If you remember way back to my first week of starting my blog, I wrote about my two new year resolutions:
- Eat vegetarian for 4 lunch and/or dinner meals per week (with the goal of losing leftover baby weight and reducing my environmental impact).
- Build a consistent daily meditation and yoga practice (for fitness and mindfulness).
I also wrote that only 8% of people follow through with their resolutions….well I am one of those 8% for one of them and the 92% for the other one. Can you guess which is which?
Update on eating more vegetarian
I am still eating about half vegetarian meals. This is now a mainstay in my meal planning; we eat vegetarian for lunches and then one other vegetarian meal for a dinner with enough for leftovers another night. I found that eating by more vegetarian, I am definitely feeling lighter and not as weighed down from meat. This doesn’t mean that my weight has necessarily gone down though. However, by eating vegetarian I am eating a little bit more “carbs”. But that’s OK because I am focusing on whole grain carbs with whole wheat bread from our local bakery, whole wheat pastas (homemade), quinoa, and brown rice. Here are some of my favorite vegetarian recipes that we’ve been eating so far:
- Root Vegetable Power Bowl with Garlic Tahini Sauce
- Vegan Mushroom Bourguignon
- Sweet Potato Curry
- Lentil Mushroom Meatloaf
I need to find more recipes!
Some weeks I struggle to find new and interesting vegetarian recipes. I find most of them are similar types of curry meals, Mexican dishes and bean burgers. All of those things are good but I can’t live on that alone. I am also missing my old “easy meals” of grilling or baking a meat with a veggie side or two. My favorite go-to is probably baked salmon with a side of quinoa/wild rice blend instant pack for the microwave with salad (i.e. lettuce + balsamic vinaigrette). I am trying to find the “vegetarian version” of this type of meal.
How about daily meditation and yoga?
For my other new year resolution of yoga and meditation everyday….I totally failed. Like most new year resolutions, I started out strong. I would wake up early each day and go to my yoga space in our basement and do a yoga practice and meditate for about 5 minutes. I struggled with this though because my youngest daughter wasn’t sleeping well so she would wake up early and was not happy about it. I’m talking about whining/crying on and off for her first hour of being awake. This time coincided with my yoga & meditation time. Which meant that it was rather difficult to concentrate on my practice because our house isn’t that big so I could hear everything.
So I slowly stopped doing it. I have been instead still going to yoga classes at a studio a few times a week and then practicing at home when the mood strikes me. This could be in the AM while my 20 month old is sitting eating Cheerios or it could be in the evening after the kids go to bed. As for meditation, does it count if you take a few breaths in your car at the end of the day before you go into traffic and pick up your kids? If so, then I meditate every day 🙂 .
Keeping things in perspective
Assuming deep breaths in the car don’t count, then I am still trying to figure out how to incorporate meditation more into my life. I have a hard time sitting and clearing my head, which is probably why I need to meditate more than ever. I have a few breathing techniques that are helping me get into the meditation state but I haven’t dedicated myself to it yet. But for meditation, I am still practicing more than I had previously. So although I failed my specific resolution, I’ve succeeded since I’m meditating more than I ever had previously. That’s a win for me!
Rewind back 10 years and every year my resolution would be to lose weight. On Monday I would skip breakfast, eat a salad for lunch and a plain chicken breast with steamed broccoli for dinner. By Thursday I would get a pizza by Tuesday because I wasn’t really dedicated to my goal (not to mention I was totally starving). So I’ve made progress. As we continue to make baby steps toward living a healthy family life, it is always humbling to remember how far we’ve come. Even though I technically failed with one of my resolutions, I still ended up in a slightly better spot and have come a long way.
How are you doing on your new year’s resolutions?
