Saturday, January 11, 2014

2014 Word of the Year: HEALTH; and Small contract

Stereo view of Adirondack chairs at Pier Park
click image to view larger.
This represents serenity for me,
one of the subcategories of health.

A/k/a Nadine over at In Blue Ink posted about a word of the year.  Her word is BRAVE.  My word is HEALTH.  (I want to be brave, too.  I will put that under health as a subcategory of mental health.) Other things to include as subcategories of health include:  Love, friendship, serenity, weight, completion.

My health has not been as good as I would like and I want to work on improving that.  As we age, it becomes more and more difficult to make truly healthy choices, and the consequences of failing are worse.  My health needs to be my number ONE priority.

(I like wildness, too.  Change can be good, but at my age, not all change is positive.  I'd like gentle positive change toward good health and good outcomes, LOL!)

When I have time, I hope to publish my intentions and goals for the new year and for January, which is almost half over.

(HAPPY NEW YEAR, by the way!!!)

I do not have time now, but I am committed to making a contract with myself.  The goal is to eat less meat, which is difficult for me because I can't eat beans or soy or peanuts and legumes and other things normally used to make a whole protein in a vegan diet.

So my contract is this:  For the remainder of January and all of February, I will eat vegetarian (but not vegan) breakfasts 3 days a week or more, and if something happens that I can't do it, I will substitute another meal.

My intention for this 6 weeks is to have vegetarian (non-meat) omelets Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and Blueberry pancakes (or other fruit pancake) Friday.  I will have meat, if I wish, with my breakfast, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

I will look for ways to have more vegetarian lunches and dinners and ways to add vegan food to my repertoire.  I used to be a vegetarian before I developed all my allergies.  But I have to reinvent the wheel.  Little by little.

I hope to reevaluate this contract and change, expand, contract or eliminate it on or about March 1st.

3 comments:

bluerose said...

I'd love to be sitting in one of those chairs right now ;)

I have some of the same food problems as you - peanuts, soy, etc. Here's some foods that I've found to be easier on my digestive tract (you may already know about them): hemp seed - seriously, lol, it's higher in protein than most nuts. 3tbsp = 10gm protein I like it in smoothies. chia seed - not quite as high in protein as hemp seed, but really good for the digestive tract. nut butters - not peanut butter obviously, but almond or cashew. the butter is a little easier to digest than whole nuts. adding spinach to smoothies - 50% of spinach's calories is protein, of coarse spinach doesn't have many calories, so it takes quite a bit to get a significant amount of protein, but when you blend it into smoothies, you'd be surprised how much spinach you can get in one smoothie. I think one serving size (about a bowl) of spinach is about 3gms protein. and quinoa - it's a grain, but very high in protein as far as grains go (i think about 6 or 7 grams per serving), and I think makes a good cooked breakfast cereal. just add what you'd normally put in oat meal or cream of wheat.

Hope this give you some helpful ideas. Wishing you the best of health in 2014!

John said...

Lovely photograph Mary, serenity indeed. I do hope your health improves and that you have harmony and serenity in every part of your being! May 2014 be the start of great things including health for you!

a/k/a Nadine said...

Good word choice!

Also, I love chia seeds. I've been making green smoothies for a few weeks now (post coming soon) with spinach and chia seeds. Yum!