Mood: A little blah
Current Craving: meatballs!
I have been hermiting for the past couple of weeks. Partially it’s because I feel swamped and overwhelmed with life a little bit and partially, it’s because I’ve been doing a “cleanse” of sorts.
Sometimes, when I get in a funk, I end up buying a lot of outside-food. My weakness is Tim Horton’s. There are a lot of great things about corporate culture - the bonding that happens in stressful situations, the support you get after a tough shift, paying it forward by buying your team coffees and cookies. It becomes pretty easy to treat yourself a little bit too often though - I found that getting a bagel and a french vanilla hot chocolate post-call or getting a coffee and a cookie before Tim Hortons closed - or both. I was starting to feel pretty logy and low on energy. So I decided to take a 2 week hiatus from eating out and settled on one caffeinated bevvy a day. Here are some of my tips:
1. One cup of coffee or tea a day is enough. More coffee does not help to make me more awake - in fact, I had several calls over the last 2 weeks and survived with lots of water and actually nourishing foods (fruits, veggies, protein and yes, carbs, too).
2. Prep ahead of time. When you have a long day ahead of you, there’s nothing better to get you through it than good food. The smoothie you see is made with frozen berries, frozen mango, half a banana, frozen grapes and a splash of milk and water. My sister made an awesome suggestion to combat my post-call breakfast dilemma: freeze your smoothie the night before and then stick it in the fridge at work so the next morning, you’ve got a breakfast to go! PS - totally safe to freeze them in a mason jar - because it’s a cool liquid going into the jar, your jar won’t crack.
3. Take one of your vices and find a replacement. I.love.pop. Like so much. It’s obviously full of sugar and I hate diet (ugh aspartame taste!). I think it’s the fizziness that I crave - so i switched to sparkling water and lemon. And now I love it! It’s actually a treat for me. I bring one on call with me and it is quite the pick-me-up for me.
Finally, be kind to yourself. I have a lot of trouble with this one. I think I’ve been pushing myself really hard lately. So in addition to adding a little bit of structure to my life with this outside food-cleanse, I’m trying let go of the self-criticism a little and just remind myself that I’m doing the best I can.














