Being without school or an out of the home job left me floating from snack to snack, not planning my trips to the grocery store, or my meals for that matter. I noticed a downward trend over the last year. Every time I hit a big deadline (at least once a month) I throw health to the wind and eat out too much, eat crap food too much, and eat too late at night too much. Then when I meet the deadline I “treat” myself, furthering the downward trend. It takes a few days to get out of this routine and start eating healthy again. And by healthy I mean relative to what I was eating the week before. With each passing deadline my definition of “healthy” declined severely. Well, no more! I’ve rebooted the whole freaking system.

I started with making working out a priority – I am now at the end of week 6 of working out (3 days strength training, 2 days cardio and abs). I’ve slotted it in my schedule, set up my classes, meetings, and workshops around it, and even when I was in the midst of working on Craft Leftovers Monthly, I still went 3 times that week. Last week I also rebooted the fly lady program.

After Market Day I did a huge cleaning (just putting all the craft stuff away), reset up my “control journal” {link}, and have been doing my daily chores for a week straight now! And wow can you tell the difference around here. It is getting clean. Like really clean. Our coat closet now has coats in it instead of random crap! It’s amazing.

The past 2 weeks I’ve been eating much better too. Focusing on smaller portions, more veggies and fruits, not eating late at night, cutting down on my caffeine, etc etc etc (you know the voice I’m using sis). But now that I’m heading into the time where I will be teaching 4-5 days a week, working on top secret projects# 2 and #3, working on Craft Leftovers Monthly, and etc etc etc, how will I hold it together. Sure I can spend an hour cooking each day now, but what about in 2 weeks when I’ll be running from class to workshop to writing to making to sleep?

Jason and I decided to make some burrito/enchiladas to freeze and eat later. The perfect solution! You can get the recipe on Craft Leftovers, I just posted it for the Thrift Kitchen post {link}. 

It turns out, my friend Sarah has a similar interest, so we are going to start meeting a few times a month to cook in bulk, divide, and conquer.  I really want to have a nice regular stock pile of good food to eat when I get into a time pinch. I’m sick of sacrificing my health for my projects. I think this will be a great way to make them both a priority. Sarah has the book Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer and we will be starting out with recipes and methods for mass cooking provided there. 

Another issue Sarah and I both have is that our partners do not like veggies. And so we tend to cook with them less than we should. I found this book at borders today that was just perfect. It’s called the The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on Your Man (In the Kitchen!): Hiding Healthy Foods in Hearty Meals Any Guy Will Love. If I can sneak cauliflower into chili without complaints, well that is huge! So, armed with a 40% off coupon I took the plunge and brought it home. 

The main idea of the cook book is to “cut calories and increase volume with low-cal, nutritious ‘fillers’ “. So for instance, instead of a straight up meat sauce, you “hide” veggies in it by chopping them finely or pureeing them, adding tofu to egg salad, and pureed white beans to mustard. She has quite a few make ahead recipes for fillers to be added to the other recipes in the book. You don’t want your family seeing your pureeing cauliflower and adding it to the mashed potatoes, make it ahead of time and sneak it in there in plain site. The White Puree (make ahead recipe #4) is actually zucchini, lemon juice, and cauliflower. Neat! 

I also, with my swag bucks, bought the book Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make today. You make a meal on say Sunday, then eat variations of it for the next few days. I’m hoping that between sneaking in veggies, freezing meals ahead, and using time saving methods and creative leftovers, I will continue to eat healthy even when things get completely crazy.

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On a completely different note I’ve been reading the books I picked up from the library and am really impressed with them. I’ll share my favorites with you soon!

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