I've worked out and I've eaten right. I've just never done both at the same time. This past month, I took some time off from the gym to work on my nutritional skills, trying out and practicing several of the recipes from Gourmet Nutrition, and learning what my body responds to. I'm much more confident in the kitchen now, but sadly, I still have a bad habit of hurrying out the door without preparing my meals for the day. I end up eating stuff at work--which is Starbuck's--and feeling lousy afterwards.
So my goal for the month of September--30 days exactly--is to not touch a single crumb of the food at work. This means getting up on time for work, as well as setting aside at least one period during the week when I can prepare a batch of meals so I'm not caught unprepared later. I'll have to work on my punctuality and follow-through as well as my self-control, so I'm looking to these boards for support.
My personal challenge starts on Tuesday, the first of September. I'm not working that day, but I may have jury duty depending on how the summons goes the day before. After that, I'm working a lot of extra hours that week at the store since we've had a couple people quit (and one get fired). It'll be a tough week to start, but there's not always a good time to begin these things.
You may like to try the new BFS one month self-improvement challenge. One nutrition goal, one exercise goal, one lifestyle goal. No prizes, just a bunch of us working on improving our bad habits.
Thanks, BBG. That sounds like a great idea. Recently life has really put me through the grinder, and now that I've gotten a little bit of a breather, I'm realizing I'm a lot more exhausted than I realized. Creating this goal for myself is a small way to get a hold of things again. If I can stick to this one goal, I'll be ready for another challenge come next month.
Like I said in my first post, the challenge isn't just "Don't eat crap at work." That gives me nothing but a negative to do. In order to succeed in this, I have to have some positive actions to take. I have to do extra steps to make sure I'm prepared to eat right throughout the day. Here's how it's been going so far:
Jury dury. Eight hours of sitting on my ass waiting for something to happen. This is pretty much what I just quit one of my part-time jobs to get away from. Today was my second day of jury duty though, so I was prepared this time. I made a burger from some Trader Joe's lean ground beef, brought some veggies, and some trail mix made from cashews, almonds, and dried cranberries.
As it was, the case I was called up for settled out of court, and I was out of there by 1:30 in the afternoon.
I went home, changed, and rode my bike up to work (actually, a different Starbucks that I covered a shift for last week) and picked up my tips. I just started riding my bike again (there's a girl involved), and I'm getting worn out too easily. But I made it almost all the way back on the return trip before I had to walk.
Short mid-shift at Sbux from 12-6pm. I got plenty of sleep, but woke up kind of tense, and felt burned out halfway thru my shift. Probably something to do with the fact that half the staff has quit and we were undermanned on a very busy day while we were trying to receive our weekly delivery. It was just the shift lead and I serving a non-stop line for about 3 hours, and we were able to get very little done on our other tasks. I was cranky by the time I got 10 minutes of break, and though I didn't eat anything from our pastry case, a neighboring bakery left us some samples, and I ate one of those--a macadamia nut blondie.
[Bad mood = comfort food] is not a good equation.
But I'd also brought a mix of vanilla yogurt, sliced strawberries, and vanilla protein powder, and I used our blenders to make a shake out of it with some skim milk and a banana. Score one for both sides of the fight.
After work, I did my grocery shopping and had a good dinner of grilled chicken, whole wheat pasta, and steamed broccoli, and my bad mood dissipated.
Opening shift today: 4:30am-10:30am. I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, but I always seem to arrive early and plow through my opening shifts like a madman when I get them. I guess it's the adrenaline rush of pushing yourself out of bed at 3:30 in the morning. You either do it all the way or drop dead.
When the shift lead finally showed up to unlock the door, I was sitting outside having a couple scrambled eggs with chopped spinach and diced tomatoes. I made them the previous evening before going to bed, put them in the fridge, and then took them out and nuked them before taking off for work this morning. The body complains a lot less about being up that early when it's got good protein to digest.
When I open, I generally set up the pastry case for the day, and I'm very picky about my work. I like it to look nice, but I feel a little guilty trying to arrange bits of baked temptations for people when I'm not allowing myself to eat them.
On my break a couple hours later, I had a peanut butter Clif Bar, which I realized had quite a bit of sugar in it, but I don't think that's a deal breaker. I had another burger on my next break. Since work, I've been snacking on more homemade trail mix, and I'll be heading home for some more chicken and whole wheat pasta in a little while.
I don't have Internet at home, so these updates will have to come in bursts whenever I get to the library. I'm working SBux every day till Monday next week. So far, so good.
Short shift. 6:30am-12noon. Had some Trader Joe's Turkey Bacon for breakfast, so I was good to go thru my shift. Afterwards, I drove out to my folks' house to cut their grass. They're out of town, so I took my time, and when I was done, my brother was getting his BBQ on. Since I have to work Labor Day, I partook. Good stuff.
Random aside: I try to teach this kid right, but my brother swears that pouring Scope on the grass around the patio keeps bugs away. Now I know why his breath stinks and his arms itch. He got mad at me for mocking him in front of his friends, but since he knows martial arts, how else am I supposed to humiliate him for his stupidity?
8am-4:30pm. In part because of our staff losses, and in part because of questionable scheduling by our manager, I keep working thru busy afternoons with only one other person. For about two or three hours straight today, we didn't move from our spots, as usual. I didn't get my pre-closing jobs done again, which makes me feel terrible for the closing crew.
Meanwhile, though I'd packed enough food for the day, others seemed intent on filling me up with free samples. Yet another neighboring bakery brought their wares by--The Cupcakery, no less, and the name says it all I think. I held off successfully, though, until the next solicitor arrived with samples--from The Laughing Cow cheese company. So for a snack I had some low-fat french onion cheese with baby carrots, for free. Now if only the bar across the street would bring us some shots, we'd have a day.
I almost never work Sundays--but again, when someone gets fired, you have to help out. I overslept, though, and didn't get a decent breakfast, so today was harder. By now the realization that there were never going to be enough people behind the counter to keep up with the lines got to me, and I slowed down considerably. The line still got served, but I didn't have the energy to be frantic about it.
Strangely, this kind of helped. I've been doing deep breathing exercises on my breaks (even short-staffed, SBux is incredibly scrupulous about requiring ten-minutes breaks every two hours), and it's loosened me up when I'm normally tense. So I'm a little resigned about the work, but I'm also feeling de-stressed and able to focus.
After work, I went to the evening service at church, and what did they have for snacks afterwards? Starbucks, of course. I can't get away from this place.
Labor Day. Time and a half, and I didn't have to start till 10am! Woot! I woke up before my alarm clock, made a big bowl of oatmeal with vanilla yogurt and chocolate/peanut butter protein powder, and felt good and full before heading to work. I had the last of my supply of Clif Bars for a snack, and a small, 5 oz. steak with steamed cauliflower for lunch. That night at my artists' meeting at church, I treated myself to a cheat meal of mahogany cake (don't know what's in it aside from pure deliciousness) and vanilla ice cream.
More spinach and tomato with scrambled eggs, a bag of trail mix (cashews, almonds, dried cranberries), and another steak waiting for me at home after this short 6:30-Noon shift marked the last of seven days in a row working at Starbucks. And that was after two days of jury duty. Which was after my last day at my other part-time job, which was a 14-hour marathon due to an evening event. I'm definitely looking at how my life is being sucked up by these part-time jobs just so I can pay my bills, while my life's ambitions sit waiting on the back burner for me to pick them up.
But I'm free of Starbucks till Saturday! Till then, I have some freelance work at my local PBS station, which will present its own challenges--in this case, I count work food as the greasy sandwiches and chips at the local pub between shows. How can I be social with the crew without filling myself with empty carbs?
Eight days of success feels pretty good, though. 22 days to go.
A morning shoot at Channel 9 today. I got lazy and just had some whole wheat toast for breakfast before heading off to work.
I'm finding that not only do I thrive on a decent first meal of the day, I also seem to depend on a mid-morning snack. I can go lunch to dinner without a bite, but for some reason I really need that extra boost before lunch, even if it's only a couple hours between snack and meals.
So I snagged a bagel from my friend's desk while at Channel 9, which was nice of her to offer but wasn't the best mid-morning snack to go with. Fortunately, the shoot was over by noon. I went to a farmer's market in the afternoon and bought some veggies and grass-fed beef. The beef I'm saving for later. Tonight, I had some chicken.
Disaster. According to my planner, I didn't have to do anything till Channel 9 this afternoon. So I had a leisurely breakfast of three eggs, spent the morning relaxing, and then headed out to my folks' house to cut the grass. I didn't even turn my phone on, just so I could have my thoughts to myself for a while and decompress from the past couple weeks of constant work.
I had food packed for the day, so I didn't even need to swipe food from my parents' house. I finished the grass, showered, and headed off to Channel 9. It was then that I finally turned my phone on and discovered three voice mails from Starbucks wondering where I'd been all day. Apparently, I was supposed to have worked that morning.
I don't know how I missed writing the shift down when I got my schedule, but I did. I had to call and apologize for leaving them in the lurch today. They were really worried about me, which is kind of a good thing, because they knew skipping out of work wasn't like me. But we just fired a guy for not showing up to work, so this is rotten timing on my part.
I was in a funk the rest of the day, but work at Channel 9 was fine. I had packed plenty of good food to keep me going. We had a pledge drive, begging people to support the station, and went late into the night; but there wasn't time for a break for drinks, so I didn't have to worry about pub food. Small favors.
looks like you are doing good so far. I work at Panera myself, and I not eating from there would be a big challenge.
I just mainly 'work it in'
So, you are taking this month off from working out?
Hi Katydid,
Thanks for the boost. I'm sure after this I'll find a way to "work in" Starbucks to my diet for convenience's sake, but this has been a great way to honestly track what I'm eating every day. I'm really surprised how my mood affects my food, though I probably shouldn't be.
I plan to get back to the gym, starting back up with NROL, Hypertrophy I, after this month. By then, I think I'll have a better idea how to plan my eating more consistently.
I know it's been eight years, but I like to work in some kind of time of reflection into this day. I didn't have a whole lot of time for it this year, so I just tried to watch whatever retrospective they had going on the news. At work, a friend of mine expressed a little disbelief that people are still making the pilgrimage to Ground Zero every year, and I reminded her how history changed that day. Soon we were all sharing memories of where we were that morning.
But back to food.
I had turkey bacon for breakfast, and then headed off to Channel 9. After rehearsal, I had a Clif Bar, and I was good to go for the shoot.
That afternoon was a staff meeting at Starbucks. It had nothing to do with me missing work yesterday, but I arrived a half-hour early just to be on the safe side. Once I made my apologies, everyone seemed fine. Even the cop who visits our store every day was worried about me.
For the evening, I used the grass-fed beef to prepare Beef and Vegetable Fettuccine from Gourment Nutrition. I brought it over to the house of the girl I've been dating (we're in the getting-to-know-each-other phase, and in no rush to officially label ourselves right now), and I think she was suitably impressed. We saw a movie--a food movie no less, Julie & Julia--and called it a night.
Easy shift. 9:45am-5pm. Eggs for breakfast. Clif Bar for snack. Turkey bacon on whole wheat toast for lunch. Fresh raspberries from the farmer's market to make a smoothie. Trail mix for afternoon snack.
So the food was good even though work still sucked. I'm pretty sure that once I'm back at the gym getting my strength back that I'll be able to go longer without feeling worn out, but it's still a lot of repetitive movement in a tiny area for several hours at a time. I feel less like a snooty barista and more like a factory worker on days like this.
After work, I went to the Saturday evening service at church. I'd planned a movie with a friend afterwards, but we couldn't find it playing anywhere nearby, so we went to a bar and grill with the other Saturday service attenders. I'd already eaten just previously, and I was still in no mood for pub food. So I sat like a bump on a log with a glass of water while everyone else partook. Kinda awkward for someone who's not good socially to begin with.
I got home late that night, and instead of making a good snack, I ate a Little Debbie coffee cake and went to bed. Yuck.
Today was eat-whatever-I-want day. With no work and no church to attend, I spent the day at home cleaning, cooking, listening to podcasts, and writing. Lots of writing. And pancakes. 'Nuff said.
Oh, and I also had my very first grass-fed beef burger, on toasted whole wheat bread with grilled onions, with a side of sauteed carrots. Yum.
My traveling-salesman roommate was home this weekend, so I got to use his laptop to get on the Internet and catch up on this eating journal. I meant to go out for gelato tonight, but I've been writing too long. So a chocolate-peanut-butter-protein shake will have to do to settle the sweet tooth.
Just a quick placeholder. Still doing the challenge, still sticking to it. Haven't had time to update this thread, but I've been keeping notes every day and will share them soon. Only a couple more days to go! Woot!
September's New Habit -- No Food From Work
September 1
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