Challenge #19 January 2013, Simply Satiating

Kale chips, brown rice, and poached egg - yum!

 I will eat only unprocessed food this month, now that sounds simple enough...

“Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

-Michael Pollan

Rombutan and papaya, a tropical breakfast of champions

Background and a Definition

So it’s January – that month when 92.7% (or some such ridiculously high percentage) of us make all those virtuous New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, get fitter, healthier, etc etc, etc - sound familiar?  I know I definitely overindulged in holiday eats last month, and unfortunately found that five pounds I had lost a while ago, darn.  Sooooooo I decided to enter the health nut fray with this month’s challenge and not eat processed food - it’s hard!  And can be somewhat inconvenient…

How do you define “unprocessed?”  I did a bunch of pondering and googling on this over the first week, and came up with a definition - very similar to the one I found here - that made sense for me:  Avoiding food that has ingredients (especially if it is more than one) that I don’t recognize, and sound like a chemical or artificial – mostly any food that could not be simply made without additives or prepared in a home kitchen.  That excluded a lot of items (like many types of packaged crackers/cookies, frozen meals, veggie burgers, protein bars, salad dressings, etc were out but enough other staples remained on my edible list (like some cheeses, wine, pasta, peanut butter, etc).  It was effective for my purposes – simplifying and cutting out the artificial ingredients.

How It Went

The main thing I noticed was I became a kind of obsessive label reader, even more than usual, which is pretty thorough as a vegetarian always wary of sneaky meaty additives.  The process opened my eyes even more to how many common foods – even those labeled “natural” and “healthy” – have stuff I didn’t recognize like soy lecithin, calcium chloride, disodium inosinate, and other not-so-real sounding substances added.  I definitely ate more fresh fruits and vegetables (it was just easier, no label reading required), and I appreciated their unique flavors even more than usual.  This just required more thoughtfulness and preparation overall, which was fine when I had time, but challenging on some days when other priorities prevailed, duh.   I also added a few new healthy additives into my diet like Spirulina and Brewers Yeast - both of which I have no clue if they have made me healthier overall, but if I am going with the placebo effect, I did feel very healthy this month – no nasty flu or cold, unlike many folks I know.

Anyone can make salad dressing, fennel seeds help.

Highlights and a Lowlight

I got into this habit of taking more time to shop and prepare meals by the third week, and I think it will stick around for a while – it is worth it and my skin looks better, and I definitely lost a few pounds.  In a nutshell, a few of the main events:  

      

      Making Salad Dressing. Almost nothing beats topping a delicious freshly prepared salad with your own dressing.  I used our newly acquired (thanks Mom for the Christmas present!)  mortar and pestle a few times to muddle fennel, spices, mustard, olive oil and balsamic vinegar into something awesomely flavorful.

       Plant Based Diet education.  Speaking of salads, check out this excellent video on and how eating this way can improve (and maybe save) your life – really impressive as Dr. Greger both chock full of science AND entertaining. Although not focused on unprocessed food, it’s totally appropriate for this month.  Your body will thank you, even just for watching, I promise. 

Dried Fruits & Nuts.  My go-to snacks (and occasional meal replacement) were these morsels of sweet and hearty.  Satisfying and flavorful – all kinds of fruits and nuts in interesting combinations are a no brainer if you want to add more unprocessed foods into your diet.  P.S. Dried apricots without the sulfite preservative may look a bit sketchy, but they definitely taste better! 

Homemade almond joy easy-ness

Homemade Almond Joy.  I took five simple on-hand ingredients; shredded coconut, agave (instead of honey), toasted almonds, coconut oil, and unsweetened cocoa powder and created these treats.  Easy, delicious and NO; corn syrup, emulsifier, lactose, sulfur dioxide, sodium metabisulfite, or any other fake stuff like in their namesake. 

And this unprocessed concept was definitely Easier at Home.  The last five days of the month I was traveling, and it is so much harder to maintain these goals when out and about in a group, but I tried and mostly succeeded, except for the occasional errant protein bar, flour tortilla, or  packaged pasta randomness.

In Conclusion 
Time.  That’s what so many of these monthly challenges are about really – setting aside the time to focus and keeping it at the top of the priority list, along with everything else that must happen to get through the day, every single day.  So DISCIPLINE is one of my New Years Resolution words for 2013,  staying focused on the task at hand, one meal at a time this month.  And how about you – how was your January?  Any healthy resolutions?

CHALLENGE #18 RETAIL REBUFFED

'Tis the season for delicious excess...

I will try not to spend any money, on anything (did you notice the emphasis on try?).

“Don't tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I'll tell you what they are.”   -James W. Frick

Background

I have been thinking about trying this for a while, and want to thank Leo for the nudge I needed to choose the most consumption focused season to focus on it – the month when people BUY MORE STUFF and so many companies are urging us to BUY EVEN MORE, for others and ourselves!    So why am I fighting it?   I basically wanted to become more conscious overall about what and how I spend, and this was a serious way to address this issue.  Although I have been fairly frugal in the past few years and set up a monthly budget here that I stick to for the most part, I still find myself occasionally making purchases I obviously don’t need, and sometimes regret - sound familiar?  Especially during the holidays when temptation lurks around every corner…

How it went

I planned ahead.  I stocked up on household groceries (including several frozen items), filled up the gas tank, and bought some Christmas gifts, stamps for holiday cards, and made a donation to one of my favorite charities.  November 30 was quite the shopapalooza day, including lunch with a friend.  I spent the big bucks, and it was exhausting.  By that night I was eager to get started and give the credit cards a well deserved rest for the month. 

My rules were simple:  Try not to spend any new money (cash, check, or plastic) on anything.  Recurring necessary expenses that were already set up for auto-pay, like cell phone, Netflix, etc were exempt.  This was pretty unrealistic as I discovered and I ended up allowing myself a $100 emergency fund for new purchases.  Generally I resisted temptation – especially the holiday shopping special emails, which were instantly deleted from my inbox before even reading them.  I noticed more of them than ever this year – it seemed every company I had ever bought anything from online was trying to entice me back into their customer fold.  I also avoided physical stores even more than usual.  What was difficult was going to a charity event the first week of the month where raffle tickets were sold and not buying one.  And not chipping in at the monthly dinner with friends (I am going to cover next month instead).  And no occasional splurging - like lunch, or a new shirt, or anything else just because I think “I deserve it.”

Cool FREE Stuff

Yay for free parking (after meter hours) in the City of Angels!

Not shopping freed up some time in my schedule, and I took the time to appreciate all the freebies, like:

·      Walks on the beach - cliché yes, but so much better than a walk through the mall, and less risky too

·      Connecting with friends and family in person, just sharing stories and spending time together

·      Online book recordings and streaming TV shows (I only watch a few of the good ones, really)

·      Parking in downtown Los Angeles – I hunted for a (metered during the day) spot at night, and actually found one

·      Holiday cookies – they were everywhere this month, and alas I took full advantage!

The Downfalls

Although this experiment was mostly a success, I did exceed over my $100 limit a bit:  I spent $50 on an early entry to a running race next year and saved over 30% by doing so, $20 each on gas and groceries, and $15 on a Groupon to one of my favorite local restaurants (splurge weak moment on Christmas eve).  A few other small purchases included $1.95 for a domain name (a screaming deal!) for my upcoming website, and a few more dollars to send a holiday package to a friend in Italy, a few dollars for a tip on a gift card meal, and a few quarters to a friend for her parking meter for a total of  $122.73.

A Shout Out to our Major Sponsor

A few friends helped me along the way in various situations this month which I sincerely appreciated, and I have to especially thank my other half for his patience and extra help with the household groceries, as well as expenses during our travels to visit family for Christmas - I couldn’t have done it without you!

Overall I found it hardest to resist the truly useful bargains, but easy to resist so much else.  And each of the purchases I did make were thoughtful and conscious, which I intend to carry forward.  How about you - want to try something like this?  What's your motivation, and your rules?

P.S.  I did accomplish the 30 hours of working on my new website task leftover from last month - including (finally) deciding on and buying the domain name.  I had some excellent help and will be moving forward and launching this project in the new year, so stay tuned...

CHALLENGE #17 WEBSITE WANTING

I will work on my new (currently in incubator stage) dive-travel-fun website for 30 hours.

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." 

 - Jacques Yves Cousteau

How it went (or rather didn't) 

Remember when I didn’t quite finish the first meditation month, and had to extend it to the next month?  Well, that happened again.  I didn’t have the time.  I didn’t make the time.  I had a lot of work to accomplish.  I didn’t make it a top priority as I should have, etc, etc, excuses o’plenty.  I realistically only worked on it seriously about four hours, making minimal headway.   BUT I did actually GO diving (yay!), and led another great trip of REEF dive volunteers counting fish in the British Virgin Islands, check out the photos.

I mainly simply had a case of trepidation trying to figure out exactly where to start.  The dream board above was done in October, to summarize in a visual nutshell what I want to accomplish with this website that has been floating around in my head for the past four months or so…I want to share the wonder and fun and beauty of diving (and all of the great places to do it) and create an engaging community for sharing these experiences, but I just didn’t seem to have the head space available to get going.  So, here I am at the end of the month with not much to report (are you still reading? thanks!), but serious intentions of getting a lot more done in December, and meeting this thirty hour total goal.  I have started a list of action items to accomplish, I have cleared out time on my calendar each week for working on it, and I actually hired a web strategy consultant (who I am really excited about working with) to help me. 

Oh, and yes I am also doing another challenge for December – it is about NOT doing something rather than doing something, so it shouldn’t take any time at all.  I will report back on this as well at the end of the month.

P.S. If you are here because you clicked through via LACOT or (the generous and thoughtful) Jennifer Miner from the Vacation Gals - thanks for stopping by!  I hope to meet you at the Passports with Purpose event in downtown L.A.  Or to see you around the internet 'hood otherwise sometime soon.

P.P. S. Happy Holidays and all that jazz - I am truly grateful for so much this season, I hope you are as well.