Thursday, September 29, 2016

Healthier lifestyle experiment Day 5

My life is a jumble of chaos, driving everyone around and always over scheduled. So trying to find fast easy meals I have had to keep things simple. I however realize that by using canned beans and canned soups I also have been putting way too much sodium into my diet. So I'm thinking I'll have to prepared some meals this weekend if I can find even two hours of time I can make my black beans, some lentils and precook some meals I can keep in the fridge and bring out and warm up quickly when I am in a hurry and need something that meets the plant-based requirements. I'll often just grab a carrot and not even worry about peeling it or anything and snack on that if I need something. I should probably keep Fritos to a minimum too they are quite salty and though they add a crunch to dip them in beans I could alternate between crunchy vegetables and chips with the beans.

I had a small window of time this afternoon and I had only a few bites of honeydew melon as my only food all day so for my window of time before rushing out the door again, I opened a can of refried beans and had some fritos with that. I later used carrot dipped in refried beans and it was delicious so crunchy veges work too. I am going to hopefully make some quinoa/blackbeans/cilantro this weekend and that should last a few days as well for me. I still need to find a way to add more activity to my day. I tell you I'm so exhausted though. Also when my daughter works a late shift it is really hard to sleep myself until I know my family is all in and settled for the night.

I tried my hand at Zucchini Soup but I was in such a rush I did my own version of the recipe. For a 10 min. window before I had to take my son to the dentist this morning I grabbed a large handful of basil from the garden and chopped it up, cut up the old zucchini I had and picked a new zucchini and used part of that, sauted some onion and garlic in a pan and mixed everything with some water, lemon pepper, little salt and put it in the crockpot/rice cooker I have. I am planning on blending that and hopefully will make a decent soup for tonight for myself, I'll offer it to the family, but I think I better have some alternative option for them to eat. I'll give a recipe if it works out, I don't want to give a recipe until I've actually ate it.

If we can find a time to eat and I can find time to make something. I literally have four places I am suppose to be at 7 I am trying to figure out. Non-stop today, non-stop I need to find a way to simplify. I was thinking of getting my daughter one of those motorized scooter things if they have one that can be done manually or electrically the kind you stand up on and push with your foot. Then she could get to work on her own and school but driving the kids is also a time I connect with them. We'll figure it out, I do know sleep makes a big difference on my mental and physical and especially emotionally functioning.

2 comments:

Rachel Leslie said...

I'm always a fan of sleep! Way to use some fresh herbs! I'm actually going to start growing some on my balcony so we can have some too. Read that cilantro is good for arthritis! Way to go!

Mary said...

Next time you go to Costco, pick up some of their Kirkland Signature no-salt seasoning (or Mrs Dash). It really helps your food not taste bland. We use it in almost everything. Also you should try out Mom's instant pot for cooking beans. It cooks a big batch really fast. Keep up the good work.