been enjoying time with
their father this week. I love to see them curl up with him in the family
room. It is so sweet to see how much they
love him; it just makes me melt to see them together. This morning I got up before
Dan and when I went to wake him up Massimo was snuggled up next to him as tight
as he could get. Our fur babies can be
very sweet. I am happy that they allowed
us to bring them home. You did realize
that the cats are in charge here right?
;-)
Hi Alicia,
ReplyDeleteI'm readind your blog for a long long time but never let a comment .
I'm French and living in Paris. Your blog is very inspiring to me even if I'm not vegan.
We share te same Italian roots as my grandmother was even if born in Tunisia. We love vegetables at our house and I'm cooking a lot with but as we are Jewish we canot be totaly vegetarians .
Very glad to see Dan is feeling better and hope you wil share good time together.
To make you feel better, we also have a rainy, grey and cold week end here in Paris.
Hello Eliza,
DeleteNice to meet you, and happy you decided to comment. I love hearing who is reading the blog and why. You are in good company being a "non-vegan" I have many readers who are which still fascinates me. I tell myself they are people like I was looking for information to improve their health. Is that why you read?
My father's father was Jewish as well so we have even more in common than the Italian side of the family. I am a huge fan of Jewish Italian cooking and love visiting Trastevere when in Rome. Would love to hear about some of your favorite recipes. :-)
Dan is feeling much better. He may have finally "caught up" on all the sleep his missed while in the hospital. ;-)
We woke up to snow this morning but not much. Our yard looks about like the picture I posted last night. Sorry to hear about your weather. But on the bright side at least we know it will pass.
Enjoy what is left of your Sunday,
Ali