One of my favorite pieces of advice about eating healthy that I've heard over and over again is to EAT YOUR COLORS! It's not just something our grandparents did for fun, there is a reason they have reached the age they are. I like it because it is a simple phrase to remember to help keep a balance while planning or ordering a meal. Look at the two images below.
If you were looking for a balanced diet that provided a variety of nutrients to fuel a very complex intermingled mass of muscle, nerve and organs would you pick the Google image results for fried food or the Google image result for vegetables?
Now I'm not saying we should make health decisions based off of Google image results but it is pretty cut and dry here.
I found some really entertaining articles on news websites about Mcdonald's attempt to warn its employees of essentially the exact picture posted above. In this article on December 24, 2013 last year a British News site started hounding Mcdonalds for its advice on its McResource Line, an informational website to help "you and your family solve many of life's issues." Their advice was 100% right but the irony was it was telling employees not to eat the product they were selling. Magically after this article surfaced, three days later on December 27 an Australian news website posted this article, stating that the website had been shut down temporarily for maintenance. How embarrassing.
I picked to give up fried foods for week 7 in an effort to continue changing over my food diet. For my goal this will include anything from french fries, chips or vegetables to deep fried mars bars. I'm going to stop there. No more soaking things in 400 degree tubs of oil and ingesting them. The hardest part of this goal will most likely be ordering at restaurants and the snack isle in the grocery store. I will end this post by writing a formal apology to all fish and chips meals that I will not be consuming for the rest of 2014. I am sorry but I still wish to uphold my English heritage and the Wakley family name.
The Outs thus far - Soda, Liquor, Walmart, Target, Malls, Fast food chains, Starbucks, Fried food
The Ins thus far - 67 ounces of water a day, 2 cups of tea a day, Minimum 1 trip per week to the Farmers Market
End of Week 7 Update
My seven lifestyle changes became very real this week. I've started to notice now how much more I will have to plan ahead, use my time wisely and use mental strength from week to week. I can only imagine how important these things will be later in the year.
Now I'm not saying we should make health decisions based off of Google image results but it is pretty cut and dry here.
I found some really entertaining articles on news websites about Mcdonald's attempt to warn its employees of essentially the exact picture posted above. In this article on December 24, 2013 last year a British News site started hounding Mcdonalds for its advice on its McResource Line, an informational website to help "you and your family solve many of life's issues." Their advice was 100% right but the irony was it was telling employees not to eat the product they were selling. Magically after this article surfaced, three days later on December 27 an Australian news website posted this article, stating that the website had been shut down temporarily for maintenance. How embarrassing.
I picked to give up fried foods for week 7 in an effort to continue changing over my food diet. For my goal this will include anything from french fries, chips or vegetables to deep fried mars bars. I'm going to stop there. No more soaking things in 400 degree tubs of oil and ingesting them. The hardest part of this goal will most likely be ordering at restaurants and the snack isle in the grocery store. I will end this post by writing a formal apology to all fish and chips meals that I will not be consuming for the rest of 2014. I am sorry but I still wish to uphold my English heritage and the Wakley family name.
The Outs thus far - Soda, Liquor, Walmart, Target, Malls, Fast food chains, Starbucks, Fried food
The Ins thus far - 67 ounces of water a day, 2 cups of tea a day, Minimum 1 trip per week to the Farmers Market
End of Week 7 Update
My seven lifestyle changes became very real this week. I've started to notice now how much more I will have to plan ahead, use my time wisely and use mental strength from week to week. I can only imagine how important these things will be later in the year.
My first hiccup this week was the MASSIVE snow storm. I stopped by the farmers market at 12:30 on Saturday, and no one was there. I can only imagine that with 18 inches of snow that many of the vendors could not make the trip and I can only imagine the extra amount of effort required to take care of animals in 18 inches of snow. So at this point I had a few choices. My goal was "to go to the farmers market once a week." I had made the effort and went so I didn't need to do anything else right? Something didn't feel right about that. The real incentive for the goal was to support the local community and our hard working neighbors. So I decided I would take a different approach. My second attempt was via email trying to contact one of the farms to see if they would be in Blacksburg this week or if I could come by and get some goods from them. I never got an email back. So I tried twice, isn't that enough?
Sure Food Lion is only a block away and that would be much easier. I still hadn't really achieved my goal though. I had one last thought that I would try to contact my friend Chris who I had seen working at the market and ask him if he knew of any way I could get some produce. He informed me that the farmers market actually had a store downtown as well. BINGO! I found even more than I was looking for. I picked up some tasty looking granola, eggs with colors you can't find in Kroger and some more sweet potatoes. After speaking with Maureen, the AmeriCorps representative running the store, I learned that it was open Tuesday through Saturday! So in the end my continuous efforts to accomplish my goal paid off in quite the unexpected way. Rather than having to make my trips to the market in a 4 hour time frame on Saturdays I now would have a backup option as well. After all it seems, goals are only as good as the efforts that we devote to them.
The fried food was a huge challenge to stay away from during this first week. Starting last Wednesday the big question at all my meals has been "do you think this is fried?". We even ended up listening to a small documentary on how rice crispy cereal is made just to make sure I could eat the rice crispy treats we made in the snow storm! I did slip up once and eat a Dorito at one point (just 2, actually), but the huge challenge came at work. Working in a restaurant from time to time a meal gets made incorrectly. Well it just happened to be one of my favorite items on the menu that was made incorrectly this week. I had to stare at it four times while contemplating how I could get the fried eggplant off of it before finally turning around and walking away in tears. Okay so not quite crying, but it was all but easy to turn down a free meal when I was ready for dinner. I suspect this to will get easier after a month, or will it?
Week 7 Totals
Soda - 0 ounces
Water - 23.23 Gallons
Liquor - 0 shots
Tea - 56 cups
Trips to bad places - 0
$ to support neighbors = 32.85
Fried food consumption - 2 dorito chips
The fried food was a huge challenge to stay away from during this first week. Starting last Wednesday the big question at all my meals has been "do you think this is fried?". We even ended up listening to a small documentary on how rice crispy cereal is made just to make sure I could eat the rice crispy treats we made in the snow storm! I did slip up once and eat a Dorito at one point (just 2, actually), but the huge challenge came at work. Working in a restaurant from time to time a meal gets made incorrectly. Well it just happened to be one of my favorite items on the menu that was made incorrectly this week. I had to stare at it four times while contemplating how I could get the fried eggplant off of it before finally turning around and walking away in tears. Okay so not quite crying, but it was all but easy to turn down a free meal when I was ready for dinner. I suspect this to will get easier after a month, or will it?
Week 7 Totals
Soda - 0 ounces
Water - 23.23 Gallons
Liquor - 0 shots
Tea - 56 cups
Trips to bad places - 0
$ to support neighbors = 32.85
Fried food consumption - 2 dorito chips