Times, they are a changin.....

Change is a funny thing. No matter how you try to prevent it, it inevitably happens. The good changes, the bad changes and the unexpected ones. It's those unexpected ones that you'll never be prepared for.

In life, you do certain things to get you where you ultimately want to end up. You have certain friends, work certain jobs, go to certain places and position yourself within your society in such a way that you believe that is where you are meant to be. But what if all that work was for nothing? What if, all that work got you to where you thought you wanted to be, but you weren't happy? You weren't fulfilled and you were just plain miserable? I'm in that position. I've worked hard my entire life to get where I thought I was supposed to be only to realize that after 31 years, I'm no where near where I should be. Where I'm sustainably happy. So, realizing that, I've got to make changes. Not just the diet, minimizing or reducing the waste in my life, but putting myself and my needs first and foremost. I've always cared so much about other peoples well being that I go so far out on a limb to ensure their happiness, even if it doesn't last, but never once thought about my own. Because helping others be happy, made me happy. (what a revelation.) Now, how to translate that into a paying job??? Not matchmaking, but doing some type of work that helps people. That makes a positive difference in someone's life that's impact lasts and lasts...


So let the search begin! I'm not one for a standard route...so we'll see what happens!

One Day at a time...

Step by step...

It's the hardest thing in the world to do...have patience.  It's this feeling, almost like adrenaline that just courses feverishly through your body for no reason and all you can do is go with it. I've got that now. I want to go in every direction at once, I want to run, I want to fly I want to climb a mountain. In all realness, that is not possible, so I'm putting this energy to use. I'm following up on last week, now where did I leave off? Oh yes, about my coworker trying a more plant based diet for five days. As I've been making what I deem life improvements and taking steps to a less waste more sustainable lifestyle, I've been encouraging friends to try and make small improvements to their lives as well. I've been posting pictures on Instagram and everyone that's seen them has asked me about where I grocery shop and what ingredients I use. I'm more than willing to share any information with those who ask. Now, last week I made breakfast and lunch for my colleague as a trial, so she can begin to learn what a plant based diet is all about. I asked her the Friday before we were to start, to on Sunday, assess how she felt after she ate. Was she tired? Was she still hungry? How large were her portions? Did she feel the need to snack between meals? She could eat however she wanted over the weekend, but come Monday, she needed to be very strict and keep to this diet for 5 days. I would provide two meals a day for her and give her a daily summary by email but dinner would be up to her and she would have to tell me, the next day, what she had for dinner. Each day for breakfast, there would be a whole grain of some sort, oatmeal or yogurt paired with a fruit. Lunches consisted of greens and veggies with a snack of a nut or fruit. I prefer to eat more fruits than veggies due to my sweet tooth but I add in veggies, nuts and whole grains as well. Spinach salads and Kale salads with veggies or fruit and a dressing of balsamic vinegar and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. Sometimes I put some fruit, blackberries or strawberries in the salads. For snacks I provided almonds, oranges, bananas and homemade spinach bolani with organic basil pesto. For dinner, I would text her tips on what foods would be filling, what I was having and if she was out at a restaurant, how to pick healthier options. After our 5 day trial I asked her again, how she felt, if she was tired after eating, if she felt she needed to snack between meals and how she felt about the portion sizes. To my surprise, she said that by the last day, she wasn't craving chips mid-day, but fruit and she felt like she had more energy. After eating breakfasts, she was full until her normal lunch time so at lunch she didn't feel she needed to eat as much. She made healthy choices for dinners, incorporating more vegetables and fruits, foregoing red meats and cheeses and not adding any salt to anything she ate. This was really good news! We did a 3 mile charity walk on Saturday and to my surprise early in the morning when she got there, she was alert, energized and ready to go. The three mile walk was a small struggle for her, but after she said she felt great! There was all sorts of "health" food at this event and she went for the fruit that was offered and water in place of sugary granola bars and supplement shakes. I was so proud. Sunday, she text me to get tips because she was going to go grocery shopping. I followed up with her today and she stuck to the plant based guidelines and bought organic fruits and veggies. She will be finishing the other foods she already had so for the time being integrating healthier foods into her diet. I couldn't be happier that she's taking this so seriously!

 I urge anyone out there to try it, for just five days. Take the time to prepare you meals ahead of time. Make the effort. Be conscious of your food choices, know where your food comes from and make healthier options. I've been keeping track of changes and improvements I've seen, but that story is for another day. So, until then....

Motivation

We all lose it at some point and try to get it back. It comes and goes in waves. Sometimes great waves that are lasting and some that are quick to pass us by. I've taken it upon myself to inspire and motivate those around me that are curious, to begin on a path to sustainability and health by beginning to integrate basic organic foods into their daily diets. A good friend had seen the photo's I had posted on my instagram. Photos of my daily meals. I describe exact ingredients and take a photo just before digging in. She sees them and said to me, " They always look so good, but how do you do it every day?" "Simple." I said,  "You just do." Granted, it does take effort to take time out of your busy day to prepare a meal or two, but it's worth the nutritional and financial payoff to provide your body with clean nutritious foods. The benefits are numerous and unlimited, you really can't go wrong replacing that handful of chips with carrots or that bag of Skittles with organic strawberries. You can start out slow if you need to. Take breakfast for example, instead of the venti white chocolate mocha with whip and the pastry, opt for a tall coffee with room for milk and flavor with vanilla soy milk. Instead of the pastry, choose some toasted seed/whole grain bread with organic jam. It's a simple concept, switch the bad for the good. It's right in front of our faces every day but many of us, myself included, its much easier to opt for convenience. To grab a burger and fries and eat them because the prep is already done. But when you make your own food, you know exactly what is going into everything you are putting in your body. Most of us never even think about where that burger comes from. All we are thinking is how good it tastes and how it curbs our hunger. The afterthought is, I can't believe I ate THAT. Well, you did. And your body is paying the ultimate price. Knowing what's in your food is a power you have that no one can take away from you. You control your health and it's all right there in front of you, all you have to do is take advantage. Going back to my friend, she's been slowly reintroducing exercise into her daily life with yoga. After kickboxing caused her hip pain and inflammation, yoga was a safer alternative to begin with. She also wanted to be healthier with the food she eats. She does eat healthy on occasion but like many of us, she opts for that cookie that's sitting there when hunger strikes or that pizza in the cafeteria because the smell is filling up the immediate air that she just walked through. I had explained my eating habits and how I integrated them into my routine. I'm the hard learner unless I go big or go home, so I went big. I went on a rampage to get rid of all the toxic food in my house. When I did need groceries, I made healthier choices, I went for the raw organic fruits and vegetables, whole grains and locally grown/sourced items. I read labels and if there were chemicals on there I couldn't pronounce, I left it on the shelf. There are SO many deceiving labels out there and one can get confused. So I stick to reading the ingredients...hey, if I know what it is, it's okay to eat. So this week, I'm having my friend test my diet for herself. I will make her breakfast and lunch for the work week. All she has to do, is eat. Easy right? Of course it is when everything is prepared for you, but what happens when I'm not there to make food for her? Well...she knows how good the meals are and takes the time to make it because she wants good food. (That's the goal here.) On the menu this week, plenty of fruits, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, oranges, apples, lemon, bananas, veggies, avocado, carrots, zucchini, sweet potato, kale and spinach, steel cut oats, organic goats milk yogurt, flax cereal, basil pesto, organic goats milk cheddar cheese, 12 seed whole grain bread and free range chicken. With those ingredients I can make numerous different combinations of lunches and breakfasts. Today was day one, organic kale with locally grown organic grated carrots, blackberries, grape tomatoes and a natural balsamic vinaigrette. Organic strawberries and blueberries, organic goats milk yogurt with organic granola and an organic mandarin orange. She liked it and is still ready for tomorrow. Tuesday is steel cut oats with raw cacao and organic banana, spinach salad with organic raspberries, Irish cheese, baked chicken and lemon zest with a side of strawberries and sweet potato with a mandarin for a late afternoon snack. She said that today's lunch was really good and she had plenty to eat. She commented that the strawberries (organic and locally grown), were AMAZING. (with good reason!)  Calorie wise, it's MUCH less than the burger, fries and soda she could have had and it's putting vitamins and minerals into her system. I'm pleased with how receptive she is to this and will encourage her not to eat exactly the same, but to find foods that she enjoys and take the time to really know what you are eating because the benefits of a mostly plant based diet, outweigh the junk food diet a million fold! I'm glad she's at least giving it a chance and that I can help her on this new path of healthier eating. So a happy Monday all around. Let's see what the rest of the week brings....

Get it together

Getting it together....

Organizing
It's all about organizing today. Getting all of this "stuff" ready to go. So far, my dining room is actually going to become a dining room and my living room will be a living room not a closet. I've gained so much space by turning my "closets" into what they were meant to be. On the wall at the end of my bed there is a bulletin board that used to be full of necklaces. About 67 of them to be exact. I've donated almost all of them except 8. That bulletin board is now a vision board with three pieces of paper on it. The first piece is labled, "Actions". Things that I need to do within one months time. Be it organizing, calling to cancel my cable, finding a smaller apartment, working on my nutrition, and lowering my waste by recycling and reusing items so I'm not just throwing them away. The second piece of paper is for ideas/goals. When I think I have a good idea about my direction and the path I'm taking, I write it down. When I think of a goal to work towards, I write it down. I ultimately want to find inner peace and be sustainably happy in a career that I truly love, so things I can do to get there, I write them down. Eventually those items will slowly move to the "action" page.  The third page says "Work". This is a page of how-to's. Because my current career is not in the field I would like to be in and I do not have the time to go back to school, I have to think outside of the box as to how mu current skillset will translate into another industry. I've written down a few ideal positions I'd like to have and have begun lisitng how my current experinece can be related to fit into those positions. I've been researching some extended learning classes that will help me get into and be prepared for a new career in a new (to me) industry. Starting over almost entirely career-wise is scary and exciting and it couldn't come at a more perfect time. I know now what I want from my life and I am excited to be finally working toward this ultimate goal. It's about time I got things together! I've always been one of those people who learned things a second later, slower than everyone else. A late bloomer if you will, in terms of when I finally figure things out and weather that's true or not, at least I know now. That's good enough for me. This path I'm on is moving in the right direction. I've declared my new ways out loud and that's made them even more real. Telling others about it makes me accountable and there's no turning back. Keep it movin, people or watch out for me as I zoom past ya!

On the path...

Stage Two: Clean closet, Cleaner food

Things have been coming a lot easier lately... eating cleaner, living with only what I need, cleaning out my life essentially and I don't miss any of the excess. On the contrary I feel weightless like I can fly anywhere and won't be held back by the things that weighed me down once. Since I've been learning about health and nutrition I've been introduces to a number of eating styles. Though I don't think that there is only one that in solely right, I do believe in cleaner eating and sustainable eating, consuming foods that what will keep me healthy and nourished for the rest of my life. I have weaned myself off of processed foods, no added sugars, salt or added fats. I've been eating more of a plant based diet, and although I will on occasion eat meat, I must be conscious of where it comes from. I've watched many documentaries recently about where all the food in stores comes from, how it's "made" or processed and my eyes have been opened to something that I chose not to see for so long. Our processed foods like microwaveable meals, sugary cereals, flavored chips are made with chemicals, artificial colors and flavors and made to look like food. All those artificial ingredients cause our immune systems to break down, give us diseases and cause us to become addicted to that as the normal standard for what our food is. Since going on a healthier path and eating more raw foods such as organic and locally sourced fruits and vegetables, food tastes better, I have more energy and I feel more alert. I haven't felt sick, not even once. Well, I just lied. I have felt sick once and it was when I ate processed food. I went to a certain popular theme park and had a chimichanga. After three bites I realized this wasn't going to agree with me and I put it down. I got sick to my stomach. I knew it was because of the toxins that went into that food, the processed cheese made of chemicals, the cheap chicken that was probably filled with hormones and antibiotics and the sauces filled with salts and artificial flavors and colors all wrapped up in shiny packaging to signify to my brain that this would be good for me because it looks so pretty. Speaking of the meat, I watched a documentary recently called, "Frankensteer", which highlights the meat/poultry industry and how the United States has become a global leader in cheap meats. There is a reason for that, the practices that go into raising the cattle, the conditions, the feed and the actual processing of the meat is a cut cornered, streamlined practice that has such a huge demand, that many areas are overlooked in order to meet that demand. A prime example of the after effect of cut corners is Mad Cow disease came from what cows were eating...ground remains (bones, flesh etc..) from other cows, fish and birds. It was thought that letting the cows graze on grass as they would in a normal natural environment took too long for them to gain weight and it was too expensive to wait for that. Instead, they were fed cheap alternatives, grains with antibiotics to fend off disease from them living knee deep in their own excrement's. They were shot up with hormones so they would grow quicker and larger to produce more meat per cow.  A large part of the processed grains they were fed contained ground flesh and bones from other slaughtered animals. There was an organism found in that ground meal that when consumed by the cows caused their brains to turn into mush and become full of holes like Swiss cheese. They began to display bizarre behaviors. Same went for lambs and birds that were fed this same type or ground meal. It was found that when that meat was consumed by humans, they began to display the same symptoms. So do you care about what goes into your meat? The meat industry has become so large trying to meet the demands of the consume that even the agricultural industry regulators that are supposed to keep us safe cannot keep up and many broken rules, laws and regulations go overlooked. The same types of things can happen with the processed foods we eat. The foods that are grown on such a massive scale like some fruits that are grown in soil that has been filled with genetically created fertilizer so they grow bigger, brighter, but notice one side effect...tasteless. They are sprayed with pesticides and though some people wash them before eating, who's to say that the residues are entirely gone? How can you trust that?  Before even watching all of these documentaries about the food I eat and where it comes from, I began eating better. With a positive influence from a significant other who is very conscious about what he eats and where his food comes from. His habits rubbed off on me and I have had the desire to learn more. So far I've been eating organic greens, fruits and vegetables. I've also noticed that the organic fruits taste amazing. Like they used to when I was little. There is such a huge benefit to eating an organic and locally sourced diet. Benefits to your health and your environment. In my next post I will dive deeper into the benefits to be had from eating cleaner. I pose for anyone to try it and see how well you feel after a week. How much better food tastes. Try it. Why not?

New Mission

Stage One - Learning to Live with Less
Everyone comes to a realization in their life. A point in time where you just wake up and think to yourself, that today has to be different. Something has to change and that change starts from within yourself. I've had that moment. I had that spark of clarity that spoke to me and I finally opened my eyes. I said out loud all the things I was thinking but scared to say because then they would become real; Why am so I unhappy? Why don't I like my life? Why can't I get the things I want? What do I even want in my life?  And why did I feel like I was so far behind everyone else my age in figuring it all out? I didn't truly know the answers to all those questions, but knew that it was time to make a change so I could find out. A big one. A drastic one and one in the right direction to meet my personal goals, get answers, and find purpose and fulfillment for myself. The moment lighting hit me, was when I was seriously considering raising my rent in order to have enough space for my "stuff". How ridiculous is that?! Why did I honestly think I needed MORE space? I'm only ONE person. I live in a modest size one bedroom apartment with more than enough space for one person. The last thing I needed to do was waste money on rent just in order to store clothes I don't wear, electronics I don't use and things I bought and don't need. I had space, it was filled with all this stuff and that's when I began to feel trapped. I began to feel weighed down. So I thought I need to get rid of anything I don't need, haven't used or haven't worn. I need to learn to live with less. I had good intentions when I bought, was gifted or given all of these items and I have more than enough to survive so I need to learn not to consume unless it's necessary. No one woman needs 22 black dresses that over half of them have tags still on, or a Wii system that was used 5 times and now sits in the box collecting dust, 96 DVDs that are sealed in a Tupperware tub getting dusty or even cable TV so I can sit inside and wast time watching reality TV. So, with my new clarity, I started with a major overhaul. (Major for "me".) In my apartment, I had racks of clothes and tons of shoes (over 100 pairs), that were sitting there, not being worn, not being used collecting dust and never seeing the light of day.  How can I get these out into the world so they can be used? That's what they were made for. I began to distribute items to friends and family and whom ever was interested or need anything.  A friend took my Wii off my hands and I found a website where I could sell 96 DVDs to so they can be used/recycled. Everything that friends and family didn't want is going to be donated to Goodwill or a women's shelter. I've got down the items I'm keeping to, about 1/6th of what I began with and I couldn't feel better about it. I feel lighter. I'm not even having anxiety about not having those items anymore. I've made myself a promise, that I will not buy or consume unnecessary items. I've called to shut off my cable at the end of the current billing cycle, I will be cutting off the XM radio in my car that I never listen to and I am looking for an even smaller apartment so that I make better use of the space I live in. So going forward, I will continue to learn to live with less and hopefully begin a zero waste lifestyle by consuming less and I will be sharing and writing about my transition into a greener, healthier and more sustainable lifestyle here.