Anyway, back to the point. I've been getting worse recording what I eat on the fitness app. The food diary is completely out the window. My main excuse this week for not eating right is:
"But menu planning is so-o hard. I have no framework to refer to. How am I suppose to know what to eat or what not to eat? Just seeing all those stats aren't helping me." Well, the stats are not helping because I've NOT BEEN MAKING USE OF THEM AT ALL! What a pathetic excuse for myself. "No framework", go look for something on the Internet! And if that fails, go pay a nutritionist to tell you what to eat! There's the framework right there!
The second excuse is that I'm moving toward vegetarianism/veganism. Ok, let's look at this. Basically,
I don't want to support large-scale animal faming. When it comes to free-range animals, well, I've never been to the farm, so I don't know how "free-range" they are. Better to err on the safe side.
Being vegetarian is about not eating meat all of sorts, including seafood. (Those who eat seafood but not land animals are pescetarian). Being a vegan also includes not eating animal-derived products such as eggs and dairy. Technically it should probably also include honey, but I'm not going to go there yet. So the logic is: if I don't support animal-farming, I shouldn't also eat things derived from animals that are also part of the animal-farming system.
Now that we have that part cleared, the next thing is: am I ready to make a serious commitment to this?
It will certainly take a lot more work than just eating healthy. Am I ready to put in the amount of work needed? Bearing in mind, as I've learnt in the past two weeks, just avoid eating meat and counting calories is not enough to ensure a proper diet. At the rate I went last week, I'm going to have some health problems down the road. So am I truly ready?
The answer is: I'm going to give it my best shot. Now that that's clear, here're the things I need to do:
1) Learn more about nutrition and diet. Go pick up some books on the subject and read about it.
2) Have variety in my meals. Whatever I've eaten, if they're not leftovers, try not to eat the same ingredients again.
3) Allow myself two treats a week. Treats are defined as: anything chocolate-related, cakes, packaged snacks, and candy. This definition can be changed later. Since my week starts from Saturday to Friday, then one treat on Saturday, and one on Tuesday. Those are treats days. It's not about stuffing my face. It's about having one bar of chocolate or one piece of cake.
4) Make one pot of Chinese soup each week. I've been totally skimping out on this. None of that anymore. Drinking Chinese soups help prevent health problems, and they usually taste ok.
5) Make 3 smoothies each week. Try to keep them different from treats days. So maybe smoothie on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. It helps to plan ahead what I want to drink. Gives myself a sense of anticipation.
6) Stick to the three-day-a-week gym thing. If I have some activities coming up, then consider two days in a row, or even going to gym in the morning. Definitely make an effort to go to gym at least once on the weekend. There are less people about and I like that.
7) Stick to the 2 litres of water a day plan.
What can help is to put up a nutrition/treat calendar. Mark down the days I'm going to have the treats and what kind of treats I would like to have. Same thing with the smoothies. That will give me something to look forward to. That's important. It's going to help keep me going, especially on the days when I just want to opt out and think it's too much hard work.
This is what the nutrition calendar/treats look like:
The Special Events section is to note down anything not of the ordinary such as friend's birthday, trips made etc. Haven't quite decided yet what to write in the other days. Am sure something will come up eventually.
Having gotten that settled, the next step is to simply list down all the ingredients I eat each day and with the three main nutrients associated with that ingredient.
Here's an example:
All foods probably have more than 3 nutrients. I'm simply narrowing it down and picking what the food is best associated for. Couldn't find anything on the beancurd skin, but it's similar to tofu.
That way, even when I pick up food from the restaurant, I can still write down the ingredients, do a bit of nutrition fact-finding online, and have something to work on.
When it comes to menu-planning, I can pick three nutrients to focus on. This week, it's Calcium, Iron, and Protein. Then, I check in the nutrition chart which foods have any of these. Here's a list:
Protein:
Peas, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, tofu, grains, rice, oats, peanut butter, tahini.
Calcium:
Green leafy veges, tofu, tahini, almonds, brasil nuts, figs, soy milk.
Iron:
Quinoa, molasses, beans and dark leafy veges, lentils, peas, and wheatgerm.
Ok, now we're ready for menu-planning. I will take each of the ingredients in the Protein section as a basis for searching recipes to make. If the recipe has other ingredients that also has the other two nutrients, then great. If not, try to include other ingredients from the other 2 sections into this week's menu.
The final step is to include the ingredients into the fitness app, not so much for the calories (which I still need to keep an eye on, but it's not that accurate so I will not live and die by it), but to see where the nutritions level are.
Alright, off to do my menu-planning. I will also try to post more often with what I ate.
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