Define "Nutritious," and Make It Include Bacon

Basically how I understand nutrition

This year, one of my goals is to eat healthier. Sounds easy, right? Especially since I never set the parameters, so it’s not like I have to eat a certain number of calories per day or cut out all fatty foods.

But I am finding it EXTREMELY challenging. To really get the depth of my struggle, you need to understand two things.

First, you need to know my typical eating habits. I believe I’ve mentioned before that I don’t actually believe in calories, and I do not follow any sort of healthy eating habits. I fully enjoy the eating process (again, Taurus here) so I eat things I like. What do I like? Bacon, cheese, meat, bread, and sweets.

When I like something, I want to eat it over and over and over and over again. And that’s all I want to eat. So a typical day of eating?

What I consider a balanced meal (balanced in deliciousness!)

Let’s see, if it’s a weekend I normally like to have bacon for breakfast. There was an unfortunate year where I was eating a full pound every time, but now I’ve been doing much better by limiting myself to only a half pound of bacon at once, and instead of eating it twice a weekend I’ll only have it one day (baby steps). So that’s breakfast. If I’m still hungry I’ll normally have some fried potatoes, or maybe eggs.

Later for lunch, I’ll go with one of my typical favorites of beef ramen. Now, prior to the ramen I won’t be very hungry because of all the bacon. There’s one thing you should really know in life though: food is a gateway food. Eating the ramen will make me want more food, so I’ll then have a snack of about 1/3 bag of buffalo pretzel bites.

Finally for dinner I’ll go with something simple such as boneless buffalo chicken, bacon cheese fries, chicken pot pie, or bacon quiche. Delicious. If I get hungry again later (which is very likely), I’ll eat a giant bowl of whatever ice cream I’m craving at the time.

So you may have already realized this, but EVERYTHING I eat is unhealthy. How have I managed to survive for years? Well as I’ve said before my metabolism is fabulous and still not dead. Plus, I have completely ignored all facts related to healthy eating. I’m sure I’ve heard things over the years like what one should eat and avoid, but I am super good at not wasting memory space with what I consider “irrelevant” information.

When I made one of my goals this year to eat healthier, I knew I would need to actually investigate and find out what that meant. I’m still not concerned about calories (I still don’t think they’re real). What I’m concerned about is not giving myself a heart attack at age 30 like everyone in my family has always expected.

But I’m busy, and lazy. Thus I haven’t done the research yet. Which means I’m just guessing what I think is or is not healthy.

You’d think I’d know, right? Well you’ve never heard me justify how the freaking delicious large white cheddar mac & cheese at Panera hits all my nutrition needs.

My first issue was at a pub in the Denver airport, trying to find dinner. I was searching the menu for something healthy, having recently been told that cheese is apparently not ideal for cholesterol or arteries or something (since when?!) I felt like fish is supposed to be good for you, so I went with that. Did I mention though it was fish & chips? Apparently once something is fried it loses all nutritional value.

Since it was now clear my own judgment was useless in this arena, I started bugging friends. We had almost a 10 minute discussion ordering lunch this week as I kept asking about the healthiness of various options like garlic bread and Italian fries. This process was so discouraging to me that for dinner I gave up and had potato skins, buffalo chicken, and boneless honey-chipotle wings.

Then at lunch two awesome friends tried to talk me through what type of food I might want to start including in my diet. This was a great discussion. We determined I could start making smoothies as a way to eat fruit. Brilliant! I need to go get a blender now, but I think this will really work.

Even better, at dinner Thursday night two other friends explained step by step things like “avoiding transfat” and “reading food labels.” They gave tons more suggestions on what to eat, and how to make the food more delicious.

This is especially helpful, because honestly most of the time I don’t eat because I’m hungry, I eat because I like the food. So when I have something in front of me that I don’t love, I struggle to eat it even when I’m legitimately hungry.

Like cheerios, but cuter

I’m very lucky that everyone else in the world paid attention to the health rules of life. Hopefully they stay patient with me until I get motivated enough to do my own research.

In the meantime, I did FABULOUS yesterday. I had whole hearts cereal for breakfast, a monkey bar, a frozen veggie pack thing for lunch, peanut butter crackers, and strawberry yogurt. Look at all that healthy food! All in one day! It’s a miracle.

This is madness. THIS IS CHRISTMAS!

My favorite of our pose series (none of which were normal)

My family is a bit different. It should thus be no surprise that we do the holidays our own special way.

Typically we spend the designated day (never actual Christmas. It used to always be Christmas Eve but now is normally the Sunday before Christmas) together - eating, drinking, and at the end of the night doing Steal-a-Gift. Gifts are wrapped up, people are given numbers, and on your turn you can either steal a gift from someone else or open one from the middle.

Last year, things got a little more exciting. My brother suggested that in order to determine who got best choice of the Steal-a-Gift numbers, we turn the day into a competition between two teams. I think most of my relatives were hesitant at first, but we gave it a shot. My brother, my cousins, and I made up the game committee responsible for selecting the games and rules for the day. My brother led the games for the day and everything went remarkably well until he broke his ankle playing walleyball. We stuck him in a chair and I took over.

Somehow this translated into me being in charge of the games this year as well. Actually this was probably more the result of my obsessive need to plan and organize. Every time my brother asked what he needed to do I told him “don’t worry about it.”

While our games last year were fun enough, they were randomly selected and poorly organized. I was determined that this would not happen again.

To start, about midyear I sent my family a survey. I had them review what they liked and disliked about the games, provide suggestions, and rate their favorites from last year. I used this information to update the games for the day and change the points the games were worth based on a combination of skill and interest. I tracked this information on a spreadsheet which also listed the games and points from the previous year.

Then I assigned tasks to various family members. Who had to bring what, who needed to select the teams… I also made a change to how teams were recognized. The previous year we had the team assignments before arriving and you had to wear your team’s color, either red or green. This year I determined we would have Team Elf and Team Reindeer, and provided festive hats for both teams. My grandfather got a Santa hat as he is the default impartial judge. This way we didn’t need an exact number of attendees ahead of time. While my father and I set up lunch, my brother randomly selected the teams and handed out the hats. There were some quick switches. The elf hat didn’t fit my dad’s big head so we traded him for my uncle. Then after lunch, I announced the games and schedule.

Hard at work puzzling

Some games were open for people to work on all day. Those were games like the Sudoku puzzles, and the gingerbread village decorating. There was also a puzzle for each team to put together. While they could technically work on it all day, only the team that completed it first received the points.

 

 Now as I mentioned some games were worth more points than others. However, I neglected to tell everyone else the point values. It became necessary at points to choose what to focus on. Who would finish the puzzle? Who was going to play walleyball? How many people would be left to work on the gingerbread village? I thought it would be interesting to see how they prioritized the games without knowing the points. While I was on Team Elf, I let others decide who was doing what without any input (besides saying I wouldn’t be playing walleyball. I loathe volleyball like you wouldn’t believe). The rest of my team went to play walleyball. When they got back and realized Team Reindeer had created the most amazing gingerbread village ever, the rest of the team decided to abandon any attempt at points. My poor cousin Ian was the only one that set ours up.

CHUG!

After walleyball we had a few games that were at set intervals. Teams choose their representatives for these games. There was a corn hole toss and a chugging contest. While my team ended up winning the chug as both team members had to finish in order to win, my uncle Jim surprised us all with his chugging abilities. My mother did poorly. The best part of this game? I didn’t tell anyone what they were chugging when they had to volunteer, just that it wasn’t alcoholic. It ended up being a combination of mountain dew and red Gatorade (red & green!) While I was totally amused, and the onlookers enjoyed it, I’m pretty sure all of the participants are going to vote against the chug on the next survey.

The last game for the night was a team Name That Tune. Keeping with the holiday theme we did Christmas music, and they only had to guess the artist. This was a new game for the year and I think the most popular. Also the scariest. I’m glad the teams were sitting separately. It may have turned violent.

Team Reindeer sits defeated.

In the end, Team Elf won for the day and got the better gift numbers. I was reelected as Game Commissioner, something that I want included on my epitaph. The family was entertained and still had a chance to reconnect with those of us spread across the world. It might not be the normal holiday celebration, but it’s some of the most fun I have all year!

Goals and Rules

Welcome to 2013! I’m feeling pretty good about this year so far. For one thing I’m up and moving, which typically isn’t the case on New Year’s Day.  For another I have chicken soup on the stove and it smells delicious.

Anyway, this is the time of year when we reflect on the past and plan for the future. Now last year instead of making resolutions I just made some general goals for the year. This year, I’m taking that one step further. I’m going to have my goals, and also have some rules. Kind of the dos and don’ts for 2013. Most of my goals are actually going to be some variations on last year’s, so let’s start with a recap!

Goal 1 LY (last year): Write one page a week.

The nice thing about the way I interpreted this goal was that averaging was acceptable. Thus if I wrote 4 pages one day I could really count it for the whole month. I stuck to it pretty well too until last month. However, I think I need to amp it up this year.

Goal 1 TY (this year, duh, keep up with me here): Write two blog posts a month, finish second part of fanfiction story, and write ONE ORIGINAL STORY BY THE END OF THE YEAR.

That last part is the most important. The whole idea of writing whatever last year was to ease back into writing fiction. I’m not going to put any restrictions on how long this original story will be, but by god I will write something, even if it’s short.

Goal 2 LY:  Work out eight times a month.

Totally nailed this one! I really counted it more as jazzercising at least eight times a month, which I still managed to do. So to make it more challenging…

Goal 2 TY: Work out ten times a month and make Club Jazzercise by November 1st.

Club Jazzercise is for when you get 150 jazzercise classes in a year. I am very much on the verge for last year. I’ll find out tomorrow if I made it or I was one off. I am freaking determined to make it this year. You get a shirt and everything. Plus the mad street cred. Now if you know any sort of math you’ll realize that going to jazzercise only 10 times a month won’t get me to Club Jazzercise. This is taking into consideration the busy months when I don’t have as much time between traveling to make it to class. I plan to go far more often than that.

Goal 3 LY: Cook more new recipes.

This was rather a crappy goal as I didn’t really define it well. What’s “more?” One? Two? I did decent at it the beginning of the year. I also started baking bread which was new for me.

Goal 3 TY: Cook home more often instead of eating out all the time or making frozen food.

I was doing SO good cooking for myself at first last year and then got lazy. Now again, this is very open to interpretation but that’s because with my crazy schedule I don’t want to say something like “cook three times a week” and then stress because I’m not home to do so. Goals should be something to work towards, not something to freak over. This also ties in nicely with my brand new goal:

Goal 4: Eat healthier.

This goal is not yet fleshed out as I need to do some research. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I don’t believe in calories. I still don’t, and calories have nothing to do with this goal so I can’t just look for low cal options.

My family has joked for years that I’m going to die at 30, and that age is inching ever closer. I want to LIVE.  Apparently everything I eat is bad for your cholesterol & heart. My family also doesn’t have the best record with healthy hearts. I don’t want to completely change my diet, but I figure a few small tweaks might keep me alive a bit longer.

So those are the goals for the year. Now for the rules. I’ve actually had great success with rules before. I like having order in my life. I’m also stubborn about sticking to things, so rules work excellently for me. A lot of times I’ll also set up consequences for when I don’t follow the rules. I’m not quite that motivated this year.

Rule 1: Only three unnecessary purchases for myself are allowed per month.

Clearly groceries and house stuff are considered necessary. I never include books in any kind of budgeting rules, and I consider them necessary for my sanity anyway. This is more things like clothes, movies (buying to own, going to the movies is an activity and doesn’t count), and random mini objects.

Rule 2: DO NOT book bad hotels.

I already know I’m going to struggle with this one, but it’s necessary. Since when I travel the client has to cover the charges, I am in the habit of staying at cheaper hotels. Generally this works well. After multiple bad experiences though I am determined to step it up a notch and stay more consistently at hotels with better reviews even if they cost like $30 more a night.

So those are the plans for the year! Here’s hoping for a great year for everyone with lots of fun, happiness, and free t-shirts.