My friend Tamsin likes to do challenges on her blog, like not wearing jeans for a month or going to bed on time, or going for walks every week. I was reading a post on Feminist Mormon Housewives (yeah, that's a thing I guess) about how being a stay-at-home parent doesn't have any adrenaline-rushed deadlines, so it's easy to let things go. I think little goals are a pretty good antidote for that. I've been doing some goal-like things lately; here they are!
Eat more vegetarian meals
I started this one two weeks ago and it hasn't been too difficult as long as I plan the meals ahead of time and have a recipe. I made African peanut stew, Hoisin noodle salad, black bean soup, curried chickpeas and spinach, and quinoa chili. Most of those links go to Budget Bytes, which is probably my favorite food blog so far. The meals are delicious, not too demanding, and each entry has a printer-friendly short-form version of the recipe, as well as step-by-step photos. I think I want at least half of my weekly dinners to be vegetarian, like 3-4/week. I love meat but I need to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to "eat meat sparingly."
Exercise for 20 minutes every day
I was doing pretty well on this for a while; I was reading while doing a little light exercise on our elliptical every morning before breakfast. I got out of the habit last week, and my back hurts a lot. I think my abdominal muscles are probably still weak from giving birth, so I want to do this workout three times a week until it's easier to go for longer walks while carrying Piper.
Go for one week without eating cold cereal for breakfast
I love cold cereal, so maybe I just want to torture myself? Lately I've been trying to challenge my ideas about what breakfast should be. It seems like a lot of breakfasts are just starchy dessert, which while delicious doesn't have a lot of nutrients (I'm looking at you, waffles and pancakes). Yesterday I had a fried egg on toast and this morning I had a spinach-cheese omelet... but I still had some oatmeal and brown sugar on the side. Maybe I'll experiment with some other hot cereals and having more fruit with my breakfasts. Plus, cereal is pretty expensive for what it is, and part of me feels like paying so much for processed corn is stupid. I'm not really sure how to have a protein-heavy breakfast without sausage, bacon, or eggs though.
Don't look at Facebook in the afternoon
At the beginning of the year, I made a resolution to not look at Facebook in bed, because it was procrastinating my sleeping pointlessly. I'm doing pretty well on that. Sometimes I get in a weird cycle of feeling a little bored and just zoning out on Facebook on my laptop though. I like that Facebook helps me feel connected, but I want to do other things in my day, so I think I'm going to say no Faceebook from 12:00-5pm.
Feel free to ask about how my goals are going! Also please let me know your favorite vegetarian or breakfast recipes/ideas.
3 comments:
Oatmeal with some kind of nut (or legume? :P) will give it more protein, and you can put tons of fruit into oatmeal. You can also put nutella into oatmeal, but that may be counter your other goals... it is pretty tasty. :)
Those are great goals!
thanks! For some reason raw nuts sometimes give me a stomachache, but toasted are fine and I love them. I read that some people put almond or peanut butter in their oatmeal to bulk it up a little, so I might try that.
I wonder if oatmeal could be savory... ?
Mmmm, peanut butter sounds good. It can definitely be savory! In China I remember eating really savory oatmeal-like food but I can't remember what exactly it was. It was definitely some grain with like squash and stuff. I don't know, you should look into it though, I'm sure there is something.
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