Well, guys, we’re back to reality.
Living in the Philippines was so incredible, BUT it was also a year of kinda bad habits. Bad meaning really fun and convenient and easy and live-it-up-while-you’re-young, but not very healthy. And bad meaning I’m a little worried that we’ve come back to family and friends right at the peak of wear-your-swimsuit-at-the-lake-all-day season. Gulp. I made some healthy things, like these lentils, this skinny veggie Alfredo lasagna, and this quinoa black bean casserole, but in between eating all that stuff I wasn’t always being so good. Here are some of my bad habits and how I hope to turn them into new, better habits as we transition back home.
Bad habit #1: eating out.
I feel like I’ve been eating out for one year straight. It’s wonderfully inexpensive to eat at a restaurant in the Philippines. This is a picture of us with my friend Angie at our favorite Thai restaurant. Pad Thai, you guys. PAD THAI. My nemesis. So shopping for groceries, cleaning and preparing them, and washing all the dishes afterward was an expensive, sweaty nightmare compared to the comfort of eating in the air conditioning and not having to make or clean up any of the food. Every meal was a battle of convenience, cost, and comfort vs. the health benefits of making our own food at home.
At-home goal: eating out less. I love it SO much, but we are going to need to cut back on the restaurants and keep at-home meals balanced. Here’s a diagram from the Slim-Fast website that is a great tool for building a meal or a recipe that has the right amount of everything. I love stuff like that.
Bad habit #2: delicious local foods and snacks that are fried to golden crisp perfection.
Filipinos know how to fry, and I am a girl who loves her fried food. It was a perfect disaster. I found myself deciding between fried lumpia (egg roll) and fried brown sugar bananas for my afternoon snacks. And loving it.
At-home goal: taking advantage of the wide variety of healthy snacks available to me anywhere, at any time. I have really missed the convenience of health foods here. Now that we’re back home, I’ll be stocking up on fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and taking advantage of the healthier pre-packaged snacks that are made full of protein and fiber. I love that on my way to school, on a day when I’m all out of groceries and don’t have anything to bring for lunch, I can pull into the dinky little gas station by our house and grab a Slim-Fast meal bar with an apple and a water. That kind of convenience has been sorely missed this year. Awesome.
Bad habit #3: not exercising.
That’s actually a picture of me working out back when I DID work out. But the Philippines did not have regular, enjoyable exercise in the stars for me. For so many reasons that I won’t get into, I found it incredibly difficult to do any kind of physical activity while living abroad, soooo I just didn’t. For a year. And as expected, my jeans are a wee bit tighter than they were when we came.
At-home goal: get more active. Eat more protein. Do more muscle work. Run outside more. I’ve missed those lake runs like crazy this year.
My real reason for wanting to slim down in the next few weeks? So that I can jump right back into the summer season, including the swimsuit part, without looking like I ate fried foods and didn’t exercise for a year while living abroad. We can just keep that part a secret, right?
Your turn! What secret habits are YOU trying to hide? Midnight snacks? Spending more time sitting (blogging!) in exercise clothes than actually exercising? Secret candy drawer? Leave a comment and two lucky winners will be picked at random from participating blogs to each win a $1,000 SpaFinder gift card! Yip-dip-skip-dee-doo!
For more information about Slim-Fast you can visit their website here or their Facebook page here.
Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 6/13/13 – 6/30/13.
Be sure to visit the Slim-Fast brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!
The post New Habits and Spa Giveaway appeared first on Pinch of Yum.