Day 7: One week milestone!

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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

Day 2: Road trip fun on Highway One

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Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs, fruit salad, coffee
Snack:Apple
Lunch: Fried artichoke hearts (3), Greek salad with sea bass, coffee
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Grilled chicken breast, with half a bun and salad, glass of wine

So, today we started our road trip on highway 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We drove halfway along the route, stopping at San Luis Obispo for the night. We being myself, Mom and Step Dad. This is something I’ve been wanting to do since I arrived in CA 6 months ago. And it didn’t disappoint! Sheer cliffs, vast ocean views, hundreds of different shades of blue. It was a whistle stop tour- I definitely want to go back to Big Sur for some more in-depth exploring and definitely some hiking.

Healthy eating wise it was tough- starting in the morning. I had left it to the last minute to pack of course, so after frantically throwing everything I own in a bag I realized I had nothing for breakfast and my parents were arriving in 30 mins to pick me up. I could have caved and had a sugary cereal but instead I legged it up to the local cafe for boiled eggs and fruit salad.

Healthy eating takes effort and you can’t be lazy!

I did cave later in the day to try some fried artichokes. But only because we had passed so many fields where they were growing! So cool, I’ve never seen them grow before. (Apart from in Farmville…ahem). And I also had some wine. It was free!!

All in all a fairly healthy day- I was definitely healthier than I would have been, had I not been making an effort. I’m good with that.

Plus it’s vacation!!! You need to be slightly more relaxed.

Some of the scenery, complete with giant hawk

Some of the beautiful scenery. Look at the bird. It’s a giant hawk!

Posing along the way. Look at the fog line!

Day 1 – the day before the vacay

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Breakfast: Egg whites, steamed kale, chia seeds, raw red peppers and a large coffee
Snack: Cherry tomatoes
Lunch: Chicken with mixed green salad
Snack: Carrots and aubergine dip
Dinner: Omelette with cheese and tomatoes and mixed green salad
Lots of water and nettle and dandelion tea
Exercise: Power Sculpt class, 1 hr

Day 1 Food

As today was the day before the big Cali road trip I tried to go as easy on the food as possible. It’s so hard to be 100% clean and healthy on vacation (and in fairness, kind of boring) so I kind of feel like as much good work as I can do beforehand the better. So this meant loads of water and herbal tea and no refined carbs or sugar – including sugar from fruit. It wasn’t 100% perfect – I accidentally had eggs twice and I could have done without the cheese but it was a good enough effort. Even my parents peer-pressuring me into having a glass of wine didn’t sway me!

And even though my quads were killing me from the workouts earlier in the week I dragged my butt along to the exercise class today. Squat-hell. But hopefully worth every minute.

Overall a good day, ending with some road trip planning with my Mom. Some exciting days ahead with some of the best scenery in the world!

Let’s do this! High fives all round and a big group hug.

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They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well go right ahead and call me cray-cray!

Over the past 3 years or so, I’ve been spending a lot of money on expensive exercise classes (Crossfit, I’m talking to you), healthy food (organic quinoa don’t be growing on trees, even in SF) and random health crazes (wash my mouth out twice a day with virgin coconut oil -seems necessary to me).

But I haven’t really seen any significant change in my body.

It’s not that I mind the money – I would happily invest heavily in health. It’s the lack of any major progress after a whole lot of effort that’s the biggest bugbear.

I say effort but I have the feeling I’m my own saboteur. All of those nights out, boozy brunches, desserts, wine Wednesdays, chocolate Thursdays etc etc that I ‘treat myself’ to, have somehow become the norm, This has been compounded by the fact I’ve recently moved to SF – a city of bottomless mimosas, margaritas and guac, Sunday Fundays, and gourmet EVERYTHING.

So, in an effort to turn the tide I’ve decided to take a leaf out of www.100-healthy-days.com and commit to, well, 100 healthy days in SF! Over the course of these 100 healthy days I will make a concerted, dedicated and publicly documented effort to be healthy.

100 days will take me nicely into the holiday season and a joyous homecoming to Ireland. How would I love to breeze into my old local in Dublin, to cries of ‘Jaysus – you look amazing’, or ‘The California lifestyle is obviously suiting you’ or even better from the jealous ones ‘She’s taken it too far, she’s lost her child-bearing hips…’

There will be MANY obstacles in my way between now and then of course:

1. Road trip to LA with my parents – happening on Day 2

2. Work conference in Las Vegas

3. Long weekend in Mexico

4. Thanksgiving in Tahoe

5. Many, many SF boozy Sunday brunches, random food-related events, margaritas in The Mission, Napa wine tours etc etc

However, there are many things in SF that will also help:

1. Free healthy food in work

2. An abundance of fresh Californian fruit and veg

3. Nice weather!

4. Paleo Margaritas

5. Many, many beautiful, tanned, toned, healthy people to motivate me.

So, while it will be tough, no doubt, I am confident I can do this, with baby steps and an attitude of loving kindness!

Let’s do this!

Michelle

100 Days in SF

100 days of fun in San Francisco

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.

Day 2: Road trip fun on Highway One

Day 1 – the day before the vacay

Let’s do this! High fives all round and a big group hug.