Scheduling "Me-Time" (or indulging my Type A personality)

I’m a big-time list maker and have been for my whole life. Even as early as middle school I was making lists to remind myself to change Lucy and Ethel’s tank (my “I Love Lucy” inspired pet mice), clean out my unnaturally organized closet, and write my Christmas thank-you cards. What kind of 12 year old does this? A: The same one who gets hired by her friends parents to clean their kids’ bedrooms at an hourly rate (true story, on more than one occasion too).

I remember the day when I finally checked everything off my to-do list and asked my mom what I was supposed to do then: “Whatever you enjoy doing” she said. Oh, right. I probably started a new list right then and added “Enjoy yourself” to the top.

Well, nothing much has changed I suppose because this week I’ve been all about scheduling Me-Time (does this officially make me a grown-up or someone who needs to be committed?). I remember reading about a life coach suggesting this in an old issue of Body + Soul, but I had never actually tried it myself. I have to say; it’s been pretty effective so far. By treating journal writing or going to a yoga class on the same level of importance as paying bills and running errands, it gives each item a little more gravity (and the extra satisfaction of being able to check it off a list!). Seeing “lay in the grass on your lunch break” on my Teux Deux list definitely makes it less overwhelming to look at too.

You can’t plan everything of course, and some of my best ‘Just Be’ moments have come much more organically. Whichever way they happen though, being more conscious and in the moment has only made me enjoy my days more, especially the ones that are full of work and responsibilities.

Tea Wisdom

Does anyone else drink Yogi Tea and love the little sayings on the tea bag tags as much as I do? Here are my favorite gems from this month that relate to my October “Just Be” mantra (and a few that I just like):

“Happiness is nothing but total relaxation”
“Let your heart guide you”
“You only give when you love”
“Where there is love, there is no question”
“Whatever you are, you are. Be proud of it.”

Who writes these? They put a smile on my face every morning! I love the idea of including a positive life affirmation with a morning ritual like drinking tea. If you'd rather skip the cup of tea and get right to the good stuff though, they have a whole section of their website dedicated to them: Yogi Inspirations

Pie Lab

Here's a great article about Pie Lab, a Project M endeavor, from the NY Times. Yay, M!

Yoga Today

Yoga and I have had an on-again off-again relationship for about a decade now. From my first Denise Austin yoga VHS in high school, to a more serious and in-depth practice in college, I’ve fallen in and out of it over the years. Now, whenever I do manage to squeeze in a session, I always, without fail, say to myself “Why don’t I do this all the time!?” (to which I can never come up with a reasonable excuse).

Lame excuses aside, it really does seem to come down to time. During the week I often get home too late to make it out to a class and have a hard time getting psyched about doing the same DVD for the 100th time. The perfect solution for me has been this website, Yoga Today. When I first found it a few years ago they had a free class that you could watch every day, which was incredible (and speaking of incredible, they’re based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming so the scenery is unreal). In the past few years though, they’ve made some changes and now only offer one free class a week, and allow you to buy previous classes for $3.99. Nonetheless, it still gets my stamp of approval and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a way to do yoga on the cheap.

And speaking of yoga today, I’m trying to make it out to do some yoga tomorrow so if anyone is interested in coming with, let me know!

Just Be

Unemployment was a bit of a Catch 22 for me. As difficult as it was living on a tight budget and stressing about finding work in a bleak economy, having so much free time was incredible. Maybe it’s because I was an only child for 10 years, but I’ve never had a difficult time keeping myself entertained. I have a never-ending to-do list and projects lined-up to last a lifetime, so for me, losing my job was more of a blessing in disguise; a time to relax, re-evaluate, re-center and just be.

In my year of joblessness, I successfully did just that. Fast forward through that year though, and here I am again: sleep deprived, pushing pixels around in front of a glowing monitor all day, eating Trader Joes bagged pasta dinners, and making my $20 monthly donation to Planet Fitness. Really? How did it get to this so quickly?

Let me start out by saying that I’m not trying to make a statement about how working is terrible for your physical and mental health. Having been on both sides of the employment spectrum in recent years, I can safely say that I feel much better about most things in my life when I have a job. The bottom line is that working is great and I’m glad to be doing it again, but now the challenge is trying to regain that balance that I achieved when I had all the time in the world, not just the time between dinner and bed. In my unemployed days, I had the time to take time, now I need to focus on taking the time to make time.

So how do I do that? Lent it out. Forcing yourself to relax might sound like an oxymoron, but hey, if it works then who cares. October is all about trying to find that balance again and my first steps are to: journal religiously, get back into practicing yoga, and to finally give meditation a try. No, I’m too tired’s, no I’m just going to watch Teen Mom on demand all night’s, no excuses. With a busy schedule it’s not going to happen unless I make it happen.

The little tag on my Yogi tea this morning put it perfectly: "The best way of life is to be. Simply to be." And that’s just what I’m trying to achieve.

More to come…

The 5 to 9 Review: Does wine count as a serving of fruit?

And do potato chips count for veggies? Yikes, last month was a lot harder than I expected it to be and I was definitely scrambling towards the end to make my numbers. I had pretty high hopes after the first week when I saw that my regular diet wasn’t too far off from the food pyramid’s recommendations, but even when I really did put in the effort, I never managed to make it.

Why though? Truth be told, I eat a pretty healthy diet already and consciously make an effort to include fruits and veggies wherever I can. A lot of the problem was that I had a busy month (between work and end of summer festivities) and because of minimal time to prepare my own meals, I ended up eating out a lot. Even though I was ordering vegetarian entrées, I was lucky if they contained even one serving of veggies. It seems problematic that unless you’re ordering a huge salad, it’s difficult to get more than a serving of vegetables when you eat at a restaurant. Do I really need to order a side to make my meal complete? Why are veggies always sidelined?

In the last few years (probably because of the rise and general awareness of food allergies), restaurants have been a lot better about telling us about what’s in our meals. Whether it be a calorie count, if it’s vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free, or my personal favorite: if it’s local and organic, there seems to be a lot more transparency in the restaurant industry. My suggestion is that they let us know what buckets we’re filling in relation to the food pyramid too. Maybe I’m only interested in this after trying to actually commit to this diet for the past month, but wouldn’t it just make you feel better to know that your meal was actually giving you some of the nutrients you need?

I was on the train a few weeks ago and read an article over someone’s shoulder about how some grocery stores have developed a program that assigns a nutrition rating to products so customers can easily determine which foods are better for them than others. Some stores even have a full-time nutritionist on staff to answer questions and to help people make healthier choices. While it’s ultimately up to the individual to educate themselves about their own health, let’s face it, we’re all so busy nowadays that a little guidance here and there doesn’t hurt.

Overall though, it was an interesting experiment to try to eat my 5 to 9 for the month, but I think I might take another stab at it when I have a bit more time. As for this month, I’m eating whatever I want and resting after a busy (but awesome) summer. Lent will commence again on October 1st.

Week 2's Tally

Last week I consumed 29 cups of varied fruits and veggies, missing my goal of 35 by 6 cups. Not bad though, I'm up 6 cups from last week so I'll consider it a success. My observation of the week is that 35 cups a week isn't really as outlandish as I thought it might be. You just have to, a. Make sure you buy plenty of produce so it's easily accessible, and b. Snack on fruits and veggies throughout the day. I'm not going that far out of my way to get my servings, I'm just being more conscious of it. It's actually been kind of a relief to realize that I'm not as far off as I thought I would be and that with minimal effort I can actually do it. Horray!



Think I should make an iphone app out of this?

The 5 to 9: Week 1

For week 1, I decided to eat normally so I could see how far off the mark I am on the average week. The verdict? Well, not as bad as I thought, but I definitely didn’t get the recommended 35 servings. I came in at around 23, so yeah, not so bad, but still lacking.

Since I’m a graphic designer, I made myself a weekly fruits and veggies intake chart broken down into the categories that MyPyramid suggested: 3 cups of dark green veggies, 2 cups of orange veggies, 3 cups dry beans and peas, 6 cups of starchy veggies, 7 cups of other veggies, and 14 cups of varied fruits. Every time I had a serving, I marked it on my chart (shown by the kitten face) and tallied it up at the end of the week. Here’s what last weeks chart looked like:



Observations: I managed to miss the most starchy vegetables which was really surprising. Aren’t Americans supposed to be the champions of eating corn and potatoes? I’m also pretty disappointed that I missed a serving of dark green veggies, sorry kale! But I’m happy I at least ate all 7 servings of “other” veggies. Does anyone have any good recipes with peas? I’ve been struggling with that category as well.

So how’s week 2 going? Pretty well, but I still have a ways to go if I want to meet my goal. I will say that having the chart really does help. It’s an easy way to keep track and I look forward to adding a kitten face after each meal. If anyone wants a copy of it just send me an email!

100 Hammers Update

My fellow M'ers and I officially launched 100 Hammers a few weeks ago and are psyched with the positive response that we've received. Not only are over 50 hammers currently rented out, but we got a few shout outs on some awesome blogs like Good and most recently, Best Made.

If anyone is interested in renting a hammer just sign up through our website and spread the word to whomever you think might be interested.

Definitely check out what the SWEAT workshop in Ohio did with our hammers too on Eleven Dozen. Awesome, awesome, awesome. 3 of the guys even got their hammers tattooed on them. Love it!

The 5 to 9

Since I’m a vegetarian, one would assume that I eat my fair share of fruits and vegetables. For the most part, I consider my diet to be healthy and well rounded, but I’m pretty sure that I still miss the mark when it comes to the daily-recommended value of fruits and veggies. My Pyramid, brought to you by the United States Department of Agriculture, and revamped from the traditional food pyramid that we saw in school as children, says that I should be consuming 3 cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit daily (the older version preached 5 to 9 servings, hence the name of this month, in reference of course to Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5). What’s kind of cool is that the servings are personalized, based on your age, gender, height, weight and activity level. You can go onto the website, www.mypyramid.gov and enter your information to find out your own recommendations.



In addition to outlining my own personalized daily recommendations, they also gave me a weekly goal: 3 cups of dark green vegetables, 2 cups of orange vegetables, 3 cups of dry beans and peas, 6 cups of starchy vegetables, and 7 cups of other vegetables. I like thinking of it in terms of weekly rather than daily, because let’s face it, some days I’m going to be under and hopefully some days I’ll be over. So, I’m making myself a nice little star chart and tallying up my score each week. Maybe I’ll buy myself the kale necklace from last post if I manage to meet my goals for the whole month.

What’s always been a little bit confusing is what constitutes as a serving. Here are a few examples, but check out this website for a much longer list.

What is a serving of vegetables?
-1 cup of raw, leafy vegetables
-1/2 cup of other vegetables, cooked or raw
-3/4 cup of vegetable juice
-5 broccoli florets, 10 baby carrots, 4 slices of onion

What is a serving of fruit?
-1 apple, banana, orange, or pear
-1/2 cup of chopped, cooked or canned fruit
-3/4 cup of fruit juice
-1/4 cup of dried fruit
-6 strawberries, 15 grapes

So, that’s my August challenge. I’ll post a photo of my star chart at the end of this week and any interesting findings as they come.