One of the big changes that I've made in my new apartment is keeping my kitchen more or less clean, well-stocked, and ready to prepare meals. I can't pretend I haven't had weeks that seemed more takeaway and leftovers than cooking, but by and large I've done pretty well at owning the food that I prepare.
Sometimes I make really healthy meals, like my current favorite baked eggs with balsamic kale, tomatoes, and cannellini beans (above). I bought a zucchini noodle maker and got all excited about zoodles with shrimp scampi from this recipe before I realized I really don't like or know how to properly cook shrimp.
At least the zucchini noodles came out ace.
More frequently, though, I've been making gemelli with sausage, mushrooms, and peppers in a tomato sauce, with garlic bread and ice cream. Or crepes with chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli in a cream sauce. Or a pasta dish with chicken and sundried tomatoes in a mozzarella cream sauce. Not exactly diet food over here, but the point was to enjoy cooking again and get back into the habit.
At work, I still struggle to make healthy choices for lunch. It seems uncanny that on the day when I am feeling resigned to a salad, one of my coworkers will ask to order Mexican or burgers (we order together and the company pays). It is often challenging to find the least dangerous item on a NYC restaurant's lunch menu, but sometimes I have success.
I'm a big fan of a Beet'wich, but it's hard to convince everyone to order from the place that makes them.
While I am glad that I am not gaining weight and relieved that I'm not exactly at the heaviest I've ever been, I'm also not losing weight, and push is coming to shove.
I got a physical and a bunch of bloodwork done because in addition to my usual mid-February anemia / vitamin D deficiency, I was feeling light-headed all the time and fainting most mornings. My new doctor chided me for being dangerously dehydrated and kept telling me that I'd feel a lot better about myself if I lost weight. (Here I should interject to say that my doctor is kind of dumb and sloppy and I don't plan to stick with her for long. When I said I was concerned that my depression was getting out of hand, she said, "Oh, you are depressed because you're overweight and don't like how you look?" We definitely disagree on mental health and its contributing factors.)
But I do know that getting my nutrition better balanced and my weight within a healthy range will help with depression, both organic and psychological. I am also trying to manage job stress and anxiety better, improve my sleep, and address a few other health concerns.
This week I went back through this blog and picked out a few meals that I always enjoyed and didn't find too tedious to make. I coughed up the $150 for a Fresh Direct delivery coming this Saturday full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy snacks. I'm trying not to be punitive toward myself or officially DIET, so much as to reintroduce healthier meals in place of the rich sausage and pasta fest I enjoyed this winter.
And as odious as I find it in concept, I need to start exercising regularly. The only upside of my previously very long and exhausting commute was that it involved about 5 miles of walking every work day, and that's now cut drastically down to maybe 20-30 minutes a day. I need to use the boon of free time to improve my fitness and not just catch up on Netflix and knitting.
I sincerely hope and believe that this spring will bring good things, starting with small steps toward better health. I am keeping the mantra of Be good to yourself instead of the plethora of negative thoughts I usually have, and it's a much more positive experience already.
