A health and fitness post...

Sadly, I'm doing one of those standard bride-to-be type things: trying to lose weight.  However, I'm also just plain trying to improve my health, whether that results in weight loss or not.  I know I need to eat more healthily: one of my major goals is to work towards actually achieving the five servings of vegetables and two fruit that is the recommended daily amount - and believe me, given my general aversion to fruit, this is going to take some work on my part.  And five servings of vegetables is a LOT.

Then there's drinking enough water and getting enough steps... and then enough cardio on top of that.

I'm working on choosing one aspect each week and focusing on getting that up to scratch, then the next the next week, etc.  Sometimes I feel like I'm moving far too slowly by doing this, but it's better to move slowly than to rush through and then give up because it's all too hard.

Something that I'm finding surprisingly helpful is the Nudge app.  I downloaded it on the 4th of January to help me keep track of my daily servings of fruit and vegetables, but it does so much more than that and I really appreciate the extra bells and whistles: I can also keep track of water consumption, it's connected to my Fitbit account to bring in the number of steps I've taken, and I can track additional activity as well (although I also do that in My Fitness Pal which links with Fitbit for non-step activity: once I get back into a few other regular activities like swimming and yoga, I'll see about tracking them there. Via Apple Health it picks up my sleep data from Sleep Cycle, and takes all this data together to create a "nudge factor" based on the last 30 days.  Obviously I haven't yet been using the app for 30 days yet, so I'm not yet at an accurate picture of what it says my health is (I know my health isn't great, but I hope there's not quite so much red compared to yellow and green once there's a full 30 days of data to work from.  On the other hand, because of the law of averages, at the moment my Nudge Factor keeps going up each day, whereas it will no doubt plateau once there are no more "0" data days.

This is probably the most successful 'gamification' of health that I've come across, moreso than Health Month, which I used for a couple of years, but was much higher maintenance than Nudge.  I say this a lot but I really do intend to come back with an update on how its all going in about a month's time.

This week's salad-in-a-jar

M is on school holidays, so at the moment I only have to do lunches for my four days a week at work.  It's summer, and combining that with wanting to increase my servings of vegetables to something near to the five-a-day one is "supposed" to eat, I'm all about salad.  Once M is back at work I might switch out week by week with bentos, but I really do love doing a little bit of work on Sunday night and having lunch for four days ready to go.

The thing with mason jar salads is that if you get the layers right, there's little to no danger of soggy lettuce (hence making them on Sunday for the rest of the week. 

You start with your dressing: this week I went with sesame oil, garlic, chopped shallots, and a dash of white vinegar.

Add "hardy" vegetables; carrots, green beans, the vegetables that won't soak up the dressing too easily.

Then the less-hardy vegetables; for me this was capsicum and the left over summer squash salad (patty pan squash, zucchini and chopped up potato) that we'd had for dinner.  I was going to add snow peas, but decided that my little 360ml jar was looking full enough already.

Next is protein.  Last week I had chick peas - this week it was an Asian-style poached chicken, poached in water with mirin, soy sauce and sliced garlic.  I topped that with salmon flakes made using Makiko Itoh's recipe (this is one of my favourite things to do with leftover salmon.  In fact, I generally take off a chunk intentionally once I've cooked salmon, before serving.)

Then, fill the rest of the jar with lettuce, and you're good to go.

By my calculations, this counts as 2.5 to 3 servings of vegetables, and gives me a delicious, carb-free lunch that was relatively easy to make and used up leftovers!

A photo I wanted to share

The ceremonial reuniting of Drankey with Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. It's Advent! #chezstutters #christmas #nativity

A photo I wanted to share

A new addition to the #chezstutters garden gnome collection.

Bento - 8th September

Today's #bento for me: stuffed to the brim 350ml container (it was clean and had a lid) - onigiri with salmon furikake, broccoli, roast pumpkin, pepper and onion confit: in the second compartment spinach and chickpeas (new recipe) topped with carrots cooked in a soy/morin/sake poaching liquid. More salmon furikake on the spinach. #chezstutters

On my desk right now (8.30am, Sept 7th, 2016)

On my desk right now... I'm about to do day 7 of #30lists - because it's the morning of the 7th. Also on my desk is coffee (surprise!), my work planner, and pieces of a #crochet #blockaday block that I haven't finished. #chezstutters

#30lists in progress. Sort of.

I love #30lists but I hate the embargo for people who aren't in North America. I do my lists in the morning ( or try to) but am not supposed to share them until 7pm. Which, really! #chezstutters