All you need is a little faith... (and vitamin C)

Eeeeek. Another roadblock in the healthy eating game: I came down with the flu yesterday. Well, I suppose this is what I get for complaining about Niagara Falls..."you think THAT'S bad?" says life, and hands me an even bigger challenge. Oh yeah, well...bring it on, I challenge back (or try to, between coughs). I figure I can take this as an opportunity to research what one should  eat, drink and do while sick in order to be healthy again....

Monday afternoon was when I realized something wasn't right. I walked for about 30 minutes, and was incredibly exhausted for the next 8 hours. Now, I walk a lot on a daily basis without feeling any effects, so this was noticeably strange. By 9pm, I could barely keep my eyes open. It felt like I had just finished running a marathon. "Okay" I conceded, "obviously I'm coming down with something here." So the first thing I do is go to my medicine cabinet and pop a few vitamin C pills. This is a force of habit. I always do this when I'm getting sick. But then I stop. Wait a minute. Should I be doing this? Is vitamin C healthy? It's a vitamin, right...how can it not be healthy? Still, I know this is a weak argument, because anything in large doses is bad. So I google how much I took (1500mg) to see what the damage is. Okay...the consensus on the internet is that this kind of dose is not TOO bad. Still, I resolve to stop mindlessly doing things in zombie-mode just because I'm sick. Gotta try to stay on top of things. I decide to turn in way early - 10:30 (usually I don't even go near my bed until midnight, so this is monumental), so that I can catch up on some sleep and hopefully give my antibodies the best possible chance to kick some flu-butt.

I wake up… 13 hours later. Wow! I try to get up… but I quickly realize that somehow, despite all of that glorious sleep, I’m now feeling like I’m on death’s door. (I can’t for the life of me fathom how that could be possible since I got more than 12 hours of sleep in a night, which probably hasn’t happened since I was an infant). Ughhhh.  All I know is I’m not exactly feeling like jumping out of bed and whipping myself up some breakfast. Okay. What can I eat that’s easy to make and not a total disaster in terms of nutrition? I grab some cereal. I skip adding in the fruit. I’m just too lethargic. Orange juice to drink will give me some of those fruit nutrients anyhow.

After breakfast I feel slightly uplifted, so I decide to google what foods are good to eat when you’re sick. Apparently lean meats, legumes, nuts, citrus fruits, watermelon and chicken soup (how cliché) are all winners…they all have some variety of dietary something in them that help boost the immune system. Cool. I search my house to see what I’ve got, and find some sunflower seeds, watermelon, and Liptons ready-made. I munch on the sunflower seeds and watermelon for lunch, and save the chicken soup for dinner. This is definitely a skimpy meal day, and I certainly did not meet my caloric intake…but I survived, and I’m quite satisfied with that. I hit the sack early again to catch some more z’s.

This brings us to today. I woke up this morning feeling particularly lethargic, with a bit of a migraine headache to boot. This all combined with some other pent-up quarter-life-crisis-related frustrations today to create a perfect storm of malaise, that unforgivingly followed me around all day. I cleaned out my entire kitchen just to try to distract myself from, well, myself...and the kitchen is now a whole lot cleaner, but I still wasn't finding myself in the greatest of headspaces. Hmmm. What to do. Well, just a little while ago I got outside for some air to clear my head and regroup....and I was reminded that a nice solo walk always works. Feeling better now. Yes, I am facing a few challenges (such as the money-is-tight-no-jobs-in-sight conundrum)…but when you come up against something like this, well, there are only two ways to react: complain, or do something about it, right? So I’ve decided I’ll be stepping up my job search from now on, and extending it beyond OT to include just about anything, so I can make ends meet until something awesome comes along.

And it will. I have faith, which is all I need....well, faith, and a little bit of vitamin C.

xo Janine

An Entire Weekend of It-could-be-worse's....

Only 3 days has passed, and yet I feel like I've had 2 weeks worth of trials and tribulations on this healthy living journey since my last entry...which means it's time for a blog update! Ahhh, where to begin...

Well, first of all, I had my first (and probably last) personal training session with Eric the Kinesiologist at Premier Fitness on Thursday, which was kind of a follow-up to the fitness assessment we did last time. I was pretty pumped for this, and I went into it with a definite plan: pay incredibly close attention to what Eric tells me to do... ask as many fitness-info questions as possible without driving him nuts.... and then copy the workout circuit he takes me through and heed his advice to the letter of the law, until I achieve my fitness goals. Proudly scamming the system. Mua-ha-ha. And they said I'd need a full-time personal trainer...

So I arrive, and Eric gets right down to business. "First I just want to get a sense of how strong you are right now", he says. He takes me into the fitness assessment area, where there are a few pieces of ambiguous equipment. "How weak I am would be a better way of putting it", I think to myself, as I feebly attempt to follow his directions and do as many situps, pushups and chinups as I possibly can on these machines, according to his specifications. He nonjudgmentally jots down my results, and then takes me into the actual workout room. 45 minutes later, I can barely move. We do bench presses. We use medicine balls, barbells and dumbbells. We do every kind of squat you could possibly imagine. He shows me how to use some of the best equipment for my fitness goals. It's an intense session. I leave feeling exhausted, but also like I've just gotten an absolutely awesome kick-ass crash course in how to get strong, fast. What's the first thing I do when I leave? Sit myself down on a bench just outside the gym, whip out my blackberry, and write down every single exercise we did in as much detail as possible, and every other piece of value information I managed to squeeze out of Eric. Awesome.

Now... the next day is where it gets difficult. First of all, I wake up on Friday morning feeling like I've just been hit by a bus. "What the..." I think to myself. Then I remember. Oh right. I just got my butt kicked by a personal training session yesterday. These are the residual effects. Sigh. I cringe as I pull myself out of bed. Well...I guess this is how progress feels.

Second of all..."Niagara falls" and "healthy eating". These four words do not belong in the same language together. Yet I find myself facing the perfect storm of healthy eating fail: about to leave on a quick and dirty one-night business trip with my best pal in tow, right smack dab in the middle of the city of amusement park nutrition where you can't find a salad for less than $25. Now, I anticipated well in advance that this was not going to be easy. However, feeling grateful that this was a fourth-week road bump and I'd had some time to already learn a trick or two, I told myself I'd manage this just fine. No matter where you go, there has to be SOMETHING healthy to eat, right? Just in case, I had packed myself a package of whole-wheat tortillas and some raspberry jam (not many spread options since everything has to be refrigerated) as a back-up plan. "Hey", I figured, "if I have to eat this all weekend, so be it! Ha...ha...ha..."

Um....well as it turns out, I pretty well DID eat that all weekend, save a couple of measly attempts at healthy meals that didn't really pan out so well. First of all, we arrive and look for somewhere to eat. Fast food is definitely out, so we land at one of the millions of "mid-priced" Kelsey-style chains there. Appleby's wins since it has the most reasonable prices, although that's not saying much (Niagara falls = the Vegas of Canada). After perusing the menu, Canan suggests we go with this combined meal deal offer: an appetizer and 2 entrees for $25. "It's an awesome deal compared to everything else", she points out. Hmmm. I look over at the salads page, and prices at over $20 a pop are staring back at me. Well, me and my starving wallet can't really argue with that. So I agree. Then I look at the choices involved. Oh boy. This is definitely going to be a lesser-of-the-evils situation. The appetizers are all fried. The entrees are mostly the same. Ahhhhh! I convince her to go with the spinach and artichoke dip for appetizer (which unfortunately comes with nachos), and I order Cajun pasta for the entree. Not great as far as healthy eating goes... but it could be worse, right? However, due to a total lack of insight that Cajun pasta is called that for a reason, I can barely eat my meal because it's so damn hot. Oh well. I wasn't that hungry anyway, I suppose...

Now, determined to make the absolute most of our 24-hour power trip, we mission it to the LCBO next, in preparation for our night out on the town (which is also an attempt to save money, rather than buying it at some superexpensive casino or bar price). All right. I know alcohol is not healthy. But I rationalize this by choosing a bottle of wine, and reminding myself that the jury is always out on whether a glass of wine a day is good for your health. This longstanding debate in the dietary world hasn't been resolved yet...which means, it still might be. So this isn't NECESSARILY a cheat, right? I drink half the bottle. Okay, that was a bit more than a glass. Maybe 2. But...it could be worse, right? Hmmm. This thought is starting to sound familiar...

Fast forward a few hours, and I'm friggin' starving, having gone without much of a dinner. We're now in the lobby of the Fallsview casino. As you can imagine, there aren't exactly a plethora of healthy choices. We walk the entire length of the place, and as we reach the end, a guy at a sushi booth is standing there yelling "Half priced sushi! About to close!" Perfect! Sushi has become my fallback healthy choice at any odd location (eg. malls, downtown streets) where its hard to find anything wholesome, and it comes through for me again this time. Well, at least SOMETHING's worked out...

The next day, we go to our research conference. All of the food is free. However, free and healthy are often not synonymous, so this turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing for me. Free danishes. Free muffins. Free cake. Free cookies. Free cheesecake on a stick. This is quite possibly the most tempting situation I could possibly find myself in. It would be so easy to just......NO! I bravely choose fruit for breakfast. I go for salad (thank god its there) and a tuna wrap for lunch. I resist the yummy desserts. It ain't easy, but I feel quite triumphant as we leave the conference hall 8 hours later, as though I'm the sole survivor of a great battle. As we drive home, I munch on the tortillas and jam that got me through the weekend. I evaluate my choices. "Well", I conclude..."It could have been worse."

So the plan from here? Start getting on Eric's workout session (after the pain subsides, which 3 days later, is incredibly STILL lingering). Spend 3 days a week at the gym from now on. Start trying out some new recipes, since I'm slowly noticing myself eating the same few (healthy) choices over and over again...gotta keep this learning momentum going! And, oh yeah....

...try to stay away from Niagara Falls.

xo Janine

Progress Update #2

Well kids, it's been 2 weeks and 2 days, and a whole lot has happened, healthy-living wise. I could spend a thousand words describing the progress that's been made...or, I could just draw your attention to the picture below, which (miraculously) depicts the meal I made myself for dinner tonight...without help, google, youtube, or the fire department's involvement:

And hey, if you don't appreciate the significance of this image (don't blame you, it would look like a regular dinner to most people)...well, allow me to highlight the fact that you could have handed me a clove of garlic, red pepper, onion, or any other vegetable for that matter a mere 12 days ago, and I would have stared blankly back at you, asking "so... what do I do with it?" Yup, I may not be Rachel Ray yet, but it's a decent outcome for 2 and half weeks of dedication to the cause.

Here are a few of my favourite things I've learned or discovered so far:

• The same smoothies I buy at Starbucks can be made at home for way less money, and even tastier results (strawberries + banana + kiwi + yogurt + ice cubes + milk = aaaaamazing.)
• Having a gym buddy makes going to the gym WAY more tolerable...I daresay, even enjoyable.
• Pita chips. Best, easiest and yummiest healthy snack. Mmmm. Enough said.
• One's ability to efficiently chop vegetables is directly proportional to the sharpness of one's kitchen knife. (Learned this the hard way as I hacked away at my veggies with a dull knife for a week before realizing it wasn't just my lack of chopping experience creating the problem...)
• Adding fruit or a pinch of brown sugar makes SO many things taste SO much better.

In sum, I feel like I may actually be starting to get the hang of this whole health living thing. And so far, it feels fabulous. Still, I know there's lots to learn (like, for example, what the heck antioxidants, omega 3 fatty acids, and probiotics are...how to saute something...and what's so special about the "blue zones"....) and I know there's definitely a lot of gym work to do before I can even remotely refer to myself as "fit". So, the journey continues, my friends...

xo Janine

The Fitness Assessment

Ladies and gentlemen, hell has frozen over. In other words...Premier Fitness actually did a fitness assessment for me today.

It didn't happen without a fight, however.

My assessment was scheduled for today at 4pm. Yesterday, they called my house while I wasn't home. My mother answered. The girl on the line (somewhat rudely) said, "We're calling to make sure Janine knows that her fitness assessment is tomorrow. So, is she going to be there?"

My mother, the queen of one-liners, replied: "Well the last two times she's had it scheduled, you've canceled it...so, shouldn't I be asking you if YOU'RE going to be there?"

The girl assured her everything was fine, nobody was sick this time, and it was all good to go.

Fast forward to today. I arrive for my fitness assessment at 4pm, with my boyfriend Raph, who also scheduled one for the same time and day. I go up to the counter. I tell them we're here for our fitness assessments. I give them our names.

The girl at the counter looks at her computer screen, somewhat confused, and says "Oh Janine, I think we called you yesterday to reschedule your appointment".

Oh HEEEEEELL no. Nuh uh, lady. I may be a little too forgiving a lot of the time, but there ain't no way you people are getting away with this AGAIN.

"Uh, no, you called me to CONFIRM my appointment yesterday." I correct her. "And this is the third time I've shown up and been told it's canceled, so this is getting pretty ridiculous..."

She replies, "Uh...well, you must have requested to have it done with a girl...our girl kinesiologist has been away, so that's why."

"Nope" I say...nice try, girl, but that excuse ain't gonna fly. "I never said I need to have it done with a girl. Guy, girl, I don't care WHO it is... I just want it done today, and I don't think that's unreasonable." I am indignant at this point, and ready to fight for my rights as a customer. Dukes up.

Now, the manager of the fitness assessment area, who's been listening in from his office and sees that both Raph and I are getting pretty pissed, bounds in to do some damage control. "Oh well it's okay, we'll just have you both do it with Eric today, he's available and free. Not a problem."

Normally, I would tend to feel that this is a pretty half-assed solution, thinking that Raph and I are probably going to get a rush job if we're doing 2-for-1. However, I met Eric last week when we were booking our appointments, and he seems like the only person whoA works there who's somewhat on top of things. So Raph and I both decide we're okay with this.

And FINALLY...miracle of miracles...just like that, I go in to do my long-awaited fitness assessment.

Now, before I proceed, I should probably clarify that this is my first-ever fitness assessment (or anything that even resembles a fitness assessment, for that matter). My pre-assessment reasoning about my current level of fitness sounds something like this in my head: "Well I'm pretty skinny, so it can't be that bad...plus I walk a lot...and I did do that 5k a few months ago (although I haven't really kept up with that)...but I'm also too weak to do basic things like open stubborn bottles and jars.. so...hmmm." Yeah... I'm really not sure what to expect from this, apart from maybe a guess that they'll do some body fat percentage stuff, and I'll be doing some exercise, since they told me to dress accordingly.

As it turns out, this is a very educational and well-spent hour of my life. I learn a lot about myself... *tear*. (Well, at least about my physical self...)

As per my good first impression, Eric is very professional and thorough. He asks me about my history of exercise and fitness. He asks me various questions about my health status. He asks me about my current fitness goals. I tell him I'm an OT and I can't lift heavy things or people for the life of me...as it is, all I'm good for are three-person transfers, and that just ain't gonna fly for employers. So in other words, my lack of strength is limiting me on my job search, and therefore I'm here to gain some muscle mass. He nods in understanding. (He's a kinesiologist, so I assume he'll have some idea of what all of this means when I say it.)

Next up is the measurement part. This is pretty cool. He does the basics, like weight and height. Then, we move to blood pressure and heart rate. Still pretty standard. Next, he clips on four sensor-esque things onto my hand and foot, and tells me he's measuring body fat percentage. This, I find pretty cool, because I had no idea how this was done before (apart from the internet telling me to measure my waist and hip ratio, which never seemed very scientific or accurate.) Some stuff pops up on the computer. He says we'll talk about it later. Ooooh. Is that a bad sign? I can't tell.

Now, he measures me from head to toe. This is also pretty interesting. I never had the occassion to know how wide my neck is, or what the circumference of my biceps are (...as he's measuring them, I think to myself "I doubt he sees a number that small very often." I laugh to myself.) He measures my chest, waist, hips, thighs, and calves. He tells me the numbers as he goes. They don't mean a whole lot to me though without some context. Okay. So my thighs are 13 inches around. Nice to know...?

Next, Eric has me working a little bit. He tells me to jump on an exercise bike. He sets it on "Fitness Test" and tells me to ride for 5 minutes at between 60 and 80 RPM. I do this. I try my best not to reveal that I'm getting tired towards the end...(in case he's judging my level of fitness based on how hard I'm panting? I don't know.)

Anyway, this is the last test. Now come the results. Here are the specs, for anyone who is just scrolling down and wants to get to the "good" stuff:

Age: 24
Height: 163cm
Weight: 112 pounds
Blood pressure: 121/79
Sitting heart rate: 83
Body fat percentage: 26.7%
VO2: Average

Most of this wouldn't mean a whole lot to me, but he interprets it all beautifully. "First of all, your blood pressure is good, and your V02 levels are in the average range, which just measures how much exercise you're able to tolerate for a period of time relative to other people. So this is good to see." He starts with the good news, I'm presuming. I'm grateful, but wondering what's to come.

"Now, your weight of 112lbs. is good, but a little bit low for a woman your size, so we may want to knock that up a few pounds, to say, 115. Your your body fat percentage is 26.7%, which just means that of your overall weight, 27% is fat, and the rest is your "essential" weight...stuff like muscle, bones, connective tissue, etc. The average body fat range for a woman your age is between 22% and 29%, so this is not a bad number. However, ideally we'd want to bring you down even a bit more. Since your goal is to gain some strength, I would suggest that in order to achieve this...well, ideally we'll have you lose about 3 pounds of body fat, and gain about 6 pounds of muscle mass, to bring you up to 115 pounds and bring your body fat percentage to 23%."

Phew. Well this isn't too bad. It actually sounds pretty doable, the way he puts it. (Take THAT, "Bob"! And you said I would never achieve my goal...)

He proceeds to then set specific goals for how big the circumference of each of my body parts (neck, biceps, waist, hips, thighs, calves) will be once I've reached my "ideal". Damn, boy. This is some pretty exact stuff. It feels good to get such specific, tailored information, though. From Premier Fitness, I was not expecting this. He then informs me that I get another 2 training sessions with him included in my deal, which include a session where he'll do strength testing, and a session where he'll provide me with a workout regime tailored to meet my specific goals, based on all of the results. Wow. I was REALLY not expecting this.

So, Premier Fitness still sucks...but Eric the thorough, professional kinesiologist from Premier Fitness has somewhat redeemed the experience. The next session is on Thursday, and I'm actually starting to look forward to hitting the gym again, with hope re-instilled.

And that, my friends, is the story of the first fitness assessment that almost never was.

Until next time...
Janine

A (Disastrous) First Encounter with my Groupon Gym

So next week, on Monday, I have a fitness assessment with my new gym. I must say, I'm pretty excited about it. Why, I'm not exactly sure... I can't imagine I'll be getting news other than "you're weak and out of shape", which I don't exactly need a kinesiologist's report to figure out. Maybe I'm excited because it feels like a natural beginning to kicking off a badass workout regime, which will be the perfect complement to my dietary changes so far... the ice cream on my apple pie of healthy eating, so to speak. Or maybe, I'm excited because I've been waiting for it SO LONG because it's been canceled TWICE by the gym already. Sigh. This, my friends, is the story of what you get when you purchase a gym membership on a groupon website...

About three weeks ago, I bought a Groupon gym membership for Premier Fitness. I was pretty darn stoked about what I was getting for such a ridiculously low price: A 4-month gold membership, including a fitness assessment, one session with a personal trainer and dietitian, and access to all of the gym equipment and classes, for ONLY $55. The savings were astronomical. Feeling as though I'd just stumbled upon a pot of gold a the end of a rainbow, I was eager as heck to get started and see the luxurious fitness club I'd just practically stolen a membership for. The very next day, I threw some gym clothes into a bag and headed off to Yorkdale (the closest location) to explore my future fitness haven.

So I arrived at the gym, Groupon certificate in hand. I confidently handed it to the buff-looking dude who was manning the counter and pronounced "Hi, I'm here to redeem my membership", fully expecting he would respond with a polite friendly "Oh yes, of course, welcome to the club!" He looks at the paper. He looks up at me. Back down at the paper. Then, he yells over to his equally buff pal... "Hey Bob, what the f*** is this??"

Uh...okay. Not exactly what I'd call stellar customer service, or a great welcome to the establishment. I'm slightly taken aback, so I just stand there and wait as Bob strolls over to take a look. "Oh yeah", he mumbles, "yeah, this thing." He says something else under his breath to his not-so-friendly coworker, then says "Okay, come with me", to me. "Thanks" I reply, determined to turn this bad start between my miracle gym and I around.

Bob takes me into an office, and hands me a form. "Fill out the top part with your information". This part goes relatively smoothly. Next, he starts to interview me about my health status, nutrition habits, and fitness history. I wasn't expecting this, but I do the best I can to be as honest as possible. At first, Bob has a subtle look of judgment seemingly permanently etched on his face, and the fact that his muscles are bulging out from under his shirt doesn't exactly help my level of ease in spilling my guts about my weak history of fitness (or lack thereof). But in typical form, I crack self-deprecating jokes to cover up my mild discomfort, and I can see he's sort of warming up to me. He seems to find me amusing. Okay. This isn't going TOO badly.

We then reach the part in the interview where he asks me about my fitness goals. Here's where things start to go awry. "Well" I say, "obviously I'm not here to lose weight..." at least I think this should be pretty obvious, but he just nods his head and repeats "so then, what are your goals?". I explain to him that what I really want is to gain some strength, particularly in my core and upper body. "The job that I do can sometimes involve lifting people and/or heavy objects. Right now I'm really not able to do this without risking serious injury, but I'd like to gain some strength so that I'm more capable of it."

Bob pauses for a minute. I can see the wheels in his head are turning. He then drops his pen, looks up and me, and says, "okay, well how are you going to achieve your goal?"

I'm not sure how to answer this. What is he looking for here? I really want to reply "um, by lifting weights...?" but I'm afraid this will sound facetious and ruin our already shaky rapport. So I laugh and say, "what do you mean?" He repeats, "how are you going to achieve this goal?". I try a different tactic. "Well, you tell me! I don't know too much about it..."

Bob half-smiles, almost mockingly. What comes out next is a perfect demonstration of what NOT to do when dealing with a customer. "You're NEVER going to achieve this goal. I promise you. How are you going to 'gain strength', as you said? What is your plan? Using machines won't work. (He launches into some kind of scientific sounding explanation about why machines don't build muscle mass, which involves a lot of intentional jargon and is incomprehensible to me). "You need to be doing free weights, but you don't know anything about free weights, do you? How much weight can you bench press?"

"I don't know", I respond, taken aback by this rant Bob seems to be going on.

"Can you bench press 150 pounds?" he asks. "Um, no...." I reply. Wow. Where on earth is Bob GOING with this?

"No, of course you can't. You're going to hurt yourself if you try to do free weights on your own. I promise you, without help, you'll leave here in four months looking EXACTLY the same as you look right now, and you won't have achieved your goal."

Wait a minute. "Without help." I'm slowly catching on to Bob's game.

"You are absolutely going to need a personal trainer. Otherwise it will be impossible."

"I see." I reply. Now I get it. "Well that sounds great and all, but I'm pretty confident that I'm nowhere NEAR being able to afford this".

"What do you do?" he asks.

"I'm a student, just graduated. No job. A heap of student loans waiting to be paid off. That's why I bought this groupon in the first place...it was the only gym membership I could afford!"

"Okay", he says. "Well let's just see, for arguments sake...let's do the bare minimum. Normally you should have three personal training sessions a week, but let's say you just did two, with homework in between them each week. So we just cut down the number of sessions from 36 to 24." "Okay", he says... "so that comes to...." *he flips around his computer screen so I can see the number*. I can’t remember the exact figure, but it’s something along the lines of… $1700.

I laugh heartily. Time to put an end to this game. "Buddy", I say, "I couldn't even afford that right now if you cut off one of those zeros. There is NO way. So tell you what... I'll just use whatever comes with the Groupon and do my best to achieve my goal anyway.... even if it is "hopeless", as you say."

Bob looks slightly annoyed, but resigned to the fact he's not going to get anywhere with this sale. Our interview promptly ends. He takes me over to the assessment office to book my fitness assessment.

Since then it's been canceled twice by the gym, with about 45 minutes notice each time. "Our kinesiologist is sick", is the explanation I've gotten on both occasions. Determined not to just let this slide and allow them the satisfaction of knowing they haven't wasted their time assessing one of those "Groupon" customers who won't be getting personal training anyhow, I've booked a third time.

And this...this is why the saying "if something looks too good to be true, it probably is", really IS true.

Until next time...
xo Janine

Progress Update: Week 1

It's been a week since I started all of this, so it seems appropriate to do a progress update. (I also feel like I kind of need to do one today to remind myself why I took this on again, as today's cooking attempts were, well, exhausting, with mediocre payoff. Suffice it to say I waged war on both an eggplant and a butternut squash, and very nearly lost to both of them. I'm exhausted, my eyes are still recovering from severe onion attacks, and I have small cut marks on several fingers as if I was in some kind of a strange knife fight. That's what I'll tell people to keep up appearances, anyway.)

Anyway, this week's progress! Let's do this!

WEEK 1

Milestones:

1. Cut out fast food and junk food, cold-turkey
2. Learned how to grocery shop healthily
3. Made a soup from scratch

5 best new foods I incorporated into my diet:

1. Plain yogurt with a few drops of vanilla extract, blueberries and raspberries
2. Strawberry-banana-kiwi smoothie
3. Tomato-avocado sandwich on whole wheat bread with garlic hummus
4. Shredded wheat cereal with berries
5. Chickpea salad with peppers, onions, parsley, olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice

3 Memorable Moments:

1. Stealing salad recipes from the local coffee shop and discretely inputting them onto my blackberry (as if I could get arrested for it)
2. Trying to chop and peel a butternut squash and ending up having the butternut squash basically chop and peel me
3. Staring into the crepe-making window at Cafe Crepe, being subjected to the irresistible sights and smells of nutella and dark chocolate.... and choosing a plain strawberry and banana crepe sans icing sugar instead. Will Power, to the rescue!

Next Areas to Target:

1. Exercise
2. Drinking more water
3. Expanding recipe repertoire

Enthusiasm, excitement and vigour replenished. Week 2 is all about exercising and trying out more recipes. 7 days down, 83 to go....and so it continues!

Like being dropped in the middle of the Amazon...

Here I stand, completely exhausted, crying uncontrollably, bits of skin all over my hand, staring over what can only be described as a total massacre. Of vegetables.

How did I get here? Well, let’s rewind a few days…

After spending my Thursday afternoon studying the Canada Food Guide, I start to realize that something rather important is missing in my healthy eating game: meal planning. My healthy choices to date are admirable compared to prior attempts… but so far, my best strategy is to think of what I’m going to eat when mealtime arrives, traipse to the grocery store, buy it, and prepare it then. Not exactly an efficient strategy, when you’re doing it once or twice a day. I’m spending so much time in transit to the grocery store that I’m resorting to buying pre-prepared, ready-made options (like those super convenient premade salads), because I can’t imagine when I’m going to have the time to learn how to actually prepare a real meal and do it with all of this shopping. (My wallet is equally unhappy with this strategy, as I’m quickly learning that pre-prepared healthy foods are priced for a millionaire’s salary.)

Why am I doing this? Because I am the equivalent of a grocery store tourist. Sure, I went as a kid… tagging along behind my parents, retrieving the few items I was told to find as if I was on some kind of treasure hunt. But I never bothered to take it beyond the zombie level and actually figure out how to grocery shop for myself. Now, standing in the middle of a Loblaws feels like being dropped by helicopter in the middle of the Amazon. I don’t know what 75% of the things in the grocery store are actually used for. And I have no real idea how to plan out what I’m going to eat for the next few days and buy accordingly. 

So, it’s time to step up my game. I decide to learn how to grocery shop.

Knowing that this isn’t exactly the kind of thing I can google to find answers about, my first step is to enlist the help of my friend Canan, who is far more well-versed in these kinds of things than I. She willingly agrees to help, being all too familiar with my lack of food prowess from times I’ve been at her house, at dinnertime, and she’s asked me to help her chop vegetables (only to regret it later). 

So we go on a grocery store exploration mission later that evening. She orients me to the basics of smart shopping. She gives me some very helpful tips and tricks. We brainstorm some meal ideas. She gives me some recipes to get me started. I’m feeling very empowered by the end of this much-appreciated meal planning education session. Enthusiastically, I go home and fashion myself a meal plan for the week, and from that, I create what can only be described as an ambitious grocery shopping list:

Cans of tuna
Nuts (walnuts, sunflower seeds)
Chicken stock
Chicken breast
12 eggs
Chickpeas
Tomato
Strawberries
Bananas
Kiwis
Avocado
Berries
Grapefruit
Lemons
Parsley
Mixed greens and/or spinach greens
1 butternut squash
2 onions
1 eggplant
1 cucumber
2 red peppers
Edamame
1 stalk of celery
Broccoli
Garlic
Quinoa
Bulgur
Whole-wheat pitas
Whole-wheat pasta
Feta cheese
Balsamic vinaigrette
Hummus
Spices

The next day, my boyfriend Raph and I head out to the nearest Fortino’s to put it all into action. We enter the store at 6:45pm. By the time we leave, it’s 9:00. The time that filled the gap can only be described as a whole lifetime’s worth of lessons smashed into a two hour grocery shopping blitz. I learn where to find things like quinoa, chicken stock and sunflower seeds. I learn how much everything costs. I learn how to pick out the best fresh fruit and vegetables. It may just be the most educational two hours I’ve ever spent doing anything in my life.

The next day, I excitedly start to use up all of my fresh food. The satisfaction I feel as I put together an avocado, tomato and hummus sandwich on Saturday morning is…well, pathetic, but also motivating. Hey, I can really do this! I am out for the rest of Saturday afternoon and evening (consuming healthy expensive restaurant salad for dinner), but I wake up this Sunday morning ready to take on a new food prep challenge.

So now, here I stand, completely exhausted from hacking away at a bunch of vegetables, crying uncontrollably from chopping onions, bits of garlic and pepper skin all over my hands, staring over what can only be described as a total massacre of my kitchen…happily eating my homemade chickpea salad.

This can only get easier, right?

Until next time,
xo Janine

PS. As an aside...on today, the 10th anniversary of a worldwide tragedy... may we continue to take the steps we need to take to start living like the global village that we are. Lest we forget, 9.10.01.

The (Glorious) Canada Food Guide

1700 calories. 250 carbs. 8 vegetables or fruits. 7 grain products. 2 milk products. 2 meat products. 24 years old. 108 pounds. 26% BMI… 

Good lord. So much for “easy” nutrition. I am drowning in numbers. Who knew there was so much math involved in being healthy? (Thank god I took grade 12 calculus. This may be the first time in my life I actually need to use it.)

The first couple of days have gone pretty well, all things considered. I have eaten three square meals a day. I have started to learn the meaning of “healthy snack”. I even cooked myself a vegetable last night. (Sweet potato. Turned out edible. Major success!) Not bad. The trouble is making sense of all of these numbers to put together a “balanced diet”.

I start to think about how many factors there are to consider here. What are my ultimate goals? I brainstorm a list. It looks something like this:

• Get the recommended amount of caloric and nutrient intake every day
• Start doing the recommended amount of exercise every day
• Gain muscle mass, particularly on my upper arms (if you’ve arm wrestled me before, you’ll understand the rationale behind this one.)
• Maintain my current weight of 108 pounds

Juggling all of this seems complicated enough. Now, add in the fact that I’m also a Type 1 diabetic (neglected to mention this before), who has to be mindful of keeping blood sugar levels in the range of 4.0-7.0 mmoLs… this is achieved by calculating the number of carbohydrates in everything I eat, factoring in levels of exercise, and accordingly giving myself the right amount of insulin throughout the day. 

I consider all of these things. I start getting a headache. My next thought is, “maybe I should just hire a full-time dietician to follow me around for the next 3 months.” Oh right. I’m on a student budget. Okay then. Hmm. My next (slightly more realistic) idea is, how about some kind of book? Aha! There must be a book out there that makes coherent sense out of basic nutrition, right?

So this is my new plan. I head off to Yorkdale. I make a beeline for Chapters Indigo. I find their Healthy Living section. *Gulp*. Oh boy. This is what’s staring back at me...

Allow me to highlight the problems with this picture. First of all, there are what appear to be 10 000 books about how to become healthier. I can’t even begin to sort through them all. Second of all, 99% of them have some kind of “weight loss” theme to them. This does not surprise me. Given the obesity pandemic in our society, the plight of us few who have a hard time gaining weight is not widely recognized, nor exactly sympathized with. *Sigh*. The book shelf is overwhelming. I leave the store empty-handed.

And then, out of nowhere…I get a well-timed memory flashback from my childhood. A tidbit of information I learned about during diabetes education which I chose to ignore as an eight year old, but now seems like it could be my saving grace. The Canada Food Guide. The Canada Food Guide will have all of the answers!

I go home, google it, and then immerse myself in their website. (For those who haven’t visited it before… http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index-eng.php .) It is downright glorious. First of all, it clearly outlines the recommended daily intake of each food group (fruits and vegetables, grain products, meat and alternatives, milk and alternatives) by age, according to number of servings. It has a comprehensive list of every kind of food you could think of in each food group, and how much constitutes one serving for each. It gives awesome meal ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. It tells you how much exercise you should get in a day. All in one comprehensive package. I bookmark the website. I print out all of their pdfs and post them on my fridge. 

Thank you, Canada. Your Food Guide just gave me back my optimism. 

Until next time,

 xo Janine

The $15 Sandwich

Day 1. I wake up feeling like a kid on Christmas morning.  Enthusiastic sentiments are racing through my head faster than they should be at 7:30am. “Oh boy. It’s here! I am so ready for this. I was born ready.” I get up. I go downstairs. Wholly distracted, I don’t even notice my dog this morning. Time to take on the world of healthiness. It does not get healthier than me, from now on.

I look in my cupboards. I look in my fridge. I go back to my cupboards. 

Uh… what do healthy people eat for breakfast?

Perhaps now would be a good time to enlighten you about my previous experience minding my diet, or lack thereof, to be more accurate. This may give you some perspective on the steep, uphill climb I am facing with this whole endeavour (which could be likened to a novice rockwall climber tackling Mount Everest).

Well, I could spend hours and use almost all of the negative words in the dictionary describing my daily food intake… or I could just tell you what I might typically eat in a day, and allow you to formulate your own judgments:

•  A cup of coffee for breakfast (maybe a piece of white toast with peanut butter, if I’m feeling “hungry”…which is rare)
• Another piece of toast with peanut butter for lunch (unless I’m out… in which case, fast food).
• Some variety of fast, frozen, or processed food for dinner
• A conglomeration of junk food mixed in to supplement throughout the day
• Almost no liquids, apart from the occasional pop

On the best day of the year ever, I might manage something like this:

• A glass of orange juice and a piece of white toast with peanut butter for breakfast
• A tuna sub for lunch, a la Subway
• A piece of breaded (frozen) fish with a tiny serving of rice and some frozen packaged veggies for dinner
• Less of a conglomeration of junk food mixed in to supplement throughout the day

Such a day would be celebrated as a miraculous success. But to be quite honest, even all of this is atypical. I usually consider meals to be optional. I frequently forget to eat lunch. Sometimes I forget to eat breakfast AND lunch. And don’t even notice. 

Yeah…food has not exactly been a priority.

You may have noticed that none of these food options involve cooking or kitchen preparation of any sort. That is because my current skill level with cooking does not extend far beyond toasting Eggo waffles. Okay…so I’ve boiled water before too (I can see how impressed you are as I type this). I’ve even followed one or two recipes in my lifetime, with great effort and moderate success. But I have no idea how to piece any of it together to create an ongoing food-making regime that could last more than 24 hours. The mentality surrounding food in my house has always been “eat to live”, so nobody ever spends much time on it (my mother did her best when I was younger, but gave up as I grew older and gravitated towards McDonalds over home-cooked vegetables). Thus…I’ve never bothered to learn the basics. And now, well, here I am. Staring blankly into my cupboards, wishing things just came labeled “healthy” and “not healthy” to make my life a little bit simpler.

Cognizant of the fact that I am meeting a friend for breakfast anyway, and overwhelmed by my lack of kitchen-savviness, I settle on a light, fail-proof option: whole wheat toast, with jam, and a glass of orange juice. Phew. Got through that one. 

So my friend, Michelle, and I meet up downtown. She’s read my blog. She knows I need to find something healthy. We settle on the Eaton Center. (Because a mall is exactly where one would expect to find a nutrient-rich meal…). And this is where the real trouble begins. The Eaton Center has recently unveiled a brand-new food court, which resembles a mecca for all things culinary delightful. The trouble is, well, first of all, its breakfast. Bacon, eggs and pancakes, while delicious, are not going to cut it for me and this project anymore. So my options are extremely limited. We do a couple of laps. I spot a vegetarian restaurant. Aha! Vegetarian food is unfailingly healthy! This has gotta be a safe option. So I go up to the counter and order a tomato and avocado sandwich, with a freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice. I am feeling pretty awesome about it. Until the price pops up. Fifteen dollars? Like, as in, one five, fifteen? For a sandwich, a small pile of greens and a small grapefruit juice that I could have squeezed myself for a dollar?? Take a look…

Michelle’s ever-so-delectable-looking breakfast bagel, in comparison, costs a mere few dollars. Oh boy. The moral of the story here is that healthy eating is not cheap. If I want to protect the meager finances left in my bank account, I am going to have to get on learning how to cook myself, and soon. Hmmm.  Before I can learn how to cook, I need to learn how to grocery shop (properly). Before I can learn how to grocery shop, I need to learn about proper nutrition. Time to buckle down.

Until next time…

xo Janine

Freedom 25...

I am staring out into an open field that seems to roll on forever. Everywhere I turn to look, it stretches out farther and wider than the eye can see...

The road called academia that led me here was entirely predictable. Do this, write that, go here, and at the end you will get a golden piece of paper. It will hold the key to your future. It was a safe and comfortable thought. But as I gaze ahead, with a combination of boundless freedom, careful optimism, and a dash of terrifying uncertainty in my heart, I become aware that it is now solely my responsibility…my opportunity… to figure out where I’m going next. The possibilities are endless. And I realize I need to do something that will inspire me to remember that.

And so I begin this project, and its accompanying blog. In honour of what I think it represents, I’ve decided to call it the “Quarter-Life Crisis Project”.

A brief introduction, in case you don’t know me personally. I’m Janine. I’ve been a student for essentially my entire life, until it all came to an abrupt halt on August 19, 2011. Now I find myself without classes to go to, exams to study for, or assignments to slave over. No job yet. No plans (or money) to travel around the world. Zero upcoming commitments to organize my life around. Yes, it’s a weird combination of under and overwhelming. I guess that’s why they call this quarter-life limbo a "crisis" situation. But then, I can’t help but wonder…when on earth will I ever have this much free time again in my foreseeable future? My best guess would be about 40 years from now, when freedom 65 finally re-opens up a world of possibilities. But even that isn’t quite the same, because most of the years of your life lie behind you by then. Right now, I have a whole lot of free time and a whackload of life lessons to approach...before the real world whisks me away into a neverending whirlwind of commitments and responsibilities. This is like freedom 25...sans finances to fund larger-than-life bucket list items.

So I start to think. There are a lot of things I’ve always wanted to learn, but never had the time while my nose was securely buried in a succession of textbooks. Not school things…life things. Like, for example, what it means to really lead a healthy lifestyle (Exercise? Nutrition? Sadly, foreign concepts to me.) Or how to be an eco-conscious person. Or whether my quality of life would increase if I stopped using technology so much. It's pretty common to have these things cross your mind, but a full and thorough investigation of them is normally impossible with a full-time job, kids, and other responsibilities to take care of. However…with nothing but an open field looking back at me, I have a golden opportunity to take the time to go in-depth and find out what they're all about... while also laying some much-needed groundwork for the future, to avoid permanently existing as a lazy student with a lazy student lifestyle.

Hmmm. This is an exciting thought worth pursuing. I am determined not to waste it via poor execution. It has to be do-able. It has to be trackable. It has to have some built-in motivating force, to keep me going. So I plan…and I revise…and I plan some more. And finally, here it is. The fruits of my labour... built on the backbones of such literary classics as "Eat, Pray, Love", "Julie and Julia", and "The Happiness Project". Except with a younger person. Doing different stuff. I will try to make it less cheesy. I promise.

GOAL: To learn, with as much gusto as I can muster, what it really means to live healthy, live green, live simply, and live generously…with the long-term goal of incorporating lessons learned into my everyday life.

PLAN: I’ll spend some time intently living, breathing and learning about each lifestyle in as much depth as I can. Three months for each. One year in total. If (hopefully when) I get a job somewhere along the way, I will find a way to work around it. And I’ll blog, as often as possible...so you can all hold me accountable, provide me with any (much appreciated) words of advice you have, and be highly entertained by my daily trials and tribulations in the process.

*Phew*. That's it in a nutshell, folks. As for where it will all begin...well, the first 3-month focus (September 6 to December 6, 2011) has been conveniently chosen for me, thanks to a combination of an honest doctor telling me I'd better shape up, and an irresistibly cheap groupon that entitles me to a four month membership at a gym. For the next 3 months, I'll be nearly obsessed with living healthy. The whole thing kicks off tomorrow...with a scheduled gym "fitness assessment". *Gulp* oh boy. Here it goes...