going green: exercise

Well, if it's one thing I've learned, changing your life to include more healthy habits is a long term process. I'm trying to not beat myself up because I've been eating more processed food than I would like, I use all sorts of harsh chemicals, and my coffee addiciton has only gotten stronger. It's all about taking it one day at a time and making small changes here and there that turn into long term healthy habits.

I want to talk about exercise today and more specifically - running. I have always told myself that I am not a runner. I'm not an athlete. I'm not in shape. I don't exercise. These things became my motto and what I truly started to believe about myself. This September I have made a challenge for myself to run/walk at least a mile a day and documenting it on instagram #mileaday. Today's the 12th and so far I have only missed one day when I was quite sick. Some days it's just a walk and other days it's a slow run. Some days it's long and some days it's short. Some days it's hard and some days it's easy.
I have learned to push myself though and realize that my body is capable of a lot more than I thought. It's kind of fun :)

going green: what we eat

Eating clean food (ie. food without a bunch of articial junk) can be pretty tricky living in a small city in the middle of the prairies. Grocery stores are starting to carry more and more of organic products  but things are still very deceiving. It's shocking to read the ingredient lists on things that are marketed as healthy and natural and find out that that that granola bar your eating as a healthy choice has more grams of sugar in it than the chocolate bar you passed up in its favor.

I wanted to give you a better picture of what my average weekly shopping looks like. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but this was just for an average week at home for us looked like. Eating clean can be a little bit more expensive so I like to check out the marked down produce section. They basically put everything there that may have a tiny little bruise on it or be nearing its expiry date. I scored a cauliflower that had a tiny brown spot on it, a giant bag of mixed peppers that I have no idea why it was in there, they seem perfect to me, a perfectly good cucumber, and a mostly good container of strawberries.

Note* This food lasted us much longer than just one week*

Since starting to eat clean our taste buds have changed dramatically. I don't enjoy restaurant food nearly as much anymore and much prefer the things I can cook at home. I love the convenience of restaurant food, but now that I am used to home cooked meals my taste buds (and stomach) can't handle all the extra salt and sugar. I can actually taste the preservatives and artifical flavorings that they put into food which I didn't notice before.

Ok, homework time! Next time you in the grocery store actually read the ingredient list on those 'healthy' granola bars and 'natural' tortilla chips before you put them in your cart. It's time to see what you are actually putting into your body! One good example of this was the supposedly healthy almond milk that I picked up and only after reading the ingredient list did I realize that there was more added sugar than there were almonds in it!! Yuck, no thanks!

Happy eating!

going green: resources

This year my word is "health". Some days that is the farthest thing possible from where I am, but then there are some days where I'm right on track.  Today I wanted to share some ideas about where to start.
I've been intrigued by the idea of "going green" for a long time but never really did anything about it. Eventually I started watching several documentaries and reading some books on the subject which really got me hooked.

Some resources that I would recommend are:
Films:
Supersize Me - While this documentary doesn't necessarily talk about going green, it shows the extremely detrimental effects of fast food on our bodies.
Vegucated - Follows a handful of people that agree to go vegan for a set amount of time and then exposes them to the sources of our food, etc. etc. It's a real eye opener for sure.
Books:
Healthy Weight Canada - Explains the unhealthy additives that are in almost all of our store bought food.
The Art of Eating In - I found this book so inspirational to read and really spurred me on to get more active in the kitchen.
Blogs:
www.100daysofrealfood.com
www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com
www.foodbabe.com
www.katheats.com

There are a million resources out there on clean eating but I just wanted to highlight a few that I found to be helpful! Next up, the food we eat!