1.8.15 ~ SOME THINGS I'VE LEARNED

Fun Fact:  Ounces are not the same as grams....

With the first week of Dryuary under by belt, I'm surprised to find I've learned a few things:

1.  You only need a bag of kale, a bag of romaine lettuce, a bag of spinach, 2 cucumbers, 2 celery hearts, 4 beets, 1 pineapple, 5 lemons and 15 apples to make fresh juice for 7 days.  This is not nearly as bad or annoying as I had anticipated.

2.  You go through A LOT of fish oil.  I'm already nearly done my first bottle and have to pick up another before my business trip.  These are the concentrated kind too so I only have to take 6 a day to get the 3 grams of EPA/DHA.  I take a lot of vitamins to begin with so this wasn't all that hard to incorporate into my morning routine.

3.  Weighing your food is annoying.  But also surprising.  After taking 15 minutes to figure out ounces are not the same as grams (mornings and numbers are not my thing)...I confirmed I am definitely not getting enough protein.  Breakfast and dinner I have down, but I struggle with putting together a balanced lunch and snacks.  Nuts also don't have nearly as much protein as I somehow imagined they did. (Turns out eating a Kind or Lara bar for lunch isn't doing me much good)  I know this is 100% because of my job.  I'm either running around the city all day or answering millions of emails in real time.  Like most New Yorkers, I never "take lunch" and if I do its not a pleasurable experience.

To add protein to my snacks, I brought a whole bunch of boiled eggs into the office and tried to eat one around 11am each morning.  I also made a foul concoction of every canned bean I could find in my pantry and ate a few spoonfuls of that in the afternoons.  Neither option is particularly delicious, but I found I was less cranky by 4pm.

4.  Drinking 72 ounces of water every day is HARD.  Again, I'm terrible about it at work.  Mostly because I down coffee like a champ. My new rule is every time I get a cup of coffee, I need to get 12 oz of water too and I can't get another cup of coffee until that 12 ounces is gone.

5.  I need to stop being so hard on myself.  My biggest challenge this week was getting enough workouts in with my ridiculous work schedule.  So far, I've logged two and had hoped to have four by the end of today.  But when you're out working until 1am and getting up at 5am to do it all over again, somethings gotta give.  Sometimes sleep is more important.  I'm headed to class today and bringing my Tracy Anderson DVDs to LA with me on this business trip.   Its the best I can do on the run.

6.  Not drinking this week has been eye-opening.  It has shown me all the instances where I drink socially without even thinking about it.  I do not usually drink when I'm home alone, but a glass of wine or two is always part of the evening when I'm at dinner or event.  I ate out for work the past four nights and managed to only consume one glass of white wine at an awards show.  Imagine if I had a minimum of two glasses every evening -- that adds up quickly without even thinking about it.  I've saved thousands of calories by not drinking at dinners or events this week which is A LOT for four days.