Making lists and eating things

Happy Sunday!

Are you getting all of your fruits and vegetables in? My first goal for 2012 is to cook more and try to eat five servings of fruits and veggies each day. I've been doing pretty good, but I slacked a couple days this past week. One of the things I am trying to keep in mind as I move forward is that it's okay to not be perfect. Just because you drink a lot of champagne on New Year's and dive into a bowl of nachos (who would ever do that...), doesn't mean that you can't get up the next day and prepare good, healthy meals. Similarly, if I have a lazy day and don't eat anything fresh or green, it doesn't mean that I've failed.

Here are some things that are helping me:

• Making a list of the produce that I have on hand each week - I am horribly guilty of buying food and then forgetting about it until it already goes bad. I've started keeping a list on my magnetic dry-erase board that I have on my fridge. It helps me know what I still have to use and let's me plan out what to eat without staring endlessly into my fridge. 

The list of greatness

• Pre-chopped vegetables - I was so excited when I discovered that my grocery store opened a Veggie Market, where you can create your own package of washed and chopped vegetables. It may be a little more pricey, but it's worth it to me if it encourages me to buy and eat different things. It helps me to eat a wider variety of vegetables, because I can choose a little of everything instead of just buying a whole pepper or bag of carrots, for example. Also, I hate to say it, but I'm 10x more likely to eat the vegetables if they're already chopped and sitting in my fridge for me.

• Roasting vegetables - Hands down, my favorite way to prepare vegetables. I like to roast broccoli, brussel sprouts, and sweet potatoes the best. I just toss them in a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and then roast them on a baking pan at 400 degrees until they are nicely browned.

My roasted sweet potato fries with a cilantro/spinach soup that my mother made this week

• Eating fruit with breakfast - It's easy to sneak an apple or banana in with breakfast, and you start your day off feeling great. I like to put bananas in oatmeal or on an english muffin with peanut butter. I always consider buying berries to put on top of oatmeal or in smoothies, but they are expensive and out of season now. I do want to work on eating more fruits. Any suggestions?

• Adding salad to everything - Even if I'm just making a veggie burger for lunch, I try to squeeze in veggies and make it a bigger meal by adding a nice salad. It's ridiculously easy if you stay stocked up on produce, and even easier if you buy them pre-chopped or chop them as soon as you get home from the store.

Veggie burgers and salad = BFFs

So, those are some of things that have been helping me to stay on track with eating healthier. I've also been searching for some new recipes to try out, so stay tuned! I want to work on having a few good soup recipes that I can make on the weekend to eat during the week. I got a Crockpot for Christmas and haven't even used it yet - oh, the shame!

Next Sunday, I'll be talking about running and staying motivated with exercise.

Hope you have a great week!

Looking Ahead

Happy New Year and welcome to my blog! For some reason or another, you have stumbled upon this post and I hope that you consider checking back from time to time. 

The purpose of my blog is this: I have set five goals for myself for the coming year and I want to share them with you. They are things that are important to me and that I want to continue improving in my life. They are my goals, but I suspect that many people out there would like to focus more on them as well. I chose to make the goals into positive actions that I can take, instead of fixating any of the goals on the absence of negative things. I hope that this will be helpful and I look forward to checking in each week to gauge how I'm doing and share what I've learned along the way. I'm using the blog partly as motivation to keep focused, but I also thought it would be fun to write and share with people. So let's get started!

My Goals

1. Cook more meals at home and eat at least five servings of fruits/vegetables a day

I have made a lot of progress in the past few months, but it's still a struggle at times to cook and eat healthy meals. It's so much easier to eat out or just warm up something from a box, but I think that I can improve a lot with some foresight and planning. I'm hoping to share recipes, organization tips, and general musings about food.

2. Run more races and exercise at least three times a week

I have had a love-hate relationship with running for a few years now. Every summer, I would decide to "become a runner" and then a few weeks in, I would feel overwhelmingly out of shape and give up. About four months ago, I decided to try again... and I have actually stuck with it. I think this time I just accepted the fact that it was going to be really hard and that it was okay. I ran my first race on Thanksgiving 2011 with my boyfriend, sister, and brother-in-law, and it was a really great experience. I want to continue being active and although I'm not going to promise that I'll always run three times a week, I will say that I want to run more races in 2012. I'm planning to do another 8K with my family in March and I'm half-considering the Buffalo half-marathon right now. Best idea ever...or worst idea ever? Stay tuned!

3. Be a more budget-conscious shopper and put more money into savings

I had a big wake up call in 2011 in regards to my budget. For the first half of the year, I was driving my little 97 Ford Escort and living with two roommates. I had ridiculously low living expenses that afforded me the ability to buy just about whatever I wanted or needed all the time. Then my car gave out and I had to buy a new one. A few months later, I moved into my own apartment and learned quickly that buying furniture and paying all the bills wasn't that fun. At the end of the month, I would look at my debit card statements and be shocked at how much I spent on eating out, entertainment, or even just groceries. I was spending way too much on things that I could (and should) cut back on. I've been a lot more conscious of this the past two months and have taken a lot of steps to make wiser choices with my money. I'll be sharing the changes I made and will hopefully continue to make more.

4. Use more of my time to volunteer and learn about good work that is being done

Throughout high school and college, I felt like I was always volunteering. Then after I graduated college, I volunteered full-time through Americorps VISTA for a year. It was an exciting time and a time filled with a lot of hope and optimism. I was becoming something and working towards something. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I've found that I have become pretty settled into my work and home life and haven't invested too much time into giving back and connecting with my community. And I miss that feeling. I also miss the constant reminder that good work is being done in Buffalo and I want it back. I'm still a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters right and I'm going to continue doing that until my now-teenage little sister decides she's too cool for me, but I am also hoping to get involved with another organization. I'll keep you updated and reflect on what I find.

5. Explore and enjoy more of Buffalo (and the world)

I would love to say that 2012 will involve international travel, but that may not be in the stars for me (see Goal #3.) The good news is that you don't have to travel far at all to explore and learn new things. This year I'm hoping to check out awesome places that are in my backyard or maybe a short drive away. Whether it's a nearby city or a business that I pass by everyday, I'm hopeful that I will find great things.

Thanks for reading!

Gloria