Nutritional Challenge: Day 1

So my AWESOME gym started this Nutritional Challenge which will happen every month, and provide us with ways to improve our diet and eat healthy. This month, our challenge is to eat 3 servings of vegetables per day.

I am not a big fan of vegetables. The only vegetables that I can think of that I actually like and eat, are brocoli and asparagus. I never venture into the world of squash, artichoke, brussel sprout, and these weird named vegetables. Let me start by saying I don't even know the names in English of half of these vegetables. When I was in Brazil, my mom was doing all of the cooking and groceries, so if you ask me what they are called in Portuguese, I might not even know that! Plus, I would not even know how to start eating some of these vegetables. For instance, artichokes just look scary. Looks like something someone would feed you while you were being tortured. And don't even get me started on sweet potatoes.. Ew. I'm not a very picky eater, but sweet potatoes don't have a place in my heart.

So I decided to stick to the basics, and made a menu including the vegetables I do like and am familiar with. Since I was working today and am working the next two days, I created a menu just for tonight's dinner and the next 2 days. Here's what I came up with:

*****Monday*****

- Dinner: corn, asparagus + steak

*****Tuesday*****

-Breakfast: Omelet (incl. onion, mushroom, tomatoes, red pepper, spinach)
-Lunch: Asparagus, lettuce w/ carrots and red peppers, 1/2 steak
-Dinner: Green beans, broccoli + chicken pasta

*****Wednesday*****

-Breakfast: Omelet (incl. onion, mushroom, tomatoes, red pepper, spinach)
-Lunch: broccoli, lettuce w/ carrots and red peppers, 1 chicken
-Dinner: broccoli + sausage (pasta)

In order to organize myself with the prepping, I also wrote a To Do list so that I knew exactly what to make and prepare each night. So basically, I knew I had to prep the salad and the ingredients for the omelet for the next two days, as well as the amount and what to cook each night, in order to have left overs for the next day.
Once I did that, I knew what I needed to buy. So I made a grocery list based on my menu and went shopping.

After leaving work at 8pm, doing groceries and getting home, I didn't start getting dinner ready until 9:30pm as well as prepping for the next day. We ended up eating at 10pm, but I was able to pack my lunch and breakfast ingredients for the next 2 days.

Prepping is definitely not easy. This whole planning, prepping and storing takes a lot of time, not to mention the extra containers of food I need to take to work. But at the end, you save more money this way and stick to your diet, because you will have your food ready, waiting for you. You won't be going out to buy junk food, or grabbing too much or too little out of the fridge when leaving from your house in a hurry.

My plan is to write a menu Wednesday night for the rest of the week until Sunday, and then on Sunday write another menu for the whole next week, do groceries, buy extra tupperware because I will need it, and do all the prepping for the 3 days I will be working. This way, on Monday, all I have to do is grab the containers from the fridge, put in my lunch bag, and go.

I have a good feeling about this challenge and I am excited to stick with it and see how this will improve my body's energy and performance.

And who knows, I might even venture into eating an artichoke!