Fall Fix-Up: Nutrition

This week is going to be a double fall fix up, because I didn't have time to post last week! To be honest I haven't really had time to post ever, and it makes me sad. Between school, work, homework, trips to prescott to visit linn/friends/parents, housekeeping, and maintaining a wee bit of a social life, I've found I really have no time at all. I look forward to the day when I don't have to work AND go to school. just one or the other is fine with me. Anyways, I hope that one of these days I will not have so much work to do and have enough free time to blog regularly like my heart desires :)

Today I'm going to be talking about nutrition, and tomorrow, since I have my personal finance and family planning midterm, I will be talking about money.

Nutrition is something I care about a lot. I've been a vegetarian since I was 13 years old, although I've flipflopped quite a bit- sometimes going to one end of the spectrum and eating a vegan/raw diet, and sometimes "cheating" frequently, as I did in Greece over the summer. There are a few rules I always try to stick to though, and I'd like to share them with you.

1. Eat Food. If you've read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, you've heard this one before. Actually, that book has a lot of good tips and you should check it out. It's a quick read- took me an hour while lounging on the beach in mexico last winter. anyways, this isn't as simple as it seems. It rules out a lot of the things you find at the supermarket. Read the ingredients on the things you eat, and if you can't picture in your mind one of the ingredients, it's not food. If your grandmother wouldn't know what it is, it probably isn't food. This can be expanded upon by saying "eat whole food". as in, things that are one ingredient. fresh fruits and vegetables are best. The fewer ingredients listed, the better usually.

2. Don't eat until you're full. Eat until you aren't hungry anymore. In french, one says "J'ai faim", which means "I have hunger". There is no way to say "I'm full", rather, you say "Je n'ai pas faim", meaning, 'I do not have hunger". Eat with this mentality. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to process a full stomach, so if you stop eating when you're full, you're already 20 minutes too late. Something that goes along with this tip is "drink your food and chew your drink", meaning take the time to chew your food thoroughly and enjoy it, and keep your drink in your mouth long enough to fully appreciate it. Not only does this make eating more enjoyable, it slows down your pace and keeps you from scarfing everything down before your brain can process it.

3. In my experience, counting calories is the best way to lose weight. I like to think of it as science. a pound is about 3500 calories, which means if you want to lose one pound you have to burn 3500 calories more than you consume. If you figure out approximately how many calories you burn in a day just from the processes of living, you can figure out how many calories you can eat (without exercise) to maintain your current weight. Then it's just a matter of reducing that number and/or adding exercise to your daily routine. Eat like you normally do, but count your calories for a day. You will probably be amazed at how much you actually consume. This website has been very helpful to me, and a lot of restaurant websites now carry nutritional information as well. I like to keep a food diary or use the My Fitness app on my droid in order to keep track of my daily calories- it really helps to be knowledgeable about just what you're consuming each day.

4. Ignore the food pyramid. 6-11 servings of bread/grains a day? Are they kidding? when was the last time you you ate 9 slices of bread or servings of rice or pasta in one day? It was evident to me early on that this model of nutrition was not going to work for me- find something that works for you. I prefer to eat mostly fruits and vegetables, maybe 2-3 servings of grains a day, and 1-2 servings of dairy/protein. It's different for every body though and as long as you are getting the vitamins you need and are minimizing fatty, sugary, starchy foods, you should be fine.

5. "easy" doesn't mean "healthy". I'm astounded every time I look on pinterest and I see a slew of pins of "Easy weeknight meals!". They usually are some combination of chicken, cream cheese, pasta, and a crockpot. and various other dairy products. these are the kinds of meals I see as comfort food that I would make for myself while wallowing in a boatload of self pity or spending a night in with sappy movies and a snowstorm. They are not things I would ever feed my hypothetical children on a regular weeknight as a regular nutritious supper. So don't fall for quick and easy recipes that also happen to be starchy and fattening. There are plenty of almost as quick and easy recipes out these that are actually nutritious and chock full of good stuff like veggies and whole grains :)

6. If any slight part of you has ever lightly considered eating vegetarian or vegan, look into it further. I recommend the book skinny bitch, especially for younger adult women. It's a lifestyle that is so rewarding both to you and to the animals you save, and there are so many wonderful substitutes out there that you will never miss meat, dairy, eggs, etc. Of course this is not to say that you have to be a vegetarian or a vegan to be healthy. It's just one way to do it :)

7. Eat whatever you want. This is the most important tip. Yes, I count calories and try to eat vegan and look for whole, healthy foods, but if I want to eat a giant bowl of fettucini alfredo or 7 chocolate chip cookies I let myself, and I don't feel guilty. Yes, I want to be healthy so that I can look good, feel good, and live a long, healthy life, but I also want to have a good time while I'm here. Food is fun, and a lot of food that isn't very good for us is freakin' delicious. As long as you don't eat it very often, it's ok to say to hell with nutrition and let yourself eat it every once in a while. That's what life is about. The little pleasures. In general, be healthy and do what's best for your body- but don't let that stop you from enjoying life and enjoying food :)

Those are my nutrition tips for today. I will try to be back a little later in the week with a few calorie controlled recipes, and I will do my best to be here tomorrow with my fall fix up- finance post.

have a happy, healthy thursday!

<3
Em

Fall Fix-Up: School

My friend Jessica has this as a doormat in her apartment :)

 Fall means a lot of things, but for the majority of people under the age of 22 (and a lot of people over the age of 22 as well) it means school. back to hitting the (400 dollar) books, trading sleep for good grades and a social life, playing frizbee on the quad (this really happens at my school. such a cliche.), and counting down the days until the end of the semester.

It's taken me longer than usual to get into the groove of the fall semester this year, probably because graduation seems closer than it ever has before. I've let myself get distracted with trips to prescott, work, and other little things and I've let a few reading assignments or "unnecessary" classes here and there slide.

But no more! It's time to crack down. In this feature I'm going to share a few of my own tips and strategies for how to stay on top of school (without letting it rule your life).

The single most important tip I can offer you is get a planner. One that has ample space for each day of the year from august to may. after the first couple days of the semester, gather all your syllabi and write down the reading assignments/homework assignments/due dates/test dates/etc for the entire semester for all your classes. For really important things like essay due dates or test days, highlight or put a star next to the assignment/test. This way, you'll never be wondering just what you have to do on any given day. All you have to do is open up your planner and it will all be written down for you. Also, it's really satisfying to cross off each thing as you complete it and to know that you have finished all your work for the day. Hell, you could even finish tomorrow's if you felt like it. But we're starting to talk crazy.

Now that you know exactly what you're supposed to do every day, try to actually do it on that day. There are plenty of weeks when I get caught up with various things and then find that I have 200 pages of reading to do for 3 different classes, 2 assignments, and a test to study for. That's way more to tackle than if I'd just done a little bit of work each day. Sometimes it's tough to convince yourself to do homework every day but it really is helpful.

So make the time that you do homework something that you might not exactly look forward to but can at least see as bearable. Choose a spot in your house or dorm or on campus that is comfortable and conducive to studying. This could be a specific nook in the library, a nice, secluded place outdoors, a comfy chair in your living room, or just your desk or your bed. The space should be free from distractions like traffic noise, other students, etc. If you like music while you study, play it. My freshman year in Portland, my favorite way to study was at my desk, with my feet on the heater under my window and a blanket over my legs (I'm always cold) and with my cupper's travel mug full of hot tea and a napkin full of cookies stolen from the bon. Mint tea+Chocolate Chip cookies= best thing ever, especially on a chilly, rainy portland day. This way, the activity itseld (studying) might not be all that enjoyable, but you can please the rest of your senses (music to listen to, something yummy to sip on/eat, cozy surroundings) to make the experience as a whole decent enough.

Planning on a day to day scale is very important, but planning for the big picture is just as if not more important. The first thing I did when I got to Lewis and Clark in 2009 was put together a 4 year plan. I figured out exactly which classes for my major/minor/gened I would need to take to graduate and arranged them in a schedule that made sense and left room for adjustments. The first thing I did when I got accepted to the media arts program at UofA was put together a 3 year plan. With each change I make- wether it's adding a minor, contemplating another major, etc I make a new 3 year plan to figure out how the classes I need to take will fit into my graduating on time. So many students go into college without really knowing what they're supposed to take to graduate on time... which is why the average student take 5-6 years to earn a bachelors degree. Since I've been planning since day one of my college career, it seems absurd that I would ever have to take more than 4 years to graduate- but that's because I took the time to figure out exactly what I'm going to have to do for all my remaining semesters.

Looking at the results when I googled "academic tips", I got a lot of the same old thing that you probably don't need to be told. "go to class prepared", "take thorough notes", "do the reading", you know. The thing is, I don't think the same tips are applicable to every class, and I think if you try to do the same things for every class you will end up wasting a lot of unnecessary time. During the first couple weeks of class, pay attention to your professors' teaching styles. Some may really expect you to remember important details from the reading, while others may assign the reading but then go over everything you need to know in class. Some may take attendance every day and expect you to take detailed notes, while others may post their lecture notes online and simply expect you to show up on test day and know the material. Obviously in a perfect world where we all have unlimited time and brain power we would do the same amount of work for all these classes just in the name of learning. But it's college, and we all know that college is part academia, part having fun, meeting people, experiencing new things, and exploring life as an adult. We have jobs and social lives and we certainly don't want to spend these four years with our noses in books the whole time. So adjust your learning/studying style depending on the teaching style of the class and the professor. If doing the reading does nothing more than tell you exactly what the teacher is going to say verbatim in class the next day, maybe just skim it. If the lecture notes are given online, don't worry about writing down everything word for word- just supplement the given notes with additional things the professor might say in class. This will save you a lot of time and effort without really compromising your gpa.

Those are my favorite tips, but here are a few more short ones:

-establish and look towards goals. Even if it's just getting through the semester or getting to graduation, know the steps you need to take to get there and feel accomplished as you take them.
- taking forever on a project or revising a paper a million times doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be better, and doing something all in one sitting doesn't mean it's going to be bad. Some of the best grades I've gotten were for essays I wrote in three or four hours the night before they were due. I went through the next morning and just made minor wording/grammar corrections before turning it in. Find a way of writing/doing assignments that works for you and don't let all those people tell you that you have to have at least three drafts or have to spend at least two weeks working on a paper for it to be good.
- Don't take it too seriously. Yeah, it's college, and it's your future, and it's expensive... but a few missed classes or assignments here or there are not going to matter in the long run. One failed test will not be the end of you. Just do your best not to let it happen again but don't freak out if it does. In the end it's the time you spent outside of class that you're really going to remember, not that one time you got a D on an essay.

What are your tips for staying organized and clear-headed in school? Interestingly enough my only class of the day today was cancelled so I'm going to do all that homework I put off last week ;)

<3
Em

Fall Fix-Up Feature

As of last friday, it's officially fall. which means officially time to start a new feature I thought up. It's like spring cleaning, but it's fall so it's fall fix-ups! My life has been feeling really jumbled and crazy lately, and one day while lying in bed feeling sick and crappy and overwhelmed I decided it was time to reevaluate things. To make a plan, to divide my life up into categories and focus on each one to get back to a calm, happy, clear-thinking state. And then I thought, this would be a great thing to blog about.

Fall might be kind of a weird time to do this kind of thing, but if you think about it it totally makes sense. Fall is when I'm thinking about the future- about registering for spring classes, about figuring out what I'm going to do after college, about finding the friends I really want to spend the next year with, about finding a job for the school year. It's a time of new responsibilities and settling down and getting back into the groove of things after the crazy whirlwind that is summer.

There are 13 weeks of fall. Each week will have a theme, and I'll be posting at least one post (probably on sundays but we'll see) that corresponds to that theme. The posts will be about ways to improve/declutter/understand/work on that part of your life in an effort to be happier, healthier, and less stressed. I think it's going to be a really, really good thing.

Here's what we've got to look forward to:
This week I'll be discussing school. This is a good topic for this week because I'm beginning to pick out classes for next semester and I'm deciding whether or not I want to change my major. but we'll get into that more later. The other topics, in no particular order (it will be a surprise each week which one I choose to discuss) are:
work
friends
relationships
family
money
housekeeping
cooking
style
entertaining
exercise
nutrition
creativity

are you excited yet? I know I am. I'll have the very first chapter of this series up later today so stay tuned :)

Happy autumn lovemuffins, Enjoy your cool weather if you've got it, I'll be sweatin' it out in the 90s down here in southern AZ.

<3
Em