I hope everyone is having a good week! I am super pumped because I stuck to my goals for the week and I am feeling great! I’m already seeing some initial results too: I am down 3 lbs this week! (likely just water weight from not eating out or drinking but I’ll take it 🙂 ).
Here is my progress against each of my goals I set for myself this week:
- I’ve been eating 1,500 calories per day focused on veggies & fewer carbs while keeping up my part time vegetarian lifestyle. We’ve made all of the meals that we planned out and stuck to eating those.
- I’ve gone on morning walks every single morning and it has been glorious! I seriously love morning walks. I don’t love when my alarm goes off because the hardest part is getting vertical (wise words from an old yoga teacher of mine). Once you are vertical things are a lot easier. I always remind myself to just get vertical, baby steps folks, even for something as simple as getting out of bed.
- I haven’t had any alcohol this week. This may seem like an easy thing for many but I was going with the “one glass of red wine a day is good for you” mentality. It became a habit of mine to sip a glass of wine after the kids go to bed. This week, I’ve replaced my wine sipping with golden milk sipping. Golden milk is used in ayurvedic medicine since it has a lot of antioxidants in it. I’ve been doing the “lazy girl” version of this recipe. I realize the recipe only says 5 minutes but that’s too much work for me at the end of the day. So instead of 5 minutes, I take 2 minutes to just warm up a glass of almond milk in the microwave and then sprinkle the spices in it and stir it up and done.
- I’ve done strength training 3x this week. My strength training is more focused on core strength training than anything. I’ve been working on holding plank for 60 seconds and then doing side planks as my main core building exercises. Additionally, I started doing arm strength exercises like push-ups but I am still trying to find a good routine for this.
As the weekend is approaching, I know that I won’t stick to 1,500 calories a day and no alcohol.
I was planning on being more relaxed on my goals over the weekend if we have plans, and we do! We have a kid free night tonight as my parents have graciously agreed to taking the girls overnight so that we can get a full night rest (my 20 month old still doesn’t sleep well) and clean our house. Being kid free though means that we will likely be going out to eat tonight and are already planning to meet a friend for brunch tomorrow and more friends at a brewery. Therefore, my 1,500 calories per day and no alcohol plan will obviously not work for those days!
One thing I’ve learned as I build a healthy lifestyle is that it doesn’t have to be “all or nothing.” So many people throw in the towel because they are tempted by something like a donut and just say “screw it, diet starts again Monday.” Know that those times will happen, and you just have to acknowledge it, and move forward. If you eat a donut, I hope it was amazing and you thoroughly enjoyed it! I also hope that you realize you have the strength to continue healthy eating after eating the donut. I’m 10 years into healthy eating and I still get tempted by the donuts (and eat them at times) and they are usually amazing! I know now that doesn’t mean I failed, it means I am human with the strength to get right back on track.
Enough about donuts (it’s making me want to eat a donut). In order to get ourselves back on track after eating out, we are planning a healthy meal at home on Saturday for dinner. I will also spend time doing meal prep on Sunday to set us up for success for another week.
Here are the meals I am planning for next week:
- Strawberry Quinoa Edamame Salad
- Grilled Salmon w/rice & quinoa (microwave packets) and green beans or asparagus (whichever looks better at the grocery store)
- Veggie burgers (I usually make them but I am just going to buy some this week) with grilled caesar salad
Usually I have more recipes to share but for next week, I am going the easy route. Besides the lunch meal, I am not really following any recipes. We are just grilling and going to get whatever veggies look good at the grocery store for sides. This is similar to our “summer way of eating” where we grill meat and eat whatever veggies are in season. No need to be fancy, just a need to be healthy.
Do you have near term goals are you working towards?
