So I was kind of a bad this week. Ok, make that pretty bad. Friday night I made plans with my friends to go to dinner and to see Moonrise Kingdom. I knew that I would be drinking and misbehaving, but I was hoping it wouldn't be too bad.

We went to dinner at a new place downtown, Kurdis Mediterranean Grill, where I had a chicken schwarama pita on whole wheat, some dill fries (which I didn't eat much of as they weren't crispy in the least bit!), some falafel, and a PBR.

The pita was delicious and I definitely plan on going back to Kurdis again. They have a lot of menu options there that I could make healthy. Plus, I have to walk about a mile to get there, so that helps too!

After we eat, we went to The Hub, a dive bar next to the Tampa Theatre, to grab a pre-show drink. I had a tequila soda lime. Then one of my friends decided to buy a fifth of rum to sneak into the movie, so ended up sipping that a few times. After the movie we went back to The Hub where I had another tequila soda lime and another PBR. We ended up back at my place after where a friend and I finish off a bottle of Riesling. 

I woke up Saturday morning feeling terrible! I don't really think I drank THAT much, but I haven't been drinking that much lately and I have been on my new healthy kick, so that alcohol must have destroyed me!

One of my friends stayed the night, and I went with her to find her car that she had parked downtown somewhere the night before. We walked by Eddie & Sam's New York Pizza and she offered to  buy me lunch and in the state I was in, cheesy pizza sounded like it would hit the spot. Of course I forgot to take a picture, but I got a slice of Greek pizza (spinach, feta, kalamata olives) and a garlic knot. We ended up walking all over downtown because she couldn't remember where her car was, so I'm hoping I walked/sweat some of that off.

I stayed home the rest of the day yesterday which usually leads to constant snacking, but I was good and mostly snacked on fruit. I ended up making some black beans and rice with turkey sausage in it and nibble on that through out the day too.

I woke up this morning to find I hadn't gained any weight from the weekend, but had lost .5 pounds, so I was happy about that! Today I am going to make sure I get some of the nutrition I have been lacking the past few days, maybe with a juice and a veggie-loaded salad.

Catching Up

So to anyone reading this, I thought I'd do a brief introductory post and explain some things.

First off, I am a HORRIBLE blogger, meaning that I cannot blog regularly to save my life. I'm saying this now so that if I do get any regular readers, if posts stop for a few days, it's not because I died, it's because I am a total space case and forgot/couldn't find the time/was too lazy. Yeah, I said it. I get lazy. Also, you may notice that the first three posts have the same date. That is because they were posts on my person blog, but I decided to make a new blog for my journey on the road to getting healthy. I want to try really hard to document what I am eating each day, so there may be posts that have several days worth of food on them. Hey, one mash-up post is better than none!

Now, on to me and my reasoning behind all of this. Hi! My name is Lindsay, I'm 27, and I live in wonderful downtown Tampa, Florida. I have tried pretty much every diet and weight-loss technique under the sun, yet I  have never be able to find harmony and satisfaction with my body. I want to be able to feel confident and happy with myself, but I also want to feel good, by which I mean healthy. So I have decided to try to change my eating habits and take more care with deciding what to put into my body, which includes juicing, eliminating junk food, and reducing my sodium, sugar, and dairy intake. I want to change the way I eat and think about food, not put myself on a diet. I know this may be a very gradual progress, but I obviously didn't get any permanent results from quick-fixes, so I may as well give this a shot!

I am going to try to keep this blog as health and food-centric as possible, but there may be posts from time to time about things going on in my life, or outfit posts as I love fashion and want to document any body transformations that take place.

Now on to the food! I didn't get a chance to posts yesterday's meals, but it was pretty much more of the same. For now keeping things routine seems to be the easiest for me.

I had my blueberry oatmeal, a salad with mixed greens, carrots, chickpeas, a packet of tuna and light honey dijon dressing, and some plain hummus with baby carrots. I also brought a Clementine for a snack, but never ate it (it's still sitting here on my desk, staring at me.)

My morning juice was kale, spinach, carrots, pear, cherries, and green tea. It was pretty good, but eventually turned brown! Yuck! I'm thinking it was the pears that did it.....

Yesterday I went with a bunch of my coworkers to Kona for a going-away party, and I told myself that I was going to be really good, not eat, and only have one sugar-free drink. So I ordered myself a double tequila soda lime, sipped is slowly and thought maybe I could behave and call it a night after just one. But then my boss said that everyone could get one more round and he was covering it, so I decided to order a margarita and sort of kicked myself for not getting some sushi since it was free! I also ended up having a shot of Jager before I left.

I was kind of buzzed when I got home so of course I had the drunken munchies and wanted to eat junk, but I settled on French onion soup. (Plus, I don't have any junk food to eat, good job, Lindsay!)

I slept in a but this morning so I didn't have time to make a juice. I did have some green tea and half a Lara bar though. My breakfast was the same, but I was pretty proud of the lunch I managed to throw together. I steamed a bag of broccoli, slice and cooked up some turkey kielbasa, and mixed that with some left over whole wheat rotini and some oil. Looks good to me!

My boss gave me a sample packet of Sensa, so I think I might try this with my lunch today!

I actually forgot that work was buying us lunch from Jimmy John's today, so I think I might just order a sandwich from there and save it for dinner tonight or this weekend. I don't want to turn down free food, but I'm kind of looking forward to today's lunch!

Broccoli Blunder

Day 3! Still going strong! I want to note that I haven't lost as much weight as I though I would have so far. I know three days isn't long, but I tend to lose weight pretty fast when I actually try to do something about it. And considering the fact that I was eating pretty badly last week, I thought maybe this change in diet might show its affects sooner. But at the same time I'm  not really countering calories or letting myself go hungry like I normally do when trying to lose, so it may just be a very gradual process, which I can definitely deal with if it means that I develop healthy eating habits for life.

On to the food! I'm going to start with last night's dinner. I have been meaning to take dinner pics, but the past few nights I had been eating this French onion soup that I made in the crockpot and it just didn't seem exciting enough to take a picture of. Plus there was cheese involved and even though I don't want to lie to myself here, I didn't want to post pictures of delicious, broiled cheese. Mmmmm...... Anyway, I decided to try to switch things up last night and make something easy buy seemingly healthy. I ended up making some whole wheat rotini pasta and tossing it with some fresh spinach that I sauteed in some olive oil, garlic, and some random spices. I topped it with some chicken break that I marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and dill and then cooking on a pan on the stove.

It was pretty good, but was lacking something...sauce. I am a sauce girl but was trying to avoid throwing some alfredo into the mix and ruining my day, so I mixed some plain, non-fat Greek yogurt with some dill, garlic and onion powder and mixed it into my bowl of pasta. I have to admit this kind of creeped me out because I felt like the hot pasta + cold yogurt was going to do some weird crazy science thing and get clumpy or something, but it was fine!

I need to work on dinner ideas and recipes. I want to figure out things that are filling and satisfying, but still healthy.

On to today! This morning's juice was kale, broccoli, berries, banana, mango, ginger, and coconut water. Definitely wasn't the best I have made so far, the broccoli kind of over powered the whole thing so I just had to chug it down. I will have to save broccoli for when/if I ever make an all-veggie juice.

Breakfast was the same oatmeal/agave/blueberries deal. I seriously cannot get enough of this! I want to try to figure out some way to bake them into bars or something because it'd make an awesome snack or dessert.

Mango Madness

Consecutive posts! I'm on a freaking roll!

Today got off to a much better start than yesterday (my phoned turned itself off at some point Sunday night, so it wasn't on for my alarms to go off Monday morning) so I was up around 6:20. My ultimate goal is to get up at 5:30 or 6 so I can have a full 30 minutes to an hour to do abso-freakingl-utely nothing besides watch the news and drink my tea and juice. I managed to sit down and drink and watch for about 10 minutes today, but that was mostly because today's juice took forever to make due to the fact that mangoes are assholes and are impossibly to cut up! I'm am going to need to Google mango-cutting tips!

Today's juice was kale, mango, banana, berries, and coconut water and it was really good! I probably should have thrown another vegetable into the mix, but I was afraid of making too much. I need to get my portions figured out because right now I am just throwing things into the blender and improvising. And juicing is not cheap, so I don't want to have any leftovers.

Today's breakfast, lunch, and snack is identical to yesterday's. I wasn't planning on even taking a picture of it since it was going to be the same, but I couldn't slack already on my second day of photo documenting what I eat!

So there's my oatmeal with agave and blueberries, mixed greens salad with carrots, chick peas, tuna cake, a broiled tomato, and honey dijon dressing, and hummus and carrots.

I am also trying to incorporate more green tea into my diet, so so far today I have had two cups of green tea with white mangosteen and peach flavor. Ok, really only one and a half cups because I knocked half of one all over my desk at work because I am awesome. 

I know it has only been two days so far, but is it weird to say that I am already starting to feel better? My food intake recently has not included many fruits and veggies (seriously, I was pretty much living off of black beans and rice, pretzels, hummus, and cereal) and I feel like the nutrition or whatever is already getting too me! I had/have energy yesterday and today and the work day didn't feel like it was dragging on yesterday. It's little things like that, but that's where I am trying to get my life. I don't want to feel like every day is a burden that I am waiting to pass. I want to be able to appreciate each day, even if I am at work for most of it!

I feel like this change in my diet is just the beginning of things that I want to do for myself. I want to find the energy/will power to be more active both physically and socially. And I can do this!

Starting Fresh

Apple, banana, kale, and ginger juice

So, I have finally decided to try and get my health in check. Weight loss is always a major goal for myself, but I tend to go to extremes with it by either hardly eating anything, or eating like crazy. I can never find middle ground. I have lost 30ish pounds so far this year, but the momentum has definitely plateaued. I need to find something that works for me that I can adopt as a lifestyle versus simply a diet.

This weekend I decided to do some research into my current issues that  plague me, the most serious one being my chronic fatigue. I am seriously always tired/low energy. I don't drink coffee, or much caffeine for that matter, but I do swear by 5 Hour Energy. Based on what I read, it seems like one of my main issues could be an over production of candida, which is a bacteria that lives in our stomachs and intestines. But over-growth of it is caused by high sugar consumption and it has many symptoms, including fatigue, skin problems, and acid reflux which are all major problems for me.

Long story short, I have decided to try to cut out sugar, sodium, and dairy from my diet. The sodium is because my doctor told me I had high sodium levels and need to cut back, which makes sense because I am definitely more into salty foods than sweets. (But I eat a lot of carbs which turn into sugar, which is obviously the candida problem.) As for the dairy, I have heard for awhile, mostly from vegans, that eliminating dairy from their diets helped a lot with skin and digestive issues. So I figured why not try it out?

So my new "lifestyle" is cutting back on sodium, trying to eliminate as much sugar as possible, avoiding dairy as much as possible (I LOVE YOU, CHEESE!), switching to whole wheat and grains versus white flour, and jucing! Yay juicing! I love that I feel like I'm making a witch's potion when I make a juice, because I just throw a bunch of stuff in and hope for the best! In order to try and hold myself accountable, I am going to start taking pictures of everything I eat/prepare. I don't want to eat anything that I'll be ashamed to post and this will also help me keep track of what I am eating.

So without further ado, today's food! Hurray!

Oh, for the record, I plan on starting my days out with tea and a juice at home in the morning. Then I am going to be bringing breakfast, lunch, and a snack to work with me and trying to eat every three hours.

Today's juice was spinach, carrots, apple, cherry with water added. Could have been a tad bit sweeter, but not bad.

For breakfast I brought steel cut oats that I made yesterday using half water and half almond milk. I topped it with agave syrup and blueberries. It was freaking delicious!

For lunch I made a salad with mixed greens, carrots, garbanzo beans, some broiled tomatoes (on the left) and a tuna cake with corn. Yay left overs! I brought a little container of honey dijon dressing for it.

For a snack I brought some plain hummus with carrots, pretzels, and veggie crisps for dipping. Now that I typed that I am craving my snack! DAMN YOU stomach!!

Allie brought me in some vegan chocolate zucchini bread that she made this weekend and it is AMAZING! You would never know it isn't straight- up chocolate bread/cake. 

I am going to attempt to be good and not eat any of it (aside from the small taste-test bite I took) until I get home. 

So that is my plan! Fingers crossed that I can stick with it, but also that it does make a difference in both my health and quality of life!