Archive for July, 2015
Since I’m not likely to do another Pinterest blog for a while, and I’ve got a whole month of doing special things with food, and because someone told me I should blog about it, and since I won’t be watching my 5 movies until next month, I’m gonna blog about my work health challenge! I’ll do one blog each week until I’m done with it. But first, let me explain what this challenge is.
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INTRO
I joined a 30-Day Challenge from my work health incentive program; it is called “Eat This, Not That”. It goes from July 13-August 9, and I’m on a team with 4 other co-workers. I’m at the beginner level, which means I need to: eat 3 servings of Nutrient Dense foods every day, and substitute 3 unhealthy foods with healthier options each week.
I couldn’t tell you exactly what Nutrient Dense means if you asked me to define it, but from the paperwork they gave me it looks like it means fruit, veggies and nuts. Basically just anything that is super dense of nutrients. (Because that is the scientific way to say it.) So since my paperwork emphasizes fruit, veggies and nuts, that is what I’m gonna eat!
Don’t eat it!
As far as the weekly substitutions, that will require some extra thought since it’s not as straightforward as just “eat veggies”. I almost only drink water, I don’t eat out every week, and there’s not any specific dessert or dish I’m always munching on. If I say to myself, “I need to substitute something… I feel like going and buying a milkshake, but I’m gonna drink some lemonade instead!”, does that count as actually substituting it? I don’t know! But I guess I’ll figure it out as I go! 🙂
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PREP WEEKEND
The challengers were given a list of fruits and veggies and how they rate on a nutritional scale; the higher the number, the healthier they are. Most of the fruit and veggies you would find in our house are in the bottom 3rd. The highest vegetables are Kale, Watercress and Collards at 1000. I’m gonna be making Kale with a friend the week after this challenge, so I intend to try both Watercress and Collards in the following month. I also have discovered that I like asparagus fairly well, so I’m going to try to be creative with that, too, since I’ve only eaten it one way.
My plan is to make my meals of experimental veggies on the weekends, when I’ve got more time to shop and be at the stove and everything. Plus it works best for any meals that need
Try ALL the veggies!
to be eaten hot. I may make a few meals to refrigerate and take to work the next day, but I’m mostly going to try to have things to snack on or to have as side dishes during my work week.
On the Saturday before the challenge started, I spent the morning finding recipes for Watercress, Arugula, Collards and Asparagus, and while I did I also found some good recipes for Strawberries. (It was all on one particular site, so you’ll probably see recipes from there a lot.) But since I couldn’t start counting the healthy eating until Monday, I just stocked up on some basic snacks for the first week and will do some more meal cooking as the challenge goes on.
I bought almonds, cashews and mixed organic nuts and divided them into 21 single serving bags for snacking on at work. (A serving of nuts, according to this challenge, is 1/3 cup.) I also bought carrots, added some celery, and made 4-5 bags of 1 cup of veggies (a serving size for veggies). These are in my work fridge.
Strawberries! 😀
Then, I got some strawberries and made some delicious strawberry bread. I used 4 cups for 3 loaves of bread, and although eating a few slices isn’t even a serving of strawberries (1 cup), it is healthy and awfully good. I brought some in for work and it was all eaten up before I left. I like how mild the strawberry flavor is. You can find the recipe here: (http://www.marthastewart.com/282508/strawberry-bread#Strawberry%20Recipes|/275333/strawberry-recipes/@center/276955/seasonal-produce-recipe-guide|282508).
I also bought asparagus, scallions, mini peppers, several frozen bags of vegetables, 2 frozen pasta-veggie meals for lunches, and I also have a gallon of 100% orange juice in my work fridge. One glass of legit juice counts as a serving size of my Nutritional Density, so yay for variety!
I’ll post next week about my first 2 weeks of the challenge and how it went. I know that I have the habit of starting out on these things all strong and excited, and then kind of petering out, so we’ll see how it goes. Feel free to throw snack or veggie or recipe suggestions my way, and I’d always love getting together and cooking with someone to give me better motivation, and of course to share the food. 🙂 Enjoy the blog!
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Clint Eastwood month was chosen and filled with my dad’s suggestions. I didn’t manage to watch all 6 (I did 6!) in June; I think I carried over a week. And since I didn’t write ANY of my reviews until YESTERDAY, they all kind of blurred in my head. While I did enjoy them for probably different reasons, they are all the same movie with the same character to me right now. But I did my best to say something different about each movie. Also, I do think Clint Eastwood is a good actor despite how much I poke fun at him in my reviews, so just keep that in mind. Here goes!
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Fistful of Dollars
A simple western movie about a “Stranger With No Name” who comes into a small town and does what he can to save everyone secretly. He was young and mysterious, and though I’d never seen Clint before, he cracked me up because his voice and his serious face and attitude were PERFECT for that kind of lone-ranger man of mystery. He was all, “I speak to no one, I can take care of myself” in a deep, grovelly voice. Of course he didn’t SAY that exactly, but he was totally that personality that Joel always wanted to play as a kid in character games; the moody, intelligent man who clearly has a past but doesn’t want to talk about it. My favorite part was when he accidentally punched the girl in the face and he made his one expression in the whole movie of vulnerability/fear. He was totally freaked out; it was great. Anyway, aside from making fun of his taking himself so seriously in my head, I enjoyed the movie fairly well. There was violence.
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The Gauntlet
This was the one movie I watched with the older members of my family (as opposed to just myself). It was different to see him as a cop than a cowboy, and he did talk more and have a bit more of a personality. The plot was good and interesting, though it definitely had lots of language and some raunchy dialogue scenes. We just talked over those. It was exciting, though, and ended satisfactorily. There was violence.
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Dirty Harry
People said that this was one of his biggest “vigilante” movies and that he got flack for it… and it was true, in a sense, but I think it ended in a fitting way. I saw him as a character weighed down by the evil of the world and the fact that he wasn’t able to do much about it legally, and he eventually developed the resignation for the consequences that come with violence on the job. It had a famous quote. It was interesting. There was violence.
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Bloodwork
A retired cop, but still a cop, I got to see him as an older person. My dad pointed out that he plays the old, cranky guy really well, and I totes agree. He was, again, the same character: competent, man of few words and no facial expressions (you can never tell if he’s thinking hard or completely bored), able to deduce everything, always ready to shoot a gun but still has a caring heart on the inside. He just likes to hide it. This one was interesting, and I TOTALLY guessed the answer right away even though I didn’t know I was right, so I was proud of myself. Well, I was debating but that and another theory. But I sort of guessed it. But anyway, the movie was a good one. There was violence.
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In the Line of Fire
Secret Service Guy! Same kind of job, but at least he gets a different title. Hostage things are sometimes more interesting than just plain copping, so I liked it. He was, again, old in this. But I was so proud of him! He laughed and smiled and flirted with a lady… several times! Like, it was a part of his personality and not just 1 line that they gave him to meet their quota of proof that he cared about anything! He had some emotions! The story was also fairly interesting, and the ending climax was solid and thrilling. Everyone did a good job. There was violence.
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Unforgiven
I was told that Clint directed this and that it was really anti-violence which went against all his “vigilante” films and threw everyone off. Maybe I had too much of an expectation of it, because it was one of those that is a subtle portrayal of the evils of violence and I wasn’t sure what to do. I mean, clearly it showed that violence is destructive, but since there was that ending stuff with Clint, it didn’t feel like HE learned his lesson, unless his lesson was that you can’t change enough to withstand going back to who you were when there’s pressure. And maybe that WAS the point; that you should stay far away from it. Like not going to the bar if you don’t want to be an alcoholic. Which was probably totally the point of the movie. Anyway, it seemed very serious and deep, but it was unpleasant to watch in times. THERE WAS VIOLENCE.
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I’m not going to put these in order because I don’t have enough opinions to differentiate them in my head. If anyone wants to recommend to me any comedies or romances that Clint is in where he plays any kind of a different character, let me know!
In closing, since I’m halfway through July, I may just wait to do Al Pacino month until August. I guess we’ll see what I feel like doing and what I have time for. Stay tuned for future blogs and thanks for reading! 🙂
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