You Didn't Learn to Walk Without Falling Down

Sometimes there are struggles and trials that come with trying to eat healthily, and sometimes they are hard to get through. Take for instance when your entire apartment decides that they don't have enough chocolate in their lives and each makes brownies and/or cookies. Then they leave them out, ensuring everyone that if they want one, "Please, feel free!".  That was my weekend...and well you know the drill.

Your roommate makes brownies

What you see:

What it really is:

So how do we get over this? Well let me tell you, it was a rough weekend for the diet and it's a little bit of a struggle getting back on. But Igot back on! This change isn't easy, and we're going to trip every once-in-a-while. But the key is to keep trying and not give up. One of the biggest lies that we tell ourselves when we're trying to do anything is that when we fail, then we've failed and there's no going back. That's a big, fat, hairy lie!

I didn't learn to walk without falling down, I missed the toilet a couple times being potty-trained. If we were a one chance only species, I'd be a 21 yearold in a stroller wearing diapers. Well I don't know about you, but eventually I figured out the walking and potty-training thing, and now I run three miles a day and can take 4 hour road-trips without having to stop at a rest-stop.

Learning to eat healthily is the same idea. We're going to trip and fall a lot as we're figuring things out, but we get better every time. So while I did eat the brownies, I kept exercising, I kept making meals that were healthy and in the diet.

So don't give up on yourself, you can do it! One day doesn't condemn a future of healthy eating, but days of giving up on yourself will.

And in the end, you'll find you're really happier with this:

"Find the way of life you love, then have the courage to live it."

-Author Unknown

-Shayla

SLENDER

Breakfast: I love it!

I have learned that when I don't eat in the morning I get grumpy, sleepy and headachy...which are all awful things when you're supposed to be on top of your game in your business classes! But I also have a limited time slot, so there really isn't much time to just make something that's filling and healthy. So I have my go to winter breakfast: oatmeal. 

I love it. Okay so growing up I dumped tons of sugar on it, honey, milk etc. and I'm not eating any of those things now...so what do I do? Well the substitutes that I've found not only are healthier, they're filling and add a fun variety:

Shayla's Oatmeal Delight:

1/2 cup Old Fashioned Oats (healthier than instant and usually cheaper)

1 cup water

3/4 cup assorted berries (or any fruit for that matter, but this is my favorite)

1 banana

Put your oats and water into a microwave proof bowl.

Heat for one minute, stir the oats and water, and then heat for an additional 30 seconds. Keep your eye on it, it might need a little more time, just make sure you check it every thirty seconds after the initial minute otherwise it might overflow allover your microwave. 

Remove bowl from microwave, add fruit, mix and enjoy!

I often have this as a snack too, especially if I'm up late studying and I want something sweet but not really caloric. It's also really colorful so it looks pretty. :)

Enjoy! 

-Shayla

SLENDER

Scout Out Your Prey

So yesterday I didn't have very much for breakfast, mostly because my stomach gets upset when I'm nervous about classes and have less than 6 hours of sleep (I'll do a post about the benefits of going to bed on time one of these days). So once I had woken up and gotten through my stressful class, I was hungry. I've said it before, but I hate being hungry. Yesterday was one of those days when the fates were against me because my schedule was stacked up in such a way that I wouldn't be able to get back home until 3...and I got hungry at 10 am. Well I wasn't going to eat a full meal before lunch, mostly because (in my over-efficient mind) I had stuffed my schedule full between my two class periods. That meant I had a window at 1 pm where I could eat before the school devotional at 2. 

But I've gone restaurant hopping before. I know how this works. When I'm hungry, diet schmiet, get me everything that I can smell! Which I can guarantee is not a salad. So with this in mind, I walked through the food court on my way to the copy center. 

Me at the food court...

Now I'm fairly new to campus so while I recognized the familiar beak of Chic-fil-e and the K of Krispy Kremes, I didn't know any of the other options. So I walked through while I was too busy to impulse buy anything, but slowly enough that I could plan out what I was going to buy for lunch. 

I kind of felt like I was casing a joint, looking at all the food options, trying to find what I was looking for when TADAH!! There it was. The nice big picture of a salad, with beans, lettuce, tomatos, pico de gayo, and limes. I risked being spotted and read the description for the Caliente Salad. Everything was fine, and it had lots, and lots of veggies! Well it did have meat and cheese, but it would only be a matter of asking them to not add those and problem solved!

Did I say I hate being hungry? I hate lines almost as much. College cafeterias are packed, and I am someone who gets stressed if there's a long line, which means that I just quickly buy something and deal with the consequences. Haha, but this time I was prepared. I got the salad (they only had flour shells, not corn, sad day!) and asked if I could have extra beans instead of meat. She said yes! By the time she was done there was a beautiful, nutritarian friendly meal waiting for me. I didn't have to wait until 3 pm, and I didn't have to settle for something less than what I wanted.

So what's the principle? If you decide to eat out and you want to eat healthily, scout it out first if you can. You may have to be a little creative, but something I learned from my time working with food, if you the customer, come with specifics, you'll get what you want...as long as you're not asking for a free sandwich. 

It's not impossible to eat healthily at restaurants, you just gotta to know where to look. Generally, Chinese (sit downs are the best, though buffets have some good stuff too), Mexican and Thai places are good with veggie courses and healthy options. Burger joints are harder, but most offer salads as sides, and you can always order those. When you're ordering with veggies in mind, just make sure you ask the waiter. Just because a meal says vegetarian, doesn't mean it has veggies. Often it will have tofu and meat substitutes, true, but it may not be very veggie heavy. If your goal is lots of green, don't be afraid to ask your waiter. Their job is your satisfaction, so they'll be happy to answer any questions you have. 

Live long and eat healthy!

-Shayla

SLENDER

Slender: It's Possible

Welcome to A Complex Combination!

Let me say that this has been a adventure from the start. Back in August when I first started my journey into a nutritarian lifestyle the title "A Complex Combination" kept running through my mind. I kept feeling deep down inside of me that this was meant to be a blog label, but I could not for the life of me figure out what kind of blog it belonged to. At the time I was contemplating doing a writer's blog like I had in the past, but I wasn't feeling it. So I waited.

Then this past week I was thinking about the last five months of my life and the huge changes that I've seen, and I knew what I needed to write about. The title clicked, the idea clicked and it sat down nice and tight into my heart and made it's home there. 

I love the way I live now. It's healthy, cheap (when you have a plan), and totally doable. It gives me the key things that you need as a college student, energy, and the ability to lose weight. There's nothing worse than being around a group of guys and thinking about how you finished off that pan of brownies last night... Don't know about you, but I always feel more confident around guys (confident being, slender, attractive, witty, etc.)  after I've worked out and eaten something healthy. But the problem with both of those things are time and resources. So we're still left with the problem of being around guys all the time and feeling gross and unattractive. 

Well those days will come sometimes no matter what we do, but the reason I'm writing this blog is to prove that you can take that tricky combination of healthy and college, and not just put them together, but prove that like Wesley and Buttercup, they are meant to be!

So follow me starting tomorrow with my crazy journey through this complex combination, and show that it's possible to be happy and healthy! But we're going to do it the right way. I really don't like the word skinny (it just has too many negative connotations these days), so here, we're going to be slender. Doesn't that sound better? I think so. So remember this is what we're looking for: Satisfyingly Lean, Energetically Nimble, Doing Everything Right. Slender.

We'll get there, and we'll do it right, because we're not going back!

- Shayla