This is Day 13 of the 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge held in Jan 2015 where we work on improving our diet and fitness for 14 days. 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!! :D It’s now Day 13 of our 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge. There’s only one day left before our challenge ends, so let’s make the best of the time left in the challenge! :D
Challenge Tasks to Date
- Announcement and signup page: Join 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge!
- Day 0: Create Your 14-Day Healthy Living Plan | Comments
- Day 1: Drink 8 Glasses of Water | Comments
- Day 2: Eat 5 Servings of Fruits & Vegetables | Comments
- Day 3: Create Your Calorie List | Comments
- Day 4: Calculate Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure | Comments
- Day 5: Create Your Ideal Meal Plan | Comments
- Day 6: Follow Your Ideal Meal Plan! | Comments
- Day 7: Review & Set Your Plan for Week 2! | Comments
- Day 8: Get a Great Workout! | Comments
- Day 9: Identify Your Healthy Living Pitfalls | Comments
- Day 10: Meditate | Comments
- Day 11: Identify Your Food Struggles | Comments
- Day 12: Practice Conscious Eating | Comments
My Day 12 in Pictures
Here’s a recap of my Day 12 in pictures:
First meal of the day: QQ Rice and grapes!
My second exercise for week 2 of 2015! Morning jog of 2.47km at 8:46 min / km, burning 150 calories.
Dinner Part 1: Mushroom soup, wheat bread, and banana
Quinoa and brown rice salad with pumpkin and capsicum of all colors, and mushroom soup
Dinner: Tea with veggie patty
And with no relation to the challenge at all: My kitty cat (Nancy) sleeping ♥
Yesterday’s task was important reminder in conscious eating. I’d say that I first truly practiced conscious eating in 2011 after my 21-day fast, when I started having proper meals after not eating anything for 21 days. For the first time in my life, I experienced eating in a way I never had. Everything from the taste, the texture, the crunch (of the vegetables), to the smell, I could feel them at such a dense level!
Ever since then, I’ve remained aware of the role food plays in my life. It’s like every past observation I had about food doesn’t get lost; it simply becomes part of me, part of my consciousness. I strive to eat consciously each time, be aware of the bites I’m taking, the food I’m chewing in my mouth, the food that I’m taking into the body, and the sensation in my stomach as it fills up. In fact, I dislike having a conversation when eating and rarely do it; my husband knows it! (In between bites I’m okay to chat, but when I’m eating and chewing/biting, I focus on my food, not on other things.)
Every time I eat, I always make sure to eat the right and sufficient amount of food we need, not shove food down our throats. I stop when I want to (based on whether I feel half-way full or when I feel I’ve consumed enough calories for my TDEE needs), and not when the food is finished. I make it a point to always stop eating when my stomach is 50% to 70% full, because I know eating till the point when I feel 100% full is too late as it takes a while for our stomach to give feedback on its sensations. Not to mention, it’s way too uncomfortable when you stuff yourself to that level.
So for yesterday, I continued practicing conscious eating. For every meal yesterday, I set aside a small break session to take my meal, as opposed to doing it with any other task (writing notes, thinking about other things, using the phone). While there were times when I found my thoughts floating away, I would take my attention back to the food I eat. As I ate, I observed the food slowly, and also thought about all the effort that went into the procurement and creation of this meal — including the farmers harvesting the food, the delivery trucks delivering the food to the markets, the planes/ships transporting the food to my country, the local shops procuring the supplies, the shops selling the food, then finally the making of the meal. Every step of the way, I recognized the people working hard to make this food possible and available for myself and for others. I sent my love and appreciation to the people who made this meal possible.
With every session in conscious eating, I also became more aware of the colors, the texture, and the taste of the food. I never realized just how chewy the bread I’ve been eating really is or how colorful my food is! A funny observation I had yesterday was that the banana I ate was really sparkly! See what I mean here:
Closeup of banana. See how sparkly it is??
I wonder why? Maybe it’s the reflection of the light on the fiber? Anyway, I wonder if it’s the case for ALL bananas?! I’ll continue observing!
Reviewing my 14HLC goals, they are
- Exercise at least three times a week – Done my second exercise for Week 2 today!
- Cut out deep fried / oily food from my diet – Check!
- Eat salads more regularly, ideally once a day if I can – Check!
Check out other participants’ amazing food logs and progress updates in Day 12’s comments section!
With that, let’s move to Day 13’s task, which is…
Day 13: Start Your Healthy Living Guidebook
Hi everyone, today is the second last day of our 14-Day Healthy Living Challenge. If you’re still with us here, I congratulate you. It’s easy to be enthusiastic and jump on the bandwagon at the start of a new project; it’s another thing to continue with your plan after nearly two weeks. In fact, the fact that you’re still here, reading this, already means that you’re truly serious about living a healthy life. Because of that you’re going to succeed in your healthy living goal.
By now you should know that to succeed in living healthily, we need to make a real lifestyle change. It’s not just about forcing ourselves to behave a certain way for 14 days, and then revert to our past habits after that. That does nothing at all.
My goal here, as I’ve mentioned at the beginning of the challenge, is to make healthy living part and parcel of our everyday living. Be it drinking water, eating at least five servings of fruits/vegetables a day, being conscious of the calories and nutrition of the food we’re eating, knowing our daily energy expenditure (TDEE), eating in line with our daily caloric needs (or lesser/more if we want to lose/gain weight), knowing our ideal meal plans, staying true to our ideal meal plans, reviewing our progress, exercising, being aware of our healthy living pitfalls and food struggles, meditating, or conscious eating, these are habits to do for life. When it comes to things like our ideal meal plans, TDEE, and calorie/nutritional information, they are important information to refer to every day/every other day.
So how great is it if we have a guidebook that contains all this information needed to help us live our healthiest life ever? I call this our “Healthy Living Guidebook,” sort of like how our “Life Handbook” is our guidebook to live our best life. Creating a Healthy Living Guidebook was a task that I worked on with 2011 and 2012 Healthy Living Challenge participants. Think of this book as your holy grail to healthy eating, because it reminds you of your vision to live healthily and supports you in achieving this goal.
So today, you’ll be creating your healthy living guidebook! For those of you who’ve already created yours from a past Healthy Living Run, it’s time to update your book today. Let’s go!
Step 1: Pick a format for your healthy living guidebook
You can use hard copy or soft copy for your healthy living guidebook. If you’re using hard copy, you can pick any book in your house or even buy a book specially for this. Your soft copy format can be any processing software of your preference – Word, Excel, or even Powerpoint if you like.
The benefits of soft copy is that you can easily edit/format it, while for hard copy you can refer to it even when you’re not at your computer. Either way, use what works best for you!
Step 2: Fill up your guidebook
It’s up to you on how you want to structure your guidebook and what to include in it. Everyone’s book should be customized to meet his/her needs. I recommending starting off with these information (all of which you’ve actually worked through in the challenge tasks; it’s just a matter of putting them together and tidying them up):
- (Your) Healthy Living Vision (What we covered in Day 0’s Pre-Work)
- Action Plan to Achieve Your Vision (Day 0)
- Current Healthy Living Struggles (Day 7: Week 1 Review, Day 9: Identify Your Healthy Living Pitfalls, Day 11: Identify Your Food Struggles)
- and… Strategy to Bust these Struggles (from Day 7, Day 9, and Day 11 as well)
- Calorie List (Day 3: Calorie List)
- TDEE (Day 4: TDEE) — So that you know how much to consume to maintain / reach your weight target
- Ideal Meal Plan based on TDEE (Day 5: Ideal Meal) — To guide you in your daily eating, so that you stay on track vs. your ideal meal vision
Here are other sections to consider for your guidebook too. Obviously not all of them will be relevant for you, so pick and choose what you want to include.
- Ideal habits — A list of the habits you want to cultivate daily, such as drinking water, eating at least five servings of fruits/vegetables, meditation, waking up early, exercising, etc.
- Daily Tracking Plan — To help you track if you’re sticking to your habits.
- Food Journal — Helps you to track what you’re eating so you know if you’re over/under eating.
- Favorite Recipes — To keep track of your favorite recipes, and even create your own!
- Shopping List (Food) — I find that having a fixed grocery list helps me to be more structured in my grocery shopping. What is a list of items that you’d want to buy every time you go grocery shopping?
- Exercise Plan — Your exercise regime, caloric expenditure for each exercise, and your progress in your current exercises.
- Other sections — Are there any sections that you’d like to include?
Decorate your guidebook with pictures if you want!
Next, Follow Your Plan for Day 13 (Take Pictures Too!)
What tasks have you set for Day 13 of your 14-Day Healthy Living Plan? Do them today!
Take pictures of your healthy meals — breakfast, lunch, dinner, and mid-day snacks if any — and share them in the comments section. :D After all, a picture tells a thousand words, and when you share photos of your healthy meals, it inspires others to eat healthily and gives them ideas on what healthy food they can have too!
Post your initial comment sharing your results for today’s challenge task, then add on throughout the day as you have your breakfast, lunch, dinner, and/or if you’re doing any workouts. Attach photos of your meals by clicking the image icon on the bottom left of every comment box. As you add on to your comment thread, be sure to click on the reply button directly below your original comment so that you reply to your own thread (as opposed to starting a new thread).
Share Your Results (and Photos!)
Share in the comments section!
- Your healthy living guidebook — What format did you pick? What sections do you have? Share pictures if you like!
- Your progress with your healthy living plan today
- Pictures of your meals
- Pictures of your workout (if any)
Do check out the other participants’ comments too and share a word of encouragement or two. We’re all in this together, so let’s support each other as a group! :)
After you’re done, proceed to Day 14: Review & Your Best Health Ahead!
(Image: Women running, Blank notebook)
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I’ve have put recurring calendar appointments on actionable items from the Healthy Living Challenge. Eg are the exercise sessions, meditation sessions, fruits-shopping, and conscious eating. I have set health as my #1 goal in 2015 for better health. Looking forward to a healthier 2015!
I love your guidebook. :) Hard copy is my favourite format too because I love notebooks.
I work with dreams too, it’s interesting to try and figure out what they mean and read back over them. That’s a good idea about writing your comments in a different coloured ink. :)
I think a Healthy Living Guidebook is a good idea. :) I started my Life Handbook on 2009 (after reading the article on here) and have some healthy food suggestions in there. Maybe I can expand on it more or create a separate guidebook. I’ll have a think.
I also wanted to add that Pintrest (site where you can “pin” pictures to boards) is a good resource for healthy living. I have a Healthy Eating board on there with healthy recipes and food suggestions and lots of people use it for fitness motivation.
Wow Bette, your meals look absolutely delicious!! How long did it take to whip up your dinner? (And is that rice in the bowl too?)
And your guidebook looks BEAUTIFUL!!! I love your handwriting and decoration on the first page of your book!! :D
Thank you Celes! And it was really de-lish! And so easy and quick! Dinner was rice and stir-fry veggies…..I am the prep cook and Mark mans the skillet. To prep it takes 5-10 minutes, basically, unless there are more veggies. And to stir-fry, just a few minutes, putting the broccoli in at the last so it will stay nice and crisp and green!
And thanks for your positive, enthusiastic comments about my Guidebook. I am excited and happy to have started it, and I look forward to continuing to put it together. It will surely be a welcome guidebook for living healthy! Thanks for the great idea, for this challenge, and for all you do to help me/all of us!
DAY 13 Start My HEALTHY LIVING GUIDEBOOK
I have chosen my hard copy format…a notebook with a cheerful zig-zag design, which I have tabs for that will designate the sections such as:
VISION GOALS ACTION STEPS CURRENT STRUGGLES SOLUTIONS CALORIE LIST TDEE
CURRENT STRATEGIES IDEAL MEALS IDEAL HABITS DAILY TRACKING PLAN FAVORITE RECIPES EXERCISE PLAN SHOPPING LIST INSPIRING QUOTES GO-TO ONLINE RESOURCES AHA MOMENTS IMPROVEMENTS
I still have my ‘Calorie List’ and ‘TDEE’ on my ‘To Do’ list. I started with calorie counting when I was a child and through my teenage years and into college, so I have a lot of familiarity with counting calories as well as a resistance to it.
Note to Self: It would be helpful to do some calorie-counting for the foods I eat most of the time, just for a reality check. Accountability.
I have already put the first (blue) tab in that says ‘VISION.’
I also have a smaller spiral notebook that I can take along with anywhere and in that book I can track my food intake and keeps track of healthy habits, like drinking the right amount of water, amount of sleep, exercise, meditation …and put in any ‘notes to self’ as well. I can transcribe whatever I feel is helpful into my HLGuidebook, add more sections as needed.
I also have another notebook where I write down my DREAMS that occur while I sleep. I record the images or the content of the dream and then in a different color of ink I write my comments on what I think the dream is telling me. Is it merely a composite of what happened in the day, or are there any messages my dream is telling me. Often I find this process helpful, because as/when I am writing down my dream and what I think it means, I get ideas, and insights that help me with my life. I also write down the date of every entry I make. (Or of anything I write, for that matter.)
I am excited to have found a great new book that Louise Hay and 2 others authored called, ‘LOVING YOURSELF TO GREAT HEALTH-Thoughts and Food-The Ultimate Diet.’ Wow! What a great book! Topics include knowing your body and how it really works, where the physical systems of the body are really explained very simply and clearly, loving oneself, on all levels, ‘Be kind to yourself’ (‘Ditch Those Harmful Soft Drinks & Energy Drinks!’…A VERY thorough break-down of just exactly all the overall and specific harm they do to the body), and all kinds of healthy recipes, and soooo much more! Just HAD to mention this great book since it is spot on to what we are doing with our HEALTHY LIVING.
Today so far…
BREAKFAST (more like Brunch; was almost noon) was 2 eggs cooked in coconut oil in the cast-iron skillet, with whole grain toast with flax seed oil. I also had a bowl of mixed fruit- RIPE papaya, RIPE banana, blueberries.
I usually don’t go without eating the whole morning, so that was unusual.
I drank water, and deaf coffee.
Will probably have a smoothie later in the afternoon, and DINNER will be a repeat of last night’s delicious dinner- steamed, lightly stir-fried veggies and chicken. Veggies were mushrooms, kale, and broccoli, in a garlic-onion saute.
I DESERVE TO LIVE HEALTHY AND HAPPY EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE!
I AM WORTH DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO ACHIEVE MY GOALS!
1. My healthy living guidebook — What format did I pick? What sections did I have?
Yesterday I received a desk calendar as a gift, so I am going to use it as my healthy living guidebook. I will be keeping track of how much water I drink everday, how much fruits and vegetables I eat, when I practice yoga and when I run. It will also be a reminder for practice of conscious eating.
2. My progress with my healthy living plan today:
– drank 8,5 glasses of water
– ate 4 servings of F&V
– did not go for walk
I love the idea of a healthy living guidebook based on personal experience! Besides the things I planned in Day 0 and the meal plans etc that I’ve developed since, I want to include web addresses that have information and resources that are/will be useful for me to continue to live more healthily.
For me the daily tracking plan is really important. I’ve been writing it out by hand every day because that helps reinforce that these are things that I plan to do.
That’s really great Vicki! It sounds like a digital format handbook may be the most handy for you since you’re planning to include web addresses. I agree that a daily tracking plan is really important! When I started eating healthily and managing my diet in a serious way in 2008, I tracked my diet every day for a year. It helped me to be much more conscious of calorie and food intake (and then beyond that it was busting my EE at their deepest roots that then permanently normalized my eating without discipline).
I am sorry VickiB, I think I just voted this comment down, but I did not mean to …
Hey Miss Elf! If you voted it down, it’ll show the downvote for the comment in red on your screen. :) And if you downvoted anything accidentally, you can reverse your vote by clicking the downvote again (that’s the good thing about being a registered member). Anyway I just hovered over the downvote icon for Vicki’s comment and I don’t see any downvotes by you (or any downvotes by anyone for that matter). :)
I saw it in red :) Now I clicked on downvote again and it is ok. Thanks :)
Perfect timing for this task! I just completed a 4 day meditation, yoga and healthy eating retreat and ticked off my other tasks. My forward healthy guidebook will help me stay on track with my goals and really stick with, and enjoy, my desire for a healthier and happier life (style).
That meditation retreat sounds so cool. That’s one of my dreams. :D and it happens to be related with healthy living Kate so you had the priviledge to cleanse both your mind and body. :)
I can’t believe tomorrow it will end already. :( but I’ll get working on this today. I hope I can manage to find time to finish it before nightime.
Hey fufu! I’m not sure if you’re referring to my meditation comment in Day 11’s post? If so I was referring a meditation experiment (by myself) as opposed to an open challenge. I did conduct a meditation challenge in 2011 before and while it went great, I don’t think I’ll run another one since it’s already been done and the potential crowd interested is quite small compared to other types of challenges. I do recommend you check out the challenge posts in the link above; you may find some meditation tidbits that’ll interest you!
Ok. That gives me an idea and I’ll go read them. I think I’ll start a 1 week personal meditating challenge of my own on day 16 or 17 and I know if this happens to you too but usually I like my girlfriend to join in with me but when she can’t or is not interested on the moment in her own life I like to update to her and she always encourages me and that makes me happy. (Heck I even let her now how my days went about this challenge) but the opposite is also true (to make it an independant goal). How you mentioned the other days that you lost a bit of motivation to exercise because Ken was busy and stuff. So I’ll give it a try :)
Fiu! I just finished my healthy living guidebook. To be honest I had already been journaling my calories and used a calendar for deadlines so I already had part of it made but I added so much details. I used a notebook format. I always carry a medium sized bag to fit a book and pencil in lol, even if it’s a to-go tiny one and I used all of the categories and organized them according to my needs. I feel satisfied. :)
Just one more thing and I’m done with today’s task. I’ll try to take a picture.
Supper. White rice with beans, asparagus sweet peas, slices of tomato and a glass of milk and water not in the picture. :) Today my diet was good and sometimes I get sad because I can’t reach my full vegetabe or dairy intake. (After I learned about equeations I found out I was eating less than I thought even if I thought I was eating a lot but always better something than nothing!) as for milk.. well the lactose problem but I decided that on the days when I can’t reach all the intake of those 2 then I’ll at least make it a goal to reach half of my planned intake.
In my comments for Day 11 in how to address food struggles I mentioned that I should start some kind of diary to be conscious of the health choices that I make. And here comes this gre5at opportunity!
So I am super happy to present my Healthy Living Diary, where I will take my progress in following healthy habits day-by-day. It will be a kind of logbook with enties for:
– the meals I have,
– amount of sleep and exercise I get
– a grade of the level of stress during the day
– my weight.
I had kind of a similar diary last year for half a year, but gradually I started to cheat there (not logging some foods) and it lost it’s point. Will try to be honest with myself this time.
I will really miss sharing my thought and photos with participants, when the challenge ends, so I hope that the diary will help me not to lose track for my healthy life.
Here are my meals for today: black rice for breakfast, a youghur and an apple for lucn and so protein (strawbery taste) later on as a snack.
Here is my Health logbook, pictured with my sleeping cat Lora :)
SWEET!!! Did you continue from the diary you used last year or is it a fresh notebook you’re using this time?? This looks fabulous Maryna!!
This is a new one. The previous I had is 2/3 full and I decided to start a new one this year (bigger and nicer, BTW eco-friendly).
There are 2-3 pages that I filled with text back in 2013. I decided to leave them as I like the stuff written there.
Lora is so beautiful and u have such neat handwriting.
Hi Maryna!! How long does it take for you to cook your black rice and do you do it every morning or cook one big batch for the week?
Cooking black rice can take pretty long, but I soak it in water overnight and then cook it in this water in the morning. In this case it takes 15 – 20 minutes (just enough for me to drink my cup of water and take a shower).
I never cook for more then 1 meal. I like when the meals I cook are fresh and warm, then it tastes the best for me.
Some more updates from me:
later on I had some flat breads and seafood and a apple.
Did a great workout and spent 30 min walking on threadmill with incline 12% after it.
First meal: Veggie patty and banana! (I forgot to take a picture so I’m combining pictures from before as they are literally the same food / ingredients.)
It’s the second last day of the challenge guys! Let’s make our last two days count and share as much in the journals as we can! When the challenge is over, the posts will be archived too!
Dinner: Wholemeal pasta (cooked by Ken), vegetarian bacon bits and chickpeas! Went to supermarket to buy the wholemeal pasta so that I have some healthier food in the house I can eat in case I run out of my sandwiches/soups!
I see you eat chickpeas pretty often and feel that I should get some for me. Here they are a rarity, so I have to overpay a lot for getting something that unusual :( I’m not happy with this, as I love legumes of all kinds.
Yes it’s my favorite! I really like chickpeas. I’m sorry to hear that they are a rarity there! I’m sure there must be other kinds of legumes that are more common there though? What are the more common legumes in your country; do they have them? I remember you cooking lentil soup a few times in the challenge yeah?
Supper: Apple and guava soup, grapes, and tea! I really love the soup as usual and grapes (very juicy)! I ended up not finishing the tea at all. Not that it wasn’t nice; I just stop eating/drinking when I’m full or half-way full and it just happened that I didn’t finish the tea!
Some screenshots of my healthy living guidebook (that I’ve also shared in Day 14’s post)!
Your Healthy Living Guidebook is AWESOME!, Celes….I LOVE the colors and how you have organized in categories. Gives me visual, concrete ideas regarding being specific and clear.
Love your photos too…Enjoyed seeing the sparkly banana-it looked like sparkly ice crystals. I’ve also seen the same thing on some other bananas.
Celes…I don’t see my posts here for Day 13…I entered 5 photos depicting my Healthy Living Guidebook, my dream book, another book and 2 meals…I actually saw them as well as my post Wednesday afternoon….Did you see them?…..Also, when I tried to get on PE last evening, several times, I was not able to…”This website is not available”….? ? ? Feels weird to have posted my work for Day 13, and then to come here and not see it. Did something happen that you know of?
Really, you have? I wonder what’s the sparkles, huh? I wonder if it’s even the case for all bananas, though I always remember bananas as being just “matt.” I’m going to have to keep a look out on this next time.
Yep, I sure have. I recall noticing the sparkly effect, and now that you’ve mentioned it, both Mark and myself are going to keep a lookout as to when we notice sparkles. Your photo looks like glistening ice crystals it’s so sparkly! Yes could be light reflecting off the moisture of the fruit…some unique characteristic about the banana that produces the sparkly effect. Very interesting, and oh, btw, aren’t we being so conscious about our food ! Yay for close observation and being conscious about our food!
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