A tryst with my health

I have now realized that to do anything especially to change something that is existing I need a lot of energy, motivation, love, fun, attention, buzz around it!!!!!

I am overweight.
Am not so healthy.
My eating habits suck.

OH boy the worst of it, I know what I have to do, and I don't do it day after day
I attempt once and retrofit my action by eating double junk
But the beauty is I never give up.
I try new things, new tactics every day.
And I become my own enemy and I also create counter productive actions

I have understood myself and this aging process
No workarounds are going to help me -- face it head on

Today is my third day with my new health plan and I have stuck to it
And I need to write, so that I can keep writing until I complete this journey

I have very simple rules
-No dairy products of any sort (for a curd rice fanatic this is the worst nightmare)
-No refined sugar (coffee and tea taste so bad with soy milk and jaggery)
-No white rice (what will i eat??)

20th feb

The first week of eating healthy was easy, since it was new and the mind felt very powerful
The second week was when the battle began
Mind vs Body
Cravings vs Control

The mind did not give into cravings
But the mind wanted to be diverted
So there was over indulgence in "what could be eaten"

Today there is energy
Mind will learn, and practice
And it will prevail
:-)

And it did a little (A pat on my back!)

After two weeks of hunkering down to the Blizzard of 2010 I ventured to COSTCO today
Boy, everyone was restocking! or were we practicing the same frantic shopping that we did
the Thursday before the Snowmaggedon kicked in?
Because I am staying away from Sugar and Dairy, shopping in COSTCO was quite easy
What was not so easy was to say 'Nah' over and over again to the samples!
Be it yogurt, tacos, dips, granolas etc etc
I sampled French baguette with Olive oil!!!

Next stop.. The Indian GROCERY STORE---
Not a good move
It is lunch time
I have an angry growling stomach trying to make me
feel guilty for all the samples I just left behind in COSTCO
and an Indian store is the last place I should be stepping into

But I made it out without much damage

8th feb

Day has begun well -- nothing like the gift of working from home :)
A tasteful delight of soy coffee, banana and two slices of fruit bread
(I finally read the ingredients and this contains traces of sugar - so this is also out!)

7th feb

Two cups of soy chai and a banana to kickin the shoveling mood
Soy coffee with honey after shoveling with some veggie s.wiches
(hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes, avacado, garam masalalala) and grapes
Back to snow shoveling for neighbors and then test the neighborhood roads
Dinner is sandwich with grilled veggies
Superbowl special: Two slices of fruit bread

So good so far, thanks a ton to the Gods in my heart

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6th feb 2010:

Today is Siraj's 40th birthday! Yay! It is noon and we are just out of bed. The foot of snow in our backyard is a reality.
I am balanced.
I can make coffee for Siraj,
Hot chocolate for Amaani and a cup of soy chai and Peanut Butter sandwich for myself.
I am loving the feeling that I do care for myself and my health

Lunch: I made a meal with the following:
A layer of cucumber / tomato and carrot slices
followed by three scoops of cooked wheat
another layer of cooked onions, green bell peppers, beets
topped with flax and methi sprouts
and garnished lightly with milagu kuzhambhu!!!!!

Dinner: Cooked wheat with onions, green bell peppers, beets and a banana

Craving for sugar :)

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5th feb 2010:

What I had:

I woke up with a severe headache - it could be because I dozed off watching a movie on TV or my body is reacting to the coffee and tea deprivation I am putting it through.

I was surfing the TV and heard someone say "Creating a calendar has a moral value" , I think that is true in a lot of sense
Maybe I am not ready to make a calendar of what I will be eating in the future, but now a log will do

Snowed in! So there was no specific meal time, but this is what I ate the whole day.

2 cups of masala soy chai with honey - getting used to the taste
2 bananas
A cup of dry apple caramel pecan crunch
Whole wheat sandwich with hummus
A cup of cooked vegetable seasoned with South Indian spices (onions, cabbage, and cooked lentils)
Boy this veggie filled me up so much, I couldn't get to the cracked wheat that I had cooked - so that is for tomorrow
For some reason there is so much gas piling up, so I also had 1/2 a can of ginger ale!

I think I drank less water today....

I made a meal of potatoes, cabbage, rasam with basmati rice for amaani. And my girls always like me mixing the rice for them. I love doing it, and have made them very lazy. As I was mixing the dish in a bowl, I hurriedly put a spoonful of ghee in my mouth and discarded it though. It hurt me so much that I was not willing to help myself to a better health. I had tears in my eyes. But I thought of the love in my heart and the cause for why I am doing this and it was very easy.

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4th feb 2010:

What I had:

am: Green tea and peanut butter whole wheat sandwich
noon: A bowl of sprouts made from methi and moth seeds / and 1 pkt of instant oats / 1 avocado
evening: 1/2 pkt of chips (shared with a colleague) / 1 pkt of instant oats / decaff black tea
dinner: Fruit bread with hummus (weird he!)

Water, water - goes without saying. By the way as soon as I came from work, I rushed to the kitchen and made a sandwich made of marmalade and took a bite and then realized marmalade is made with refined sugar. It was easy for me to discard the dish.
I also watched Julie & Julia and in someway I connected to Julie - I have blogged when I was training for my marathon, but thought it is good to write my day to day progress, it would be interesting to know how I fought to keep temptation at bay