Acheivable Goals
Change is hard. And I’m learning it takes patience, forgiveness, and a lot of planning.
Things like, the time it takes to actually plan out meals for a week, shop for them, and cook them, are tough to predict. I was up past midnight on Sunday between my crockpot chicken tikka masala, overnight jarred oats, and mandolin vegetables. And that includes giving up on making the salad dressing as 12:30 AM and agreeing to just eat hummus and chips for lunch on Monday.
BUT to be fair, my roommates did challenge me to a few rounds of 10s and 2s that I could not decline.
My weakness is my will power. For as empathetic as I may be, the person that is easiest to understand excuses for is myself. So I skipped lunch for 3 days before actually making the salad dressing on Thursday night. But, turns out the salad was really great.
1 tsp Sesame oil
1 tsp lime zest
Juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp Rice Vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 inch fresh ground ginger
1 clove crushed garlic
salt and pepperShake violently in a jar until creamy and delicious.
Toss with: “Zen greens”, thinly sliced carrots, radishes, cucumber, chopped cilantro, and bean sprouts.
The good news
Overnight Oats and Chicken Masala are filling enough to eat 3 days in a row, skip lunch, and not think about it. And the extra 20 dollars I spent on groceries for healthy snacks (apples, pita chips with hummus, red peppers, rice chex and bananas) all went to good use.
Still, I wanted to talk this week about weakness. If I am great at planning things, listing things, preparing things… my biggest weakness, much like my maligned jump shot, is the follow through. I flake on plans, I give up on goals, I buy the food to make something but let it spoil in the fridge, I work from home because it is too cold to go to work. This year is about changing these things, but it has been tough to keep to the long list of goals I set for myself.
Did I drink 2.2 liters of water a day?
Not even close. One day I drank 3 bottles of water (about 1.5 liters), but unless we are counting herbal tea (with a bit of honey), my water intake has been about .85 liters a day. That water bottle I joked about, I don’t have it. So now I am going to buy one. I’m going to actively train myself to drink water.
Did I drink anything on the do-not-drink list?
Yes, I had 2 beers on Friday night. But this was under the exceptions. I watched games with friends at Buffalo Wild Wings and enjoyed a assortment of wings and $3 apps. My meal out card played, drinking in a social context, and limited to just a couple, along with a healthy amount of water.
Did I make dinner all week?
Yes (‘cept Friday wings).
Did I make breakfast all week?
Yes.
Limit coffee?
Yes. (BTW, 12 oz is like really small.)
2 cups steel cut oats (make sure they are not the 3 minute kind)
1 cup dried apricots
pinch salt
4 cups water
5 mason jarscombine in a pot, bring to boil, simmer 5 minutes, pour into jar, cap’em and leave out overnight.
in the morning: refrigerate for the week. add a swig of skim milk, and microwave at work for a few minutes.
optional: sprinkle in a nut. (would not recommend the chore of shelling salted pistachios because it makes it too salty, but walnuts not bad.)
source: the kitchn
So the other goals that I didn’t get to on my long list for January?
- Sleep. Going to try to get it this week. 8 hours. Bed by 10, up by 6. Let’s see if I can use rest as a way to get this stuff done.
- Health. Make the appointments for doctors, primary, vision, dental. sigh.
- Stress. And this one is the tough one. I got to stop worrying myself about doing things and then beating myself up when I don’t do them fully.
This week’s menu:
- more oats
- roast-chicken, poached egg, wilted tomato and spinach polenta bowl
- turkey taco salad
Until then, keep the votive candles glowing and pray I get a bit stronger in week 2.
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