week 6: little progress

So another week has gone by. I did better than last week. I ate at home twice this past week, and both meals were breakfast. Over the weekend, I cooked eggs with peppers and cheese, bacon, and a flour tortilla. Yesterday, I ate fruit for breakfast. Slowly but surely I am making progress; taking baby steps forward and sometimes backward but definitely making progress.

I often find myself in situations where it would be challenging to reach my goal of eating meals prepared at home. My social life plays a large part in this. For instance, me and my friends or me and my boyfriend often go out to eat on the weekends to sit-in restaurants like Friday's or Applebee's. This often serves as a social gathering for us. I love to eat and I hate to cook, so in such situations it is difficult for me to turn down the offer to go out to eat. Another difficult situation or barrier is that I am gone all day running errands or in class, so it isn't even practical to bring lunch with me because it would spoil since I'm driving from place to place and can't put it in the refrigerator. To overcome such situations I guess I would have to go home in the middle of the day to eat lunch. Or eat at home and have my friends come over instead of going out to eat. I don't know. We will see how that goes.

week 5: any suggestions for fun and simple meals?

Well, this week was a complete disaster. I did not eat at home once this past week. My schedule was extremely hectic with my new job and trying to find an apartment, i just didn't have the time to prepare a meal, not even a sandwich. I think there are a lot of barriers that are hindering me from progressing towards my goal. My first barrier is time management. Sometimes I just can't find the time to prepare a meal, and I much rather eat fast food that a sandwich or soup. I think I can overcome this barrier by preparing my meals ahead of time. As Anamara suggested, i can make sandwiches and stuff on sunday and then put them in the fridge or freezer for the week. My second barrier to change is I HATE COOKING! Cooking is not at all enjoyable to me. It's time consuming and messy and there are a lot germs involved with raw meat. Cooking is just annoying, and the problem is I love to eat. So to overcome this second barrier, I'm going to find some recipes that will make cooking at home both fun and simple. My third barrier to change is that I don't know how to cook. I can make pasta and steam vegetables and cook meat, but that's about it. So to overcome this third barrier is going to be the same with overcoming the second barrier; i have to find easy and simple recipes to prepare because sometimes cooking is just too complicated.

week 4: my motivation for change

As I stated in my week 1 post, I want to eat more meals at home because I want to be healthier. Before I moved away to college, I was definitely a more healthy person. I ran year around to train for track and field and cross country meets. I worked out 5 days a week and I was in excellent shape. I ate healthier because my mom cooked breakfast and dinner everyday. We would occasionally eat pizza on friday night which was movie or game night for my family. Because I was exercising regularly and eating healthy meals, I had more energy and zeal. Now that my diet consists mostly of junk food and fast food, I have no energy and I'm tired alot of the time. So my motivation for change is to eat healthy meals at home so that I can get back to the healthy person that I was in high school. Another motivation for change is being a public health professional and a health promotion/disease prevention advocate. Now and in the future, I would like to use the tools that I've learned as an MPH student to promote healthy lifestyles and behaviors. I would feel like a hypocrit if I was promoting health while not taking my own advice. So, this particular motivation of mine involved being a positive role model to others when it comes to health behavior.

Now, on to my progress. Week 4 has come and gone and I'm glad that I did not backslide this week. This past week, I ate 6 meals at home in 3 days. Last thursday, I ate fruit for breakfast and I ate pasta for dinner. Yesturday I ate fruit for breakfast and I made turkey tacos for dinner, which included lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers and cheese. I counted that as my serving of vegetables for the day. Today, I also ate fruit for breakfast and left over turkey tacos for lunch/dinner. I am slowing making progress toward reaching my goal. Three out of four days is pretty good.

week 3

So, for this past week I am definitely making progress. I cooked and ate at home for 2 days. On Sunday, I made eggs, toast, and fruit salad for breakfast instead of going to Jack in the Box as usual. On Monday, I actually cooked dinner. It was fettuccine alfredo with fresh tomato and broccoli with dished chicken breast, very tasty. I feel that I am slowly but surely making progress towards achieving my goal. I just have to plan my day around my meals and make them ahead of time so that I can take my food with me on the go. I definitely think it would be easier to achieve my goal if I learn how to cook dishes other than pasta, which is my absolute favorite. So in addition to my current goal, I would like to learn how to make a few new dishes by the end of this semester. This is going to be interesting :)