Gauri: Week Two: Wagon? What wagon?
Is it possible to fall off the wagon before having really got on?
Last Thursday I finished exams (YAY!). That evening I said to myself, “Gauri, tomorrow you will drink with your uni friends. After that, there will be no more junk food in your diet for two whole weeks.”
Well, it was a nice thought. On Friday after drinks (one vodka and apple juice) I had a lot of hot chips at Grill’d, followed by Hungry Jacks (Australian Burger King) for dinner. Then I spent the weekend at Boyfriend’s house and put away a whole season of Veronica Mars as well as:
- half a packet of Tim Tams (the most amazing chocolate biscuit in the world)
- two slices of chocolate Bavarian
- a scoop of chocolate ice cream
- half a 100g bag of Kettle Chilli Chips
- a whole lot of waterthins crackers with pumpkin and cashew dip, and brie cheese
- two vodka and apple juices
- lots of Weet-bix, when I’m not really meant to be eating wheat
Whoops. Do I ever know how to self-destruct.
The day after the binge (Monday) saw me in the worst mood I’ve been in in a very long time. I felt depressed, and I cried uncontrollably for half an hour in the morning. I felt fatigued and I spent the day fighting off an almost irresistible desire to sleep. I tried to tell myself it was just the post-exam come down, but I think the post-exam come down had a little help from the weekend junk food binge.
This is one of my major roadblocks on the road to healthy eating: I treat my time with Boyfriend like a holiday from my life. When I’m with him, the rest of my life (study, health, etc) does not exist, and at some point I subconsciously decided that what I eat when I’m with him ‘doesn’t count’. Boyfriend and I have said that we will not do this to ourselves and each other any more. We want to be good for each other, not bad. Hopefully we can stick to our resolution, because it would improve both our diets immensely!
Today I am truly going to begin my ‘no junk food for two weeks’ kick. I may allow myself a square of chocolate every couple of days, but then again I may not. After two weeks I will assess whether giving up junk has made me feel better, and whether I should try for a month without junk food.
Exercise
I resumed my exercise routine yesterday. I do yoga, then stretching, then cardio, then weights, then cardio, stretching and yoga again. The whole thing takes about an hour and a half, which I can definitely afford during the holidays. When I started the routine, I was only doing it every second day. This summer I will try to exercise every day, but continue to only do the weights part of the routine every second day. A day of rest between periods of exertion will give my muscles time to repair themselves and build themselves up.
I’m excited to see how my body changes with exercise. I’ve already seen a change: my biceps are bigger than they’ve been in a long time. They’re still small by most people’s standards, but that’s OK.
Diet
Great weekend binge aside, my diet has been pretty mediocre. I’m still exhausted from exam period, so cooking has been unappealing. I just got back into it today, though. I made a lovely omelette for lunch:
- 2 free range eggs, beaten, with a little water added
- half a red (Spanish) onion, finely chopped
- handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered
- a pinch of chopped fresh coriander
- salt and pepper
- sliced avocado
- rye toast
Sautee the onions in a little organic, unsalted butter (seriously, that stuff is amazing and nothing like conventional butter, have you tried it?) in a small frying pan. Once softened, add the tomatoes. Pour over the eggs, add coriander, turn the heat right down, and cover. Allow the egg to just cook through. Serve on rye toast and top with sliced avocado. Add salt and cracked pepper to taste. Thanks to my mum and her ‘backseat cooking’ for the recipe.
A body shot
This chapter I’ve decided to do a weekly body shot, even if the shots look exactly the same from one week to the next. It’s nice to catalogue it anyway.
And a question for you: Do you eat differently with your partner, or when you’re on a date? If so, how, and why?
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Oh, Gauri – I’m SO WITH YOU on the “when I’m with my boyfriend, nothing else matters” tip. We always have SO MUCH fun together, cooking, laughing, playing games, etc… It’s so easy to just say “nothing else matters!”. I forget that, when I’m unhealthy – I’m unhappy. When I’m unhappy – our relationship goes to hell!
I told him about Getting Healthy (obviously – it’s my job, haha) and he’s keeping tabs on me now, and I’m keeping tabs on him!
While I remind him constantly to eat breakfast, and eat something before going to the bar – he reminds me not to eat too closely to bedtime, and to buy healthy, organic, non-processed foods. It takes a lot of willpower to withhold “fun” when we’re together, but we’ve decided to challenge ourselves by cooking really complex, beautiful, healthy foods, and it seems to be working!
Best of luck to you, Miss! <3
I don’t have a partner right now and “dates” are so casual, usually, that it doesn’t matter; however, I do this thing where my friends and I will decide to go out, and on those nights, we have absolutely no regard for health.
For example, last week, my roommate and I were reading through the last cycle of Getting Healthy (lol I know right?) and decided to go get ice cream. At midnight. Just because. We came back with Hot Pockets, ice cream, and soda. For real? …at MIDNIGHT? Just because we felt like it.
It’s become something that I definitely need to get a hold of. I did it a ton more last semester, but even doing it occasionally isn’t great. :/
But I’ll speak to my favor–last week, I totally binged on baby carrots, Caesar dressing, and mandarin oranges. Health binge, hayyy!
Also, I LOVE when you post recipes! They’re always so unique and interesting. I definitely want to try this one.
My “partner” is long distance, and we have kind of a love/hate relationship with food when we’re together. We’ve both gained a lot of weight, both lose it the same way, and have VERY similar eating habits. So it’s easier for us to eat healthy when we lived near one another, and also very easy for us to fall in to bad eating habits while together.
When I visited him, it was non-stop eating out though! It was only slightly different than real life, and we’ve both made a conscious choice that next time we visit, we can still eat out, but not for EVERY meal.
That recipe sounds DELISH, and I bet it’d be super easy to adapt in to what i already eat for breakfasts (when I’m in a normal living environment).
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My husband and I are usually together, but we eat totally differently- usually cooking at the same time. I’m vegetarian, he’s not, and he’s allergic to soy, nuts, corn…
We end up spending a lot of time in the kitchen cooking together- it’s a fun way to have good meals but to make them together & to make sure you’re still eating healthy.
But we’re wine & home cooked & stay in kinda people =)
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