This is Day 3 of the 21-Day Journaling Challenge held in Nov 2011. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.
Hi everyone – Welcome to Day 3 of 21DJC! :)
Yesterday’s question was this: “If you are to do something for free for the rest of your life, what would it be?“. (Read the responses here.) Some of you said you’d want to travel around the world and explore new places. Some of you said you’d want to grow and learn forever. Some of you said you’d want to pursue your passions, which may include writing, cooking, baking, blogging, developing games, motorcycling, write music, planting, fashion, recording music, coaching, caring for animals, and more. Some of you said you’d want to help others – be it to grow, to discover themselves, to be better people, or to live better lives.
3 years ago, I asked myself this very question. If I am to do something for free for the rest of my *life*, what would it be? The answer that came out is exactly what you see me doing today. It’s to grow and help others to grow. It’s to be spreading my message to the world, be it via writing, coaching, speaking, running courses, videos, or other mediums. (Essentially, what I’m doing now.) It’s to inspire others to become greater than who they are now, so they can in turn inspire others around them to be the same.
The reason why I asked myself the question is this – We only have one life to live. We have the ability in us to do whatever we want, and to succeed in whatever we want. Instead of wasting our talents doing something that we don’t even have the passion to do forever, why not spend all that energy, starting from today, in something we’re really, truly, 110% passionate about? Why not devote ourselves 110% into what we really want to do, rather than do something because we think we ‘have’ to, and do a half-assed job in it? Why not do that, and make that your career instead?
I mean, no matter how “skilled” or “unskilled” you are in it now, you only have, like, the rest of your life to develop your skills in it. It’s only a matter of time before you’re the best in that field, really. (10,000 hours is all that it takes)
In doing so, it doesn’t even feel like work. It doesn’t even require any energy to do it. It’s virtually effortless. I made that shift 3 years ago, and while there were a few months of down time to develop myself in a new field, today I’m soaking in the long-term rewards from the move. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life, and I want you to experience the joy too.
The articles in my How To Pursue Your Passion series will help you in this area.
Let’s now move on to the question for Day 3 of 21DJC! ;)
21DJC Day 3
For Day 3 today, we’re going to explore a slightly different topic from Days 1 and 2. In Day 1, we looked at what we would do if we have a million dollars. In Day 2, we delved into some of our deepest, life long passions – things we would do for free for the rest of our life. For Day 3, we’re going to look at something lifestyle-related.
The question for Day 3 is this:
What is Your Ideal Diet Like?
Would it consist of happy meals, deep fried food and junk food? Would it be prepacked, micro-waved meals from the supermarkets? Would it be laden with fat? Would it be filled with meat? Would it be rich with vegetables and fruits? Would it be specially prepared, home cooked meals made by you, for you? What would your ideal breakfast, lunch, dinner be like? How much, how often, and when would you eat every day? What would your cue to eat?
Your Task Today:
- Reflect and answer today’s question. There’s no word limit – whether minimum or maximum. Write as few or as many words as you want. It’s all up to what you want to express!
- Share your answer. After you are done writing, copy and paste your answer in the comments area and post it there.
- Check out other participants’ answers. Other participants will be sharing their answers too, so feel free to read and reply to their answers. This is a group course, so let’s support each other in these 21 days.
((Images: Empty book for journaling, Vegetables wrapped in measuring tape))
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I would eat 5 small meals a day, spaced evenly every 3 hours (15 hours awake, 9 hours sleeping). Each meal would be preceded by a serving of fruit 15 minutes prior. In the course of a day, I would have eaten foods in a rainbow of colors (red, orange, yellow, green, brown, white, blue/purple/black) as well as a variety of tastes (sweet, salty, spicy, pungent, sour, astringent). These follow the principles of Japanese cuisine Washoku combined with Deepak Chopra’s 6 tastes. Limit meat to one serving once a day or less, substitute it with other protein sources like legumes/lentils/nuts instead. Lots of veggies, and veggie combinations. More than 5 different varieties of veggies consumed in a day. At least half of grains consumed in a day are whole grains. All food organic, fair trade, fresh (harvested and prepared the same day – I dislike how old the food is by the time I purchase it at the grocery stores here). Served with water or green/oolong tea. Express gratitude before each meal. Savor the flavor. Chew each bite 50x (interesting articles about chewing food thoroughly, about saliva). Walk 100 steps afterward.
eating three meals a day, each meal ontains 2 gerlinea bars and one fruit andthe las meat is at 5 p.m
Focus on a lot of organic fruits and vegetables with smaller portions of meat. Eliminate diet sodas and highly processed foods and limit sweets. I still love a chocolate bar but I feel much better if I eat an apple instead – no blood sugar crashes, and the energy lasts for hours. I am almost entirely off pepsi colas (miss you guys!).
Ideal Diet: Soil’s Food.
I’d do a research first. Go to a specialist and find out what is most suitable for me.
As for now…
– Always eat breakfast.
– Do not eat junk food even at the parties/events – bring something healthy instead.
– Find out another healthy/healthier recipe every week. If I like it – prepare it regularly instead of some other, not-so-healthy meal.
– Eat regularly and do not overeat.
– Drink water more often.
– Prepare meals at home more often.
Well, if it wasn’t for the obvious consequences of health problems, I’d eat whatever I like, such as chocolate, chocolate, and, um, yes, more chocolate.
But being serious, I pretty much eat rather healthy, though I should eat much more fruits than I do now, and much more fish and seafood (which I love but are rather expensive)
My ideal diet would be the best of two worlds: healthy, homemade, hearty food, with some indulgencies now and then. But takeaway!
It’s not that I don’t like cooking, it’s just that I’m not that good!
As I said, my diet is far from ideal, but rather healthy, no fast food (maybe once a month, or less), some alternatives to meat (I make my own soy burgers from scratch every week, and seitan burgers sometimes)
I don’t eat much processed foods and a few months ago I discovered I’m lactose intolerant, so I quit milk cow and make my own soy milk.
Something I did and recommend to all meat-lovers looking to improve their diets: you don’t need to become vegetarian nor vegan nor raw foodist or the like to improve your diet: try some recipes from these lifestyles and you’ll end up choosing a few favourites to become staples: I did it with simple vegetable cream soup and with green smoothies (they might sound disgusting, but trust me, they are extremely delicious!)
Of course, one of the limitations I have to get my ideal diet is financial, but I’m working on that!
I have been a vegetarian for a little over 10 years, and that is a huge part of my ideal diet (a part that I’m actually living everyday). I’ve found, quite surprisingly, that being a vegetarian really has become a large part of my identity, which I hadn’t anticipated when I made the switch. I ate meat for the first 19 years of my life, and only really considered what that meant once I was 17 or 18 years old. Once I went to college, and was in charge of feeding myself for the first time, I eventually made the switch to a vegetarian diet. When I made the switch, it was a personal choice, that I made for my own moral reasons, and I didn’t tell anyone for a while. But now it’s probably one of the first things most people know about me. Not because I am loud about it, but because food is such an integral part of our daily lives– we go out to eat with friends and co-workers, we talk about food, we swap recipes, etc. Thus, my vegetarianism seems like it’s always coming up.
While I have no desire to eat meat again, and I’m happy with that aspect of my diet, there are certainly ways in which what I do eat is unideal. I’d love to have more fruits and vegetables. I work long hours so it’s hard for me to get to the grocery store and cook. I’m often disappointed in myself when I buy veggies and then they go bad in the fridge. When I do make an effort to maintain a diet rich in fruits and veggies I am never disappointed– my body feels better and I feel better about myself because I’m making good choices.
All of this isn’t to say that my ideal diet wouldn’t include some treats– I love dessert and I wouldn’t go without it. It makes me happy!
I thought I had my ideal diet, but after reading a few other posts, there would be a few changes actually.
I would like to use home grown ingredients wherever possible. I have dabbled with growing my own chillies, tomatoes and lettuce, but only had success with the chillies. I’d love to have my own kitchen garden, and I keep thinking that when I get my next (hopefully bigger) house I’ll have an area dedicated to home grown produce – but to be fair there is nothing stopping me from doing this on a smaller scale now – except time possibly. I’d also like to have chickens one day but certainly would prefer more space for those.
I would also like to use locally reared animal produce. There is a business that does this, called local foods 2 u where I live, but I don’t use it as my other half likes shopping at the big supermarkets. If it was down to me, we would use the local foods business. There are a number of farmers markets too now and I would like to use those.
I should probably cut out more pre packed and prepared meals (not that I have many) and have more fruit and vegetables in place of chocolate and crisps (which again I do not have many of). I will seek out alternatives.
I’m happy with my diet, but I could make improvements if I wanted. It’s probably just that there are other things I’d prefer to devote my time to.
Ideal Diet (Assuming cost isn’t an issue): A private nutritionist-cum-chef who would design my each of my daily meals according to:
1) Variety: Menu should last for at least 10 days before coming back to the same dish
2) Well-balanced: Giving me sufficient strength, nutrients, vitamins, and… good health
3) Tastiness (Savoury!)
4) Attractiveness
“What is your ideal diet like?” I had been asking this question for myself for quite a long time. I always hated junk food, fries and all similar food. But I loved sweets a lot. I could eat a big pack of ice-cream and feel good.
But then I thought that eating lots of sweets is very bad for my figure and decided to stop eating sweets at all. This was my big mistake as YES I was eating only healthy staff, but because I was forcing myself to be eating only healthy staff and not allowing myself anything, I ended up at least once a month “cheating myself” and eating for one week any “bad” food I could imagine…
After this I reconcidered “my ideal diet” and now my diet is “No diet ever”.
What I mean is that now I am eating only food which I feel like eating and, strangely, when I allowed myself eating whatever I wanted, I realised that most of the time I don’t want sweets or junk food, but meat, cheese and vegetables. I also stopped drinking coffee because I didn’t feel like drinking it anymore and switched to green or white tea=))))
The only meal that I had never changed is porridge (cooked oats) in the morning.
However, now that I am thinking to make my breakfast ideal I would have added fresh orange juice and a piece of anary (this is a kind of greek cheese) with honey.
With regards to my ideal lunch, I don’t know what would my ideal meal be. When I am hungry I always try to ask myself “What do I feel like eating, what would make my stomach satisfied”. But definitely, it is home cooked meal (but not by me as I understood that I don’t like to cook every day and especially only for myself) or maybe meal from a very good family-owned restaurant.
Dinner would be ideal for me, if it is cooked for me by someone and it should be something light, meaning not very heavy for the stomach, but not a salad.
And it would definitely be together with a glass of a good French or Italian red wine.
How often? I would say, as often as I feel hungry.
To summarise everything, I think that Ideal Diet is not having diet at all,eat only when you are hungry and only food that you feel like eating=))))
My ideal diet would allow me to eat what I want when I want knowing that it is balanced in such a way that my health would not suffer. Therefore I would be eating a balanced diet that would be prepared by an expert chef that would also be making me snacks to eat in between meals all with the ability to assist my metabolism to burn off the calories that were not needed. :dance: :dance:
I prefer to eat weekly 5 days Vegetables and Fruits (preferably cooked deliciously-because I like meat and wanted to avoid by eating delicious veggie food) .
Breakfast – Toast and Egg , with cornflakes a little plus Orange juice (Now I am at early diabetic , need to do some alteration . But preferred the above mentioned )
Lunch : Heavy with veggie and fish during weekends , salad’s preferred
Evening : Snacks avoid dried and fried (fruits preferred)
Dinner – wanted to be Light and a glass of milk
Need to avoid between light snacks
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