Category Archives: California

Day 12: Getting back on track

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and egg whites, chia seeds, sauteed escarole, raw red peppers, coffee with milk
Snack: Strawberries
Lunch: Salad with chicken and avocado, apple cider vinegar, coffee with milk
Snack: 6 almonds, half a carton of Chobani greek yogurt
Dandelion and nettle tea
Dinner: Brown rice, with chicken, stir-fired veg and Thai curry sauce from a jar
(Dessert: Gluten Free Banana Bread. If I put it in brackets and italicise it, it means it never happened, right?)
Exercise: zzzzzzzzzzzz

After my carb/sugar/alocohol-fueled weekend of debauchery, Day 12 was all about trying to get back on the healthy buzz – both mentally and physically.

I was still utterly exhausted from Saturday night. I’ve started to notice this recently – it takes around 2 days to recover from a big night out. Not worth it.

Thankfully, at my place of work, healthy food is always at hand, which makes this challenge so much easier. We have an amazing cafe, with fresh veg, fruit, eggs, salads etc. I am so incredibly thankful for this. I think if I was left entirely to my own devices today I would have been too exhausted to prepare anything healthy and I would have definitely indulged (more than I did) in a ready-made sandwich or pastry. But, I was able to easily grab some good food.

However, when I got back from work I did cave and I had carbs (and gluten-free banana bread). They were clean, brown carbs though so not entirely bad (unlike the gluten-free banana bread, which was also laced with chocolate chips FYI).

Lesson learned- have healthy stuff to hand at all times for those days when exhaustion takes over. In the real world, when there’s not a handy cafe, this probably means doing some prep work in advance. I need to work on this.

One good thing I did today was to drink lots and lots of dandelion and nettle tea. These teas are great for detoxing.

In SF news, I saw this really cute dog today. Everyone in SF has a dog. Even the dogs have pet dogs. I would love a dog.

Day 11: The Hangover Challenge

Leave a reply

Food: Bad all day, I don’t wanna talk about it. Suffice to say pancakes were involved (from the delightful Chole’s Cafe in Noe Valley.)

Of course, failing the ‘Pre-gaming, night out challenge‘ meant I was battling an additional challenge on Day 11.

The Hangover Challenge.

Question – is it possible for anyone to pass the hangover challenge? I would say it’s only possible if you’re too sick to eat. At least you force yourself into a calorie deficit. Healthy, right? Emmm.

No need to elaborate on the details of how I failed this challenge, you’ve all been there.

My coping mechanism for this going forward is to not fail the fecking challenge the night before.

Orrrrr, if disaster does strike again, I found these interesting tips from one of my fave sites mindbodygreen.com on how to get over a hangover the healthy way!

Coconut water (agreed – if you can stomach it.)
Regular water (obvious, but get as much down as possible, just force yourself!)
Asparagus (!?!)
Yoga (My friend Marie is a huge fan of this!)
I’ve also heard watermelon has all the vitamins you need to cure a hangover.

Or just getting a hug from your mama or loved ones helps. That’s what I did.

We also went for a mani pedi in Noe Valley. I was very pleased with the job the Rainbow Nail Spa did!

This may, or may not, have been my hangover breakfast.

Mama enjoying her mani-pedi

My friend Marie doing hangover yoga.

Day 10: The Pre-Gaming, Night Out Challenge

1 Reply

Breakfast: Omelette with smoked salmon and tomatoes, coffee with milk
Snack: Fruit tasting at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market
Lunch: Chinese Chicken Salad at Gott’s Roadside in the Ferry Building
Snack: Iced Coffee
Dinner: Left-over salmon with roast potatoes and fennel
Pre-gaming: Prosecco, mini cup-cake, tortilla chips and guacamole
Gaming: Vodka Soda
Post-Gaming: Pizza…

Day 10 of my 100 Healthy Days in SF brought the greatest challenge to date – the pre-gaming night out. (Or, if you’re in Ireland, the pre-drinking before going on the tear). And I am ashamed to say, I failed spectacularly.

From the start, I’ve known that social drinking would my Achilles heel. It’s probably the whole reason why I feel the need to embark on this challenge. I’m relatively healthy during the week and feel empowered and motivated to make healthy choices. However, as soon as Friday comes and the suggestion is made to go for cocktails/beers/dinner/margaritas my resolve crumbles faster than low-fat feta cheese. It’s not just the drinking, it’s the whole package – the unwinding after a long week, the catching up with friends, the debating over what cocktail to try…it’s just all so social and fun.

So, today’s event was a night out with some of the Irish people living in SF. Our friend Kev was over visiting from Dublin, so of course we wanted to ‘catch up’ (aka go on the lash). We started out pre-gaming at another friend Katie’s house in The Mission, followed by drinks at my fave bar The Latin American Club (beware the Margaritas – they are lethal!).

In fairness to me, I couldn’t have been faced with more difficult foes. Kev is the Emperor of ‘getting on it’ and it’s practically impossible not to be affected by his good buzz and Katie is always on hand to pour the bubbles. I just couldn’t say no. Actually I didn’t even try. 😦

So, I ended up drinking a lot, and then going for pizza afterwards. The shame!

I’ve been beating myself up about this ever since, but I’ve decided to stop doing that. This is the first time I’ve met with this challenge during the 100 healthy days, and while I failed it’s not the end. I just need to come up with some strategies to ‘healthify’ the nights out. Some ideas:

Drink a TON of water the day before going out so you’re not dehydrated and reaching for the neared liquid to hand
Eat a big, protein and veggie filled meal before-hand so your blood sugars are balanced and you feel in control
Drink a glass of water as your first drink
Bring your own ‘healthy’ beverage to the pre-game
Have a healthy snack prepared for when you come home, so you don’t feel the need to go to the pizza place

The next time I go out, I will be prepared!!!

In other news, I spent a lovely day with the folks wandering around the famer’s market at the Ferry Building (a must for those visiting SF) and then doing the city bus tour, joined by the bold Kev.

Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Buidling. Check out dem peppers!

Irish reunion!

Day 9: The Wine Tour Challenge

1 Reply

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs, banana
Snack: Half a banana, wine
Lunch: Meats, cheeses, tomatoes, olives, cheeses, cheese
Snack: Wine, wine, wine
Dinner: At Slanted Door – 1 x fresh spring roll, 1 x crispy spring roll, cellophane noodles with crab, glass wine, coffee with milk
Snack: Cheese

Meals today were mostly of the grape variety. And cheese...

Meals today were mostly of the grape and cheese variety.

One of the nicest things to do when you’re visiting San Francisco is to head off into the hills for an afternoon of wine tasting – Sonoma and Napa Valley being the most convenient areas from the city. You can hire a limo, join a group, or cajole (bully) a friend into being the designated driver (sucker). Blissful hours are spent wandering through vineyards, sipping on delectable vintages and trying to decide which of the cheeses you bought at the farmer’s market will go best with the 2010 Chardonnay you’ve just tasted.

Sounds idyllic, right? It is.

But days like this are a NIGHTMARE for anyone trying to eat healthily.

1. Wine is obviously high in calories.

2. Cheese goes amazingly well with wine. And cheese is also high in calories and potentially other not-so-healthy things like trans-fat.

3. When you have one glass of delicious wine, you want another. And another. And sure why don’t we buy a bottle for the limo.

4. You don’t drink enough water, so you’re thirsty, so you drink more wine.

5. At the end of the day you’re slightly buzzed so all you want is to eat carbs.

As a result of all of the above, my day was not the healthiest. So, I think I probably failed the Wine Tour challenge. But what are you supposed to do? Decline the invite and sit at home drinking green juices? Actually, that’s probably exactly what you’re supposed to do if you’re really dedicated to living a 100% healthy lifestyle. But, I still want to do fun things and live the full SF experience. I just need to be as healthy as possible.

So, what would the ideal healthy wine tour look like to me? I think it would mean going to wine country, doing the tastings, being able to choose your own healthy lunch (or bring your own picnic), not having any extra wine, drinking enough water and going home to a healthy, home-cooked meal.

Lesson learned.

But it was still a lovely day and I’m glad I was able to give my parents that experience.

As regards the details of what we did – we joined a tour group run by Valley Wine Tours in Sonoma. We visited some lovely wineries – my favourite being Jacuzzi, which had more Italian type wines. I did find an amazing Sauvignon Blanc in Bartholomew Park Winery as well. We had a lunch stop at Larson Family Winery, which was nice. They have dogs you can play with (I say play, but all they want is for you to feed them) and some fun lawn games to play. The tour itself was only OK I would say. I’ve heard rave reviews about the owner Bob, but we had a different driver.

Dinner that night was in Slanted Door on the Embarcadero, which has won a few awards. Tasty Vietnamese food and the views of the Bay Bridge at night are spectacular.

Tasting the wine

Lawn games at Larson Family Winery

Views of the Bay Bridge at night

Day 8: The Dinner Party Challenge

Leave a reply

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and egg whites, sauteed escarole, raw vegan, coffee with milk
Exercise: 30 min PT session, 20 min intervals on treadmill
Snack: Raw carrots, 5 almonds, coffee with milk
Lunch: Salad with lots of veg, chickpeas, grapes
Snack: Edamame with raw jicama and tomatoes
Tulsi tea
Dinner: crudités with hummus, baked salmon with roast potatoes and fennel, green salad with avocado, strawberries, 2 glasses of wine, 2 small slices cheese

You can't see the final meal but you can see the tray of roasted potatoes and fennel.

Today brought a new challenge in the form of a dinner party. Luckily my roommates and I were throwing the dinner party, so I had a lot of control over the menu and was able to be relatively healthy.

The dinner was for 8 people, which is a challenging enough number to cook for. In the past, when cooking for that number, I would always have made something easy and carby and invariably Italian. With my Italian roots, it was kind of expected of me! So, pasta, risotto, bread etc would always make an appearance. Quick, tasty and always a crowd pleaser.

But, sticking to the 100 Healthy Day rules I decided to go for baked salmon and roasted new potatoes and fennel. It’s a Jamie Oliver recipe and sooo tasty. And if you call it Salmone al forno, it’s still Italian! Yes, potatoes are probably not the healthiest but they are acceptable as per The Rules.

There was one failure and one coup today.

Failure: I had probably 2 glasses of wine rather than the 1 I am allowed per The Rules. All I can say is that cooking is stressful and the wine was beautiful. Lame I know.

Coup: Everyone enjoyed delicious ice-cream from Mitchell’s for dessert. We’re talking mocha fudge, we’re talking caramel pecan praline, we’re talking heaven in a big fat bowl basically. But I stuck with my lovely, fresh strawberries, and did not even have one lick of a spoon.

Overall, it was a lovely meal. Not just the food but the company as well. My folks got to meet my roomies, I got to meet my roomies’ family. Good conversation and laughs. And it’s important not to ignore the laughs as they also have a huge impact on health!

The group minus one roomie Venessa and her boyfriend.

Day 7: One week milestone!

Leave a reply

Snack: 10 almonds
Exercise: 45 mins spin class
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs (half egg whites, half regular), sauteed escarole (I had never heard of this veg before), celery, coffee with milk
Lunch: Mixed salad with loads of veg, chicken, avocado
Snack: Half a carton of Chobani Greek yogurt and half a banana
Dinner: Kale salad with smoked salmon and chia seeds, apple cider vinegar, nectarine

Today marked the one week milestone in my 100 Healthy Days in SF challenge. Whilst there are still 14.3 weeks left in the challenge I’m going to go right ahead and celebrate! Whilst the victory is small, I feel proud of myself for being consistent – both in terms of eating healthfully and blogging every day. Go me!

One week in and how do I feel? Not radically different- I obviously haven’t suddenly lost a stone or developed a six pack (not that I would want a six pack), but I do feel good. I feel slightly more alert and energetic than usual. I’ve also noticed that I’m not battling any major sugar cravings, which is amazing.

I was even able to go to Mitchell’s ice cream parlour in the Mission with my roommate last night and resist getting a scoop. Anyone who has ever been to this place will know how hard it is to say no. Their ice cream is goooood! Check them out. My fave is the Grasshopper Pie. Arrgghhh enough talk about ice cream.

Mitchell’s Ice Cream parlour in The Mission. Check them out! 688 San Jose Avenue

It just goes to show that even one week of healthy eating can have a positive effect on your well-being. I’m looking forward to seeing how I feel at the end!

Michelle x

Day 6: The 100 Healthy Days in SF Rules

Leave a reply

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, steamed greens, raw red peppers, raw celery, coffee with milk

Exercise: 1 hour PT session

Lunch: Mixed salad with loads of veggies and grilled chicken, balsamic vinegar

Snack: Mixed salad with turkey and apple cider vinegar

Exercise: 1.5 hours hip hop class

Snack: One apple with a carton of plan chobani greek yogurt

Dandelion and nettle tea during the day

Today was the first day back after vacation and I was ready to launch myself full throttle into the 100 Healthy Days challenge. I am feeling super motivated at the moment! May have something to do with all the fit bods on Venice.

Muscle Beach, Venice. There was a body building competition on!

I thought it might be a good idea to ‘jot down’ ‘on paper’ (funny how that expression is now practically obsolete with the internet) what the rules of my 100 Healthy Days challenge are. Health and healthy eating can mean different things to different people. As such, I best be specific about what I’m doing lest I draw the wrath of any health zealots out there. ‘You ate store-bought Greek yoghurt?!? That’s not healthy – you need to buy a cow, and a field and make your own.’

I’ve also decided to approach this in stages. I don’t think it’s a wise move to radically change everything about your diet and your daily habits in one go. I tried that once and I lasted one very miserable day before gorging myself on ALL of the carbs, meat, sugar, coffee, salt, dairy, cooked veg etc etc that I came across.

So, for the next 14 days these are my rules:

1. No processed carbs – bread, crackers, pasta (I’ve decided tortilla chips are fine. I’m not ready to let go yet).

2. No sugary foods – chocolate, ice cream (arrrghhhh), cakes etc

3. When I go out for a meal and host a dinner party I will limit myself to one glass of wine

4. When I go out for drinks or a night on the town I will limit myself to three vodka sodas

Sound simple? In theory, but I know i’m going to find this challenging. Particularly, the alcohol rules. No jokes about the Irish liking to drink please. 😉 Even though it’s probably true.

Let’s do this!

The Canadian part of me loves rules.

Day 5: Labor Day – last day of summer and vacation

2 Replies

Breakfast: Turkey, slice of cheese, tomato, low fat greek yoghurt, strawberries

Snack: Banana and iced coffee

Lunch: Grilled salmon salad with goats cheese and almonds, glass of wine

Dinner: Selection salads at airport (edamame, tomato and avocado, kale and peach, chickpea)

Snack: Crudites, hummus, sunflower seeds (on the airplane!)

Today was Labor Day – my first one in the US. I had no idea what the purpose of this day was so I had to look it up. It celebrates the social and economic achievements of workers apparently! It also heralds the last day of summer. Sad face.

Today was also the last day of my mini vacation, which was rather apt. We spent it walking down Venice Beach and then headed to Hollywood Blvd. Venice Beach is a bit seedier than I imagined, but there were a lot of ‘typical’ sights to see – rollerbladers with strollers, surfers with six packs (!), skaters in the skate park and a massive body building competition by muscle beach! Hollywood Blvd was interesting enough and we got a bonus view of the Hollywood sign, which was lucky!

As for healthy eating, I was able to avoid poor choices for the most part. I decided to give the eggs a break as I had had them so many days in a row. So, I went for turkey instead. A few years ago I would have turned green at the thought of turkey for breakfast (or even eggs for that matter) but since giving up cereal about 2 years ago, I’ve come around. It’s not that bad!

A surprise for me was the snack on the Delta flight home. Not only was it free, it was healthy! Crudites, hummus and sunflower seeds. It’s very rare to see this on any flight – it’s normally pretzels or a big lump of sugary carb, Interestingly, they were only serving Coca-Cola drinks on the flight. I got to thinking, as Carrie SATC would say – did Coke sponsor the snacks to try to associate themselves with healthy options?

On the flight home I mused over my healthy eating challenge and how I fared during the vacation. Overall, I would happily declare it a success. Whilst not all of my choices were 100% clean or healthy I definitely made a more concerted effort than I normally would. I did allow myself a glass of wine, the odd piece of cheese and some frozen yogurt, but in general I avoided the really bad stuff- processed carbs and excess sugar. If I had been 100% clean I think I would have been slightly miserable. And what’s the point in that?

Tomorrow I will be throwing myself wholeheartedly into the challenge – clean living and back to exercise!!

Skater boy at the skate park in Venice Beach

Baywatch!

Me on Venice Boardwalk

Day 4: The Universal rules of healthy eating

Leave a reply

Breakfast: Egg white omelette with tomato and onion, strawberries and watermelon, coffee
Snack: Banana, strawberries, iced coffee
Lunch: Asian chicken salad, watermelon
Dinner: French fries, baked eggplant Parmesan

Today was spent in Universal Studios. This was my step dad’s number one request for our trip to LA. He’s a big movie buff (nerd) so he was like a kid in a candy store, erupting in child-like giggles whenever he saw something he recognized.

Despite the fact we spent the majority of our time lining up in the baking sun with no water we had a fun time.

The movie tour was great, we got soaked on Jurassic park and we had the bejaysus scared out of us in the haunted house.

Tip- spend the money buying the front of line tickets, totally worth it. I was ready to throw my empty water bottle at the front-of-liners as they breezed past us, with their sweat-free brows.

Universal Studios is not the place to go though for someone trying to eat healthily. You can’t even bring your own healthy food as they search you on the way in. I was surrounded by Cotton candy, hot dogs, churros, ice cream, cookies blah blah blah- one big sugar-filled fantasy land. I was able to resist all that though, so I was proud of myself. When it came to lunch I chose the healthiest option in the form of a chicken salad. However, looking at the ingredients I saw there was even sugar in that! Madness!! For dinner I relaxed a bit and chose the baked eggplant Parmesan. Normally this is made with just eggplant, marinara sauce and cheese, but in this case the eggplant was deep fried in bread crumbs. It didn’t mention this on the menu.

Note: I ordered the fries, knowing they are not healthy in any way. This was a flagrant violation of the healthy eating rules. But I enjoyed every last, salty morsel.

Lesson learned today- even when you think you’re choosing healthy options beware. Check ingredients for hidden sugar and ask how dishes are prepared. But in actual fact it’s almost impossible to be 100% clean in somewhere like Universal.

Day 3: Hangry and suffering from FOMO. But happy.

1 Reply

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach and mushrooms, bacon, apple
Snack: Iced coffee and banana
Lunch: Seared Ahi salad with glass of wine
Snack: Frozen Yoghurt with fresh blueberries and peaches
Dinner: Small slice of bread with pesto, Seafood soup in marinara sauce, grilled ciabatta, white wine.

Soooo, today was a challenge to eat healthily for two main reasons.

1. I got hangry.

This is me feeling hangry

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, hangry means hungry and angry. This came upon me just as we got into Santa Barbara. We had no healthy snacks in the car, I hadn’t eaten in 5 hours, and there was also lots of fighting over directions trying to get off the freeway. Suffice to say I acted like a starved, raving beast, which was no fun for anyone, particularly my travel companions when they tried to reason with me. “I don’t give a flying #%%-%$# where we eat. I need food NOW.” Thankfully, we found a nice restaurant so I was able to make a healthy choice. However, we all agreed we needed some wine to get over the trauma.

Lesson learned here was, plan ahead, bring snacks and eat every 3 hours to avoid getting hangry and being disowned by your family.

2. I had FOMO.

Me drooling over the frozen yogurt

FOMO stands for the ‘fear of missing out.’ I had that today when my Mom decided a frozen yogurt would be nice after lunch. I had a lovely apple all ready to go but FOMO got to me so I caved and got yogurt. (Could still have been the effects of being hangry in fairness… It took a while to recover). Also, at dinner my step dad was raving about the bread and pesto he was inhaling as we waited for our meals, which gave me FOMO so I had to sample. It tasted just OK (I think he was hangry so was just grateful to have food).

Lesson learned here is that I’m going to experience FOMO many times over the course of these 100 days. Realistically, I may not actually be missing anything that great. I just need to remember my goals and become friends with that feeling.

Road trip wise, we had a lovely day. Not as much beautiful scenery as yesterday, but we had a lovely time wandering around SLO and Santa Barbara. Very different towns- SLO is quite sleepy and calm (lovely little plaza and the mission is pretty) and Santa Barbara is a lot busier and full of tourists, but with beautiful Mediterranean style architecture. We finally arrived in Santa Monica and hung out on the pier. Very touristy, lots of amusements, bright colors and smelled like sugar.

Universal Studios tomorrow plus a Labor Day BBQ. Another day, another challenge!

Palm trees- so quintessentially LA

Mom and Step Dad dipping their feet into the Pacific Ocean

Winning BIG on the whack-a-mole

100 Days in SF

100 days of fun in San Francisco

Category Archives: California

Day 12: Getting back on track

Day 11: The Hangover Challenge

Day 10: The Pre-Gaming, Night Out Challenge

Day 9: The Wine Tour Challenge

Day 8: The Dinner Party Challenge

Day 7: One week milestone!

Day 6: The 100 Healthy Days in SF Rules

Day 5: Labor Day – last day of summer and vacation

Day 4: The Universal rules of healthy eating

Day 3: Hangry and suffering from FOMO. But happy.