My friend told me that now they have a recommendation that you should eat 30 different kinds of foods in a week, then you can say your eating is diverse enough. Article about this topic can be found here. I thought I would try and write down all the food groups I am eating starting from Monday, and see, if I can do 30 different things. In this article they are talking about plant based foods, which is perfect for me. Anyway, it would be interesting to know. Food related articles are everwhere and it is difficult to understand what are important and what exactly should you eat.
Anyway, regarding eating, basic rules are simple and they have been the same for a long time. For example eat as much as you need, eat various foods and different food groups, eat everything in moderation and eat a diverse diet. Sounds simple? Actually it is not that simple, because in the recent years, there are so many different diets and such going around. It also seems that some diets have become people's identities. I am not saying it is necessarily bad, but sometimes I don't understand why people who CAN tolerate gluten eat gluten free. Like why? I mean, I understand the identity thing when you are vegan, because veganism is combined with your morals and stuff. Anyway, if anyone wants to chat about it, my comments are open.
Anyway, that is why I have not set in stone my eating habits. I have never said that I will be pescetarian for the rest of my life. I am eating what I feel that I need and want and currently this is eating no meat. I haven't had it for years, to be accurate. I don't even feel like having it. I remember that I used to crave meat during summer BBQs, but this hasn't happened in the recent years. So I think I have found a diet that works for me CURRENTLY.
But now I will try to write down everything I am eating starting from Monday. And every day I add the new things, not repeating the previous stuff. And then on Friday I will read everything and see how much different stuff I have used. I think this is really interesting and I can finally see how diverse my diet is. :D Of course some things are just pointless, like cookies and chocolate, but I will mark them down still.
Foods eaten on Monday:
Oatmeal porridge, banana, almond milk, frozen cherries, vegetable soup (beans, potatoes, tomato, paprica, seasonings and stuff, but I consider this as one thing), oatmeal-peanut flapjack, apple, melon, salad, tomato, paprica, cucumber, xucchini, salsa, guacamole, corn, cheese, pickles. I am also not writing down drinks (like coffee and tea, because I have a lot og them). Basically on Monday alone I have had 18 different foods. Wow.
Foods eaten on Tuesday:
I will add only things that are different. Frozen strawberries, cocoa powder, chocolate, granola, homemade rye bread, cream cheese, vegetable dumplings, cottage cheese. So by the end of Tuesday I am up to 26 different things. :D It seems that reaching 30 is super easy.
Foods eaten on Wedensday:
Frozen blue raspberries, chocolate chip cookies (I don't really know if these are considered as food though. :D But eating this kind of stuff in moderation is supposed to be fine), sweet potato, green bean-tomato sauce. I guess now I have written down most of the things I eat in a week. And it is 30! :D Alreadt reached it and it is third day. :D
Foods eaten on Thursday:
Frozen mango, coconut shreds, oats and cranberry flapjack (I haven't had cranberries so I am adding this to the list), butter, raw buckwheat, onion, garlic, mushrooms, carrots. 39 different things. I am kind of interested now if I can reach 50 different things by the end of the week. :D I will post on Friday here, so I don't know, maybe I will write stuff down and mention this on my next post, about how I did.
Foods eaten on Friday:
Here I don't have anything new to add yet, because for breakfast I had porridge with strawberries and I didn't add anything new. But I wanted to mention that I have gaine weight. I feel very torn - I mean I understand I need to gain, but this is sooooo difficult. I just want to get over this block I have with the change in first number.
I also thought about writing down some possible challenges I want to do in the future. I have them listed in my bullet journal, but there are a lot that need some more preparation, time, or I want to just have moved before starting them. About the moving thing - there is a lot of trouble and the situation is really complicated and I am so fed up with it. As soon as I solve one problem, next arises and argh... this is super stressful. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that everything works out well.
Anyhow, possible challenges would be:
1. Vegan food challenge (either 24 hours, 3 days, 5 days, 7 days or even longer!)
2. Eating same coloured food for a day (I would like to do green, I have so many ideas. :D)
3. Cheapest things challenge (I would like to try and buy the cheapest things at the supermarket to see, how much money I spend and if I can have proper three meals.)
4. Week of pasta (I think I would do a 5 day challenge, eating pasta every night with different vegetables and sauce and stuffs. It would show me that I shouldn't be afraid of pasta.)
5. Week of rice (again, 5 day challenge with trying different food combos and using different recipes. It seems so interesting! :D)
6. Week of potatoes (same as the previous ones. You can make potatoes in many ways.)
7. Week of sandwiches (again the same. :D I would really like to try this peanut butter toast with banana or jam!)
8. Week of meal preping (I really want to try and make meals for lunch on Sunday. It would probably lessen my stress over lunch and could give me some nice structure. Lunches are still the most difficult things to deal with.)
9. Breakfast challenge (try something different every morning. I mean, I do love porridge and my heart belongs to it, but I think this would be an interesting experiment. Also, maybe I will discover something I love just as much! I guess nothing beats porridge, but I need to confirm it.)
10. Drinking more water challenge (I think I have done this previously, but I feel like I need some motivation to drink more water. I am quite good at it when I can have carbonated water, but I don't really like normal tap water. But I feel I need to have more of it, especially after gicing up Coke. Also, by now I have been 10 days Coke free and I am feeling a lot better. I am drinking more carbonated water and tea, but I feel more stable somehow. So this is a big plus!)
I have also writen down some other challenges to try. For example I would gladly do another reading one (maybe with reading physical newspaper, magazine or just book), because I feel that I should do it more. I also used to love writing stories and I could do something to do with writing perhaps. I have a lot of ongoing stuff that is waiting to be finished and some of it has potential (I believe :D). Or maybe take a list about some topics and write a blog post every day for 30 days.
Then I would also like to start running again. I don't mean long distances, but just do something extra to yoga classes. I really miss it and it would be a cool project named "back to running". I also Googled different challenges right now and found one about decluttering. Like you take one thing per day - closet, kitchen cabinet etc and declutter. This would be really good to do before moving I think... and I have exactly a month from the signing papers until move in date! This seems like something I could do...
It would also be interesting to do something with drawing, as I used to draw a lot at the hospital. Or do something else with my hands. Like I used to knit a lot of socks some time ago. :D
I also want to do something similar to my stretching routine, for example work out 10 minutes following a YouTube tutorial every day. Would be cool. There are so many short routines online. In regards to YouTube, I should finally write a post about my favourite challenges... but there are so many that I cannot pick which ones to write about. :D Should I pick five of my favourites? Ten? More? Also I don't know if this is something you would be interested in...
Then what else... stuff that has nothing to do with challenges is everything related to buying a flat. And I also want to write about this planning and setting the place up. At the moment I am under a lot of stress and I should sign papers on Monday but it is all so confusing. I just hope that I will soon have my own place and I can move in on 26.11 as seems to be possible!
