I’m on a Mission…
Badges Earned to Date: Take the First Step
Missions Completed: 29/363
Missions Completed Today: ME! ME! ME!: Weigh Yourself; Berry Picker: Strawberries; Breakfast Champ: Fruit Smoothie; Food Stretcher: Cut up brown bananas for smoothies; Munch a Bunch: Bananas; Smooth Operator: Smoothie with nut butter; C Student: Carrot; Line Cook: Bake Some Squash; Cheesemonger: Parmesan; Cut It Out: Go a Day without Sipping Caffeine; Roy G. Who?: Green Beans.
I’m back again, with a brand new laptop (MacBook Pro, woo!) and a renewed sense of direction around healthy eating and weight loss. Expect to see a lot more content here soon!
A few weeks ago, I found a free app for my iPhone from Whole Foods called Missions. Besides healthy living tips and information about Whole Foods markets, the Missions app has over 300 personal challenges.
If I counted correctly, there are 363 missions to complete and I want to accomplish all of them in an effort to live a healthier life. I automatically crossed off any missions that included gluten (sprouted grain bread, barley, etc.) and spinach because I am allergic to it. Fortunately there are only 13 missions that contain gluten or spinach, so I have about 350 mission to complete…whoa!
I’ve also carefully thought through some rules about accepting this challenge:
1. While a majority of my shopping is done at Whole Foods, I also frequently use my local farmers markets, farm stands, fish markets, and Trader Joe’s for my groceries. Using this app/accepting this challenge does not mean that I will shop exclusively at Whole Foods.
2. I’m a fairly competent cook, but I know for a fact that there are certain missions (taro root, sea vegetables, kimchi, etc.) that may taste a lot better if I skip purchasing them at a grocery store and find them prepared in local restaurants or from friends/family. I will challenge myself at home with many of the missions (the seafood ones make me shake in my boots already–shuck a clam?!), but not all of them.
The only non-food challenge I completed today was weighing myself–ouch! I have a lot of work to do.
Now, onto my eats for today:
For breakfast, I made one of my favorite foods–the smoothie! Today’s had frozen banana slices (I cut up last week’s leftover brown bananas and popped them in the freezer), frozen strawberries, skim milk, 365 Vanilla Whey Protein Powder, and a tablespoon of natural peanut butter. I took my icy drink to-go this morning and enjoyed it on my drive to the mall.
For lunch, I baked some extra firm tofu with Dinosaur Garlic Honey BBQ sauce with Trader Joe’s baked beans and green beans. Tasty vegan goodness.
After a trip to the library to pick up The Girl Who Played with Fire, I made a snack of carrot sticks, Snyder’s gluten-free pretzels, and onion dip. I’m already 65 pages into the book!
For dinner, thanks to Pat’s Pastured and their incredibly delicious local chickens, I was able to turn a leftover roaster into Chicken Pot Pie with Crunchy Brown Rice Crust–an old favorite gluten-free recipe from Whole Foods. For a side dish, I roasted some acorn squash slices with cinnamon and nutmeg.
To finish up the day, I had a mug of hot chocolate (mug from Gabriel’s, my favorite place!) while watching August Rush.
