Staying Healthy: Food & Exercise

Because staying healthy is our #1 goal this year, rather than just listing our weekly menu and how much we walked in the Sunday post, I want to combine the two along with other healthy things we’re doing into a weekly post. This is not to thrill, amaze, or impress anyone with what we’re eating or how much we’re walking, but to help me keep track of our progress, and better see ways we could be improving. I will still be making a weekly menu plan, and including that in this post, and the Friday recipe post will continue as well (as long as I have recipes to share).

Without further ado, here’s what we ate this past week. My goal when meal planning is to come up with flavorful, healthy meals that use what we have on hand and contain less than 500 calories, including dessert. I apologize for the shadowy photos – the light is not very good when it’s time for us to eat, but I do my best.

Sunday: We celebrated YaYu’s 21st birthday with one of her favorite meals: Mississippi pot roast, mashed potatoes, and sautéed green beans. For her special dessert I made a Baked Alaska (with a brownie base and chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream). It was a bit of a challenge because I did not have any of the traditional pans needed (all were in the lost box) and high humidity made it difficult for the meringue to hold its shape, but it came out okay in the end and was delicious.

Monday: I tried a new recipe and it’s a keeper: Chef Tom Collecchio’s One Pot Pasta. So good and so easy! We had leftover Baked Alaska for dessert.

Tuesday: Japanese-style sweet and sour pork (subuta) over steamed rice; finished up the Baked Alaska.

Wednesday: French dip sandwiches made with leftover pot roast; roasted zucchini; chocolate cake with coffee buttercream for dessert.

Thursday: I wanted a day off from cooking, so we had Costco Asian chicken wraps; salt & pepper baked potato chips; and chocolate cake again.

Friday: Mini chicken tikka masala pizzas; chocolate cake again

Saturday: Chicken, vegetables, and rice soup, and chocolate cake one last time. The cake has been delicious, but has kept me awake into the early hours as there was so much caffeine in it.

I had small portions of everything (all measured and/or weighed). I have no dietary restrictions, but continue try to limit my carbs and eat more vegetables than not, and not exceed 1200 calories per day (usually get a few more though based on how much we walk). 

Here’s the menu plan for this coming week (in no particular order):

• breakfast for dinner (sausages, eggs, and toast)
• Guadalajara Swiss chard quesadillas (made with spinach this time)
• grilled fish tacos with mango peach salsa
• Chinese 3-color salad
• ham fried rice
• Costco Italian sausage and pasta casserole
• mini pepperoni & vegetable pizzas

Tapioca pudding and gingersnaps will our dessert for the first four days of the week, then we’ll have butter mochi with ice cream next. Not sure what vegetables we’ll be having with some meals either – that will depend on what we find at the farmers’ market. I currently drink 72 ounces of water every day, and will be sticking with that.

We walked six and a half hours last week and 89 miles in January (so far). It rained several days during the week, but we were lucky and got in a walk every day even though we got a bit wet a couple of times. We will be continuing with our current walking distance through the end of the month, taking Sundays off going forward as we need and want a day of rest (it’s also the most crowded day up at the park and we like walking when there are fewer people there). Daily strength training has been going well – I have no trouble fitting it into the day, and look forward to it. Week before last the three of us did a six-mile hike on the Stone Dam trail, and were the only people out there that day! Finally, I lost another three pounds this past month, 31 pounds total since June of last year, and two toward my goal of 10 more pounds off this year. Other than a couple of pairs of leggings, none of the pants I arrived here with fit any more – they all fall off me now. My tops are super baggy as well. I am making do though, and with the shorts I purchased toward the end of last year I have plenty to wear, and no intention of buying anything else other than new walking shoes in March.

Brett is set to meet with the endocrinologist in Honolulu on February 1. He was scheduled to have surgery done last December, in Portland, and hopefully he can get it done this year, at Tripler Army Hospital if possible. The issue isn’t a serious one, but it does need correction. We are both eligible for the COVID vaccination but not until the end of March.