Happiness Project Month #8: Nutrition

Well it's time for another Happiness Project report. This month, my focus was on nutirition. My goals? Here we go: (1) No sweets; (2) Drink at least 40 oz of water a day; (3) Eat at least 2 fruits/veggies per day; (4) Keep a food journal; (5) Find some healthy snacks. The results were mixed. Y'all, this is not an overly exciting topic, so I'm going to spare you the boring details. Basically I can tell you this....no sweets (which coincidentally happened to be during the same time as giving up sweets for Lent....) has really not been that hard, except I've been craving this amazing dark chocolate cherry bread from an Irish bakery in San Francisco that I discovered while out there for Bay to Breakers 2010. Fortunately, that has really not been an option. I realize that 2 fruits/veggies a day seems pretty minimal....baby steps. The food journal was super useful to get an idea of what I eat and how many calories I consume, but about 3 weeks was enough. As for water....I don't drink coffee or tea or cokes, so it's pretty much water for me. Plus, ever since I was a kid, my mom though that any problem could be solved by doing three things: Driving slower, eating more veggies, and drinking more water. I'm talking broken hearts, broken noses, bad grades, bad moods.....you name it, those were the cure. Since I always listen to my mother (wink wink, nod nod) I drink quite a bit of water every day. The one area I will go into detail on is healthy snacks. This might be useful for some of you if you're hunting some snacks and I would love to hear any suggestions that you might have!

Fruit strips--really tasty, and sort of sweet, which works well to help me combat my little sweet tooth after a meal. They have all different flavors, but I prefer strawberry.

Grapes--I love love love grapes. I figured out that if I buy a bag and then bag them into smaller ziplocks, I have just the right amound to take for a snack at work.

Cheese and Breadsticks--These remind me of my childhood, so my like of them probably has more to do with sentimental reasons than them tasting good, but you can get like 5 packs for $1.50 and they each have only 100 calories.

100 Calorie Cheese Packs--I LOVE these babies! I bought the kind with cheddar and monterrey jack cheese. It's the perfect little bit of cheese.

Apple/Granola/Yogurt pack--I couldn't tell you because I didn't eat this fast enough and it expired. After a bad experience a while back with expired yogurt, I didn't take any chances. Shame on me.

Ones--I love these little individually wrapped prunes. They have a pretty sweet taste, so when I crave something sweet, I can pop one of these and they do a pretty good job of stopping the craving! Fruit Crisps--THese are a new prodeuct and I really like them! Sort of like fig newtons I guess, but with a thinner, crispy crust and a smaller amount of filling. I'm not doing a good job of explaining, but I'm addicted and you should seriously try them.

Honey Roasted Peanuts--I saved the best for last. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the honey roasted peanuts on Southwest, as you have read about before. Well, I learned that you can buy a whole flavor sealed jar of them and eat them all the time, not just on airplanes! Score!

Another month down.....just 4 to go with this Happiness Project journey! Stay tuned! :)