365 to 180: Nourishing February: A Powerful Journey into Healthier Eating

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Picture this: a year where your daily choices transform into stepping stones towards a healthier, more vibrant you. A year where you challenge yourself each day to monthly challenges to become the best version of yourself.

January’s challenge was all about increasing movement through a daily step challenge. February’s challenge is all about eating just a little bit healthier and incorporating more fruits and vegetables into my diet.

I am completely late into posting this blog post; however, this has been my challenge for the month. This has been yet another crazy month for me and I’ll include my personal updates below. But, before I get into my personal challenge, let’s talk about healthier eating and ways to make it happen.

Incorporating healthier eating into one’s diet may seem daunting at first, especially if you’re used to a certain lifestyle or even if you feel it can be near impossible with all the demands of a busy schedule.

I completely understand. Last fall I started two jobs simultaneously that seemed to take up a lot of my time and last month was the first semester of teaching at my new job. Between work, balancing family, renovating a home and working on my online business, truthfully, my diet has taken a turn for the worse.

It’s so easy to get caught up into bad habits without even realizing and finding it difficult to stay strong against the temptation of convenience.

However, it’s time to take matters into my own hands and take control over my diet and health. After all, nutrition plays such an important role in our lives and health.

What is 365 to 180?

365 to 180 is my blog post series challenging myself to a new monthly challenge to better myself. My personal goals for this year include the following:

Lose 50-60 pounds by the end of the year
Develop a weekly exercise plan and stick with it
Be more positive and express gratitude
Read the Bible in a year
Be kinder to myself and prioritize self care
Declutter and organize my home
Eat healthier- more fruits, vegetables, and limit the amount of sweets and sodas.

During these blog posts, I will include tips to help you achieve these goals if you wish to join me on your own personal development journey. I will also include my progress updates at the end.

Benefits of a Healthy Diet

There are so many benefits of a healthy diet and lifestyle. Beyond the obvious physical advantages of maintaining a healthy weight, it can enhance our energy levels as well as improve our immune system and can increase our resistance to illness. A healthy lifestyle can help us avoid and/or manage certain diseases such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure, to name a few.

By adopting a healthy lifestyle, you will be able to pave the way and rewrite the narrative of your well being, unlocking all the benefits and possibilities that lay before you as you become healthier. Every wholesome meal, mindful sip of water and nourishing choice becomes a testament to your commitment to enhance your wellbeing and life the best life you can.

Ways to incorporate fruits and veggies into your diet.

There are so many ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into your diet to promote overall health, boost energy levels, and to achieve or maintain a healthy weight. Here are a list of ways to achieve this goal.

1. Make fruit smoothies for breakfast or a snack, including a green smoothie with spinach, kale, fruits for a nutrient rich drink.

2. Stuff and bake bell peppers for dinner one right with rice, lean protein and/or vegetables.

3. Instead of reaching for the cookies or cakes, snack on dried fruit, or fresh fruit.

4. For dessert, opt for a yogurt with fresh berries, peaches as a wholesome dessert.

5. Enjoy taco Tuesdays? Instead of shells, enjoy tacos on a bed of lettuce and make your own salsa with tomatoes, onions and cilantro.

6. Or, make a fruit salsa to go with pork chops, pork tenderloins or baked chicken.

7. Looking for a frozen dessert? Try blending frozen fruits into homemade popsicles as a frozen treat.

8. Roast vegetables and toss them in whole grain pasta or enjoy them as a side.

9. Bake fruit into muffins or pancakes for breakfast.

10. Or, for breakfast, add veggies such as spinach, tomatoes, onions, etc to your eggs or omelets.

11. Make a homemade pizza and include your favorite vegetable toppings.

12. Add sliced avocado to your wraps or sandwiches for the added nutrient boost.

13. Make yourself a veggie wrap or add lost of veggies to your deli sandwiches. If you love chicken salad sandwiches, add lettuce/tomato and grapes to your chicken salsa. If you like tuna sandwiches, add tomato and lettuce as well.

14. Snack on raw broccoli and/ or carrots, celery with ranch dip in between meals

15. Infuse your water with fruit to add more flavor.

16. Make a stir fry for dinner

17. No time to cook? Look for alternatives to the traditional fast food chain and opt for healthier eating establishments such as Panera Bread or Subway. Yes, it may be higher in sodium than cooking at home, but better than straight fast food. The Mediterranean Veggie sandwich at Panera Bread is really, really good.

Conclusion

By incorporating just a little bit of fruits and vegetables daily into your meals, you are making improvements in your health and living a healthier lifestyle.

The purpose of these monthly challenges is to help build better habits, not to expect yourself to be perfect from the very start. If it was so easy for me to take on these challenges, it wouldn’t be a challenge, huh?

Just remember to be kind to yourself and give credit where credit is due. Every little bit helps and by continuing on this challenge, you are building healthier habits.

Update:

This has been another crazy busy month for me and while I did not post this blog post until near the end of the month, lol, this has been a challenge that I have been working on this February. I can honestly say it is not easy to work both a day shift and night shift job, renovate a home, and build an online business while trying to balance a family as well.

This month, I did several things that proved helpful for me. In addition to ensuring I bought steamables, and oven roasted vegetables to go with my meals such as baked pork tenderloins and chicken, I also bought some fruit to eat as snacks as well. I tend to have a sweet tooth, (who doesn’t?!), and found that if I have healthy snacks, I tend to gravitate towards those when I have them available. I really enjoy munching on raisins and peach parfaits. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy my other sweet treats that I enjoy during the month, as I believe you can still enjoy your other foods, just in moderation.

I also found it helpful to have a list of healthier drive thru options in the event that life is just too busy to cook in the evenings. This month I enjoyed Panera Bread’s Mediterranean Veggie sandwich during one of my hectic days and made sure to incorporate green peppers and onions into my Mexican cuisine takeout.

I found that I did really well towards the beginning of the month with this challenge but did get a little slack towards the middle as my work hours picked up and I had other personal events happening in my life that increased the stress levels. However, I plan to end the month strong.

One of my goals for 2024 is to be kinder to myself and as I am sitting here typing this, I realize that it is OK for me to not be 100% perfect with this challenge this month. I incorporated healthier eating at times during the month and always kept this challenge at the forefront of my mind throughout the month. Admittedly, I also have gotten slack with continuing with my January’s challenge this month, as honestly life has been super busy this month. But it wouldn’t be called a “challenge” if it were easy, right? I mentioned in an earlier post, that I would be honest during these challenges and you would see the “good, the bad and the ugly”.

I am a firm believer in “practicing what I preach” and I know that March will be a better month. Spoiler alert: for March, my challenge is to put together these two challenges thus far and not only incorporate healthier eating and exercise into my diet, but to keep track of my calories and start tracking my weight.

Let’s do this!