Hi Friends! I'm back in action! Woo hoo!
As of September 3rd of this year, I stopped eating land animal flesh. By definition, I am now a 'pescitarian'. A pescitarian is one who eats grains, veggies, fruit, fish, with optional usage of dairy products. I doubt I will be having loads of fish in my diet, as you really aren't to take in more than a couple servings a week due to mercury levels, etc. I won't bore you with my reasons, but thusfar I am happy to have made this change. Will this be a change that I can or will want to maintain for a long period of time? I really don't know. I'm going to go day-by-day and see how I feel.
My first 10 days I still wasn't eating meals prepared at home, so I found myself at my favorite fast food jaunts attempting to construct veggie-friendly meals from their menus. This really isn't the most fun thing to do, which in the end is good as I really don't want fast food to be the staple of my daily nutritional intake! In my short time as a pescitarian, I have noticed something about the way that I am choosing my meals which excites me. I have to think out of the box! I went to a pizza joint with my friend Annette a few days ago and thought to myself....what will I get on my pizza? I always opted for pepperoni and garlic and/or onions. But, since pepperoni isn't on the list anymore, I had to really examine my choices. I ended up with a pizza topped with fontina cheese, ricotta, onion, garlic, and EGGPLANT! Yes, eggplant and it was nummy!
Figuring out what to eat as a pescitarian is pretty hard for me right now. I've got books that I've been reading in my free time along with The Bestlife online meal planner to learn about how to construct my meals. I really want to make sure that I get the right balance of nutrients to be a healthy happy lady! It's so odd for me to see grain as the centerpiece around which I will build my meals instead of a meat product. I'm going to continue reading though and learning. Funny thing is...if I look back at the way I have been eating...I KNOW I wasn't getting proper nutrition then, so any change for the positive is good even if I will have to do some tweaking as I go.
I went to the store this evening and bought food to eat this next week. Sample meals include:
Breakfast: 2 veggie sausage links, 10 raspberries, 4 silver dollar pancakes with syrup, and a cup of milk [I ate this today and yesterday. It was good. I have learned though, be careful when heating faux meats. Overheating leads to hard spots and that's kind of gross]
Lunch: Black bean & avocado wrap with romaine lettuce and salsa & an orange on the side [still need to buy the salsa as Trader Joes was out of my fav salsa this evening]
OR Open-faced wheat toast, with reduced fat peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich with an orange
Dinner: Asparagus risoto with veggie burger and vegetable on side.
Snacks: Greek yogurt with nuts. [I still need to flesh out the snack options.]
I have a couple other options for the week, but I plan on several repeats just to get used to making some of these meals and making sure I use the food I bought instead of letting any go to waste. On the list as well is weaning off the soda. I purchased little 12oz bottles of Pepsi. Goal is to drink only one of them daily and start to wean off as I tend to drink much larger quantities of soda on a regular basis.
Along with the eats, I have a meeting with a personal trainer on Monday. He's going to give me a workout I can do for the next month [since I've been at my gym for 6 months I got a free training session]. I'm looking forward to seeing what he's got in mind. I'm excited and hopeful that I can make this happen, make physical activity the important part of my daily life that it should be. AND make preparing healthy meals at home a standard way of life.
I'm hoping I can also start waking up at a reasonable time so I can actually enjoy breakfast here at home instead of scrambling to get some fast food junk on my way to work.
Sounds like a lot of changes to make at once doesn't it?? I've heard that small changes one at a time are easier to sustain. I figure though, so what if I make an attempt at several changes at once? If I end up keeping a few and having to work at the others down the road, I'm still an improved person for it! Wish me luck!!!
Goodnight Friends! :-D
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