Ok – let’s be honest. Eating healthy is not easy – I’m not going to lie to you. It takes a lot of time, planning, and preparation. It’s hard! I just spent three hours in the kitchen prepping for the upcoming week. I’ve now got lunches until Thursday, dinners until Wednesday and my breakfast is pretty much all set to go. You’ll see more of the breakfasts and lunches tomorrow when I recap the day.

So, three hours in the kitchen. An hour and a half at Whole Foods picking up all of my healthy and fresh ingredients. And another hour at the gym earlier today. That’s a total of 5 1/2 hours dedicated to leading a healthy life in my day today! Good thing I had the day off from work – otherwise I never would have gotten it all done. It’s 6:30 pm and I’m sitting down to write this blog entry with a much deserved (in my opinion!) glass of melbec and a hot mug of ginger tea. Not bad for a winter’s evening! I’m sort of exhausted – but I think I’ll sleep really well tonight and be ready to face my four day work week tomorrow morning when I wake up. Here’s hoping!

My morning started off on the right foot. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 9am (after watching an hour or so of the morning news in bed – ahh!) The house was quite cold, I found my robe and made my coffee. An hour later I fixed my breakfast – a bowl of stovetop oats with blueberries, a sprinkle of brown sugar and cinnamon. This is one of my favorite winter breakfasts and it keeps me full for several hours.

Because it was my last day of winter break I had a lot of things to accomplish. More laundry (it never ends!) and one of the things I needed to do was change the Brita filter in my water pitcher. So, I threw out the Brita filter, washed my Brita pitcher and then discovered that I was completely OUT of Brita filters. So while my bed linens were in the wash, I ran to Target to get more filters. (And tissues, paper towels, etc. etc. etc.) After that trip, I had a new filter and my Brita was back online. I was relieved since staying hydrated is one of my main goals these days.

After all of that running around I decided it was time to go out and try my new gym. I convinced my mom to go with me. I am so glad that yesterday I had told a friend that I was definitely going to try my new gym today – it turns out my friend was also trying out a new gym today. We made a pact to go and report back. We live in different cities, but it was the ONLY way I got myself to the gym – because I knew I had to tell my friend that I went and how it was.

Well, it turns out that I really liked the gym. It was a good day to go for the first time since it was a Monday afternoon. I could get the lay of the land, and not feel too overwhelmed – it was not very busy at 1pm. I did the elliptical machine for 35 minutes. Then my mom and I went into a studio and worked on our form with weights, focusing on our arms. After arms, we went down to the weight machines to work on our legs for a little while. It was a great full body workout. And it was a much needed break from the treadmill for my body. I felt great about our trip to the gym. I’m hoping to get back on Tuesday and Wednesday this week… I hope I keep the motivation going to accomplish this goal!

After the gym I went off to Whole Foods to get the things I needed for the week. I had a list and knew the meals I was going to put together for the next few days. It was important to go in with a plan. (Even with this plan I still ended up getting two bags of Skinny Pop and a couple of other bags of sweet potato chips – oh well!)

I got home, showered, shoveled (did I mention it was snowing?) and started cooking. I also gave myself a few minutes to eat lunch since I was very hungry at this point (it was 3pm and I had breakfast at 10am!) Thankfully I had decadent leftovers from my birthday dinner last night – mushroom tortellini. It was delicious – I’m wondering if it was actually better than it was last night…

I had three wild mushroom tortellini leftover, and it was the perfect amount.

Once I got back to cooking I did not stop for over three hours. But now I’m facing the week in really good shape. Knowing what is for dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday is going to help me get to the gym and this is a really important goal for me.

While in the kitchen I cooked up ground turkey, quinoa, zucchini, eggplant, chicken “nuggets” and a few other things. I am really excited to have the stuffed peppers (quinoa, zucchini, eggplant went into these) for dinner tonight:

This will be my dinner – along with the “healthy” chicken nuggets and salad – for the next three nights.

I must say, I have been setting aside two hours on Sundays for the last month to get my lunches prepped and made for the first few days of the work week. I also make my healthy snacks and make sure that I have a healthy breakfast on tap for the week (this is usually oatmeal or Greek yogurt with fresh berries). The couple of hours I spent on Sundays doing this is so crucial to me having a healthy week ahead. I highly recommend making the time to do this if you can. It makes such a huge difference!

Stay tuned for what I made in the kitchen today – I’ll report back on how my breakfast, lunch and dinner is tomorrow night!