Spinach and Forming Habits

This week really got away from me! I spent the beginning of the week studying for one exam and the middle of the week getting ready for another but thank goodness that's all over. For a couple of weeks at least, in that time I will be focusing on all of the projects I have neglected this week. Yay for never-ending cycles like this. :)

Lately I have seriously found a new obsession with spinach. I don't think I will ever like it in the nasty soggy form but I LOVE fresh spinach. I could eat it all day. My typical lunch lately consists of spinach salad with cranberries, some balsamic dressing and maybe some cheese. I can't even begin to express how much I love this stuff. And it's a part of my meal plan here, score for healthy eating. And today I was standing in line at the buffet and saw that they also had a spinach-feta flatbread pizza under 200 calories so I gave it a shot and it was delicious. 


Anyways, that was my long intro way of saying I have been getting questions lately about how many calories I eat/how I keep track of calories, etc...from friends who are trying to stick to their resolutions. It's funny because I didn't really even count calories until a few weeks ago. This whole time I just ate what my body needed in reasonable portions. I knew I was going overboard before and the scale knew it too, so scaling it down just seemed natural. And it worked. 

So, a couple of week ago I experimented with different calorie-counting apps and fell in love with My Fitness Pal. It has a huge selection of food loaded on it (even some dining locations here on campus!), as well as quick-adding calories, and a section to add in workouts as well.

 When I first started counting calories, I was strictly counting them. I found myself justifying eating something junky because it fit in my calorie count and not really care about if I was getting the nutrients I needed. So silly, but it's the way my brain switched. That was up until the beginning to middle of last week when I was noticing zero changes from one week to the next. While I did fluctuate a little bit during the week, it was overall the same. It was helpful though because I was shocked to see how many calories are in some foods that I eat daily! And I have definitely made adjustments. So, I count some calories but go with my instincts with stuff like yummy spinach salads.

All of this calorie counting has made me even more aware with my grocery shopping. Tonight, I really took time to stop and look at labels before I made purchases left and right. I got some healthier stuff at the same price I would of gotten junkier foods! Trust me, when trying to be healthy with a crazy difficult major (and now a job to add in too), it pays to be intentional!

Did you know that most of the habits you have later in life stem from decisions and habits you formed in college? Being intentional creates a habit, and there is no better habit to have than one that makes healthy choices.