Take time to set your goals (but also to check up on them!)

My goal setting on another level

I was talking about reflection in my last newsletter, so I wanted to share how am I doing with my goal setting and tracking achieving my goals. I admit: I still did not finish setting my goals for 2018 with Lisa Jacob's My best year 2018. It is hard and i don’t really know what exactly do i want. but , I did manage to set my goals for January and I just checked how am I doing. I wrote down the list of achievements and I must say that I feel pretty fucking awesome about it! I would never realized how many things I started/improved from 2017 and I actually kept them going the whole month.

My achievements in January:

• I read two great books and I started to read before sleep regularly
• I finally went to off-piste skiing course, where I went 100 % out of my comfort zone (I never thought I will hike to Vrsic pass with 10 kg backpack and skis on my back … crazy!)
• I took a good care of myself: went to massage twice and each week I went to sauna
• I started with morning sport trainings due to my neck and back issues and i managed to wake up early twice a week
• I wanted to go to bed earlier and I managed quite well, I go to bed around 11 pm and wake up at 7 am (1 hour earlier than before)
• I managed to do one cool project besides my job (developed educational module for social entrepreneurship within MSS and I really enjoyed it)
• I kept on going to yoga twice a week (even though I had to push myself sometimes)
• I managed to lose a bit of my weight and eat very healthy (almost 0 sugar in January, low amount of carbs, a lot of vegetables etc)
• I survived 10 days without Jošt, when he again went to San Francisco very well
• I spent a nice amount of time with my friends, catching up
• I still did not have too many things in my schedule, I did not feel tired at all
• I started a Tuesday dates routine with Jošt and it’s working out very well: we always do something exciting and I love it
• I narrowed down my master thesis topic and now I have a concrete idea what I want to do
• I sent Pursuit of happiness newsletter and kept going with this mini project
• I hiked, spent quite some time in nature and I had super fun weekends
• I continued with my Ayurveda class even though I was thinking about quitting and I am so glad I’m still in

I achieved my goals in 70 % and achieved 40 % of things that were not even in my goals. Of course i failed in quite some things as well:

• I didn’t meet my financial goals (I will try again in February, haha, lets see)
• I didn’t meet my goal to walk to work more often (partially due to shitty weather, I made this goal more concrete for February - walk to work at least once a week)
• I got upset over some things I would not have to get upset about, it was just my reaction to the situation that I didn’t like (I will observe myself and my thoughts more to not obsess about the small things)
• It wasn’t really in my goals, but I did experience too much stress (much less than in November and December, but still, I expected that it will be much more easy-going in terms of my job). Stress mostly came from my high expectations / trying to do a lot, expecting too much from others, so I simply need to lower my expectations and not get frustrated if things happen much slower than I would want them to)

Overall, January was a great month. It was really helpful to set goals on a weekly basis and later check if i achieved them.

In February, I will change:

• I will not write my monthly & weekly goals only in my book but also on a piece of paper I will stick on the door to see it all the time
• I will try to get even more strict with my new rhythm (sleeping 23-07) by setting up a calendar reminder to go to sleep at 22:30
• I will track my financial state regularly to not spend too much

Eating healthy for dummies: how and why I changed my daily eating habits

I can’t remember when was the last time I felt so good as I do in last two months. What happened? I changed my eating habits a lot. To sum up, I eat a lot of vegetables in combination with some smaller amount of carbs - whole grain couscous, rice or pasta. I basically don’t eat meat anymore and I cancelled all the unhealthy stuff, like sour cream, cream, not-whole grain carbs, fruit yoghurts, biscuits and other sweet stuff, white bread etc.

And the best part? I’ve never ate such a good food in my life, I never had so much energy and I’m losing weight. Besides, I’m taking care of my health and caring for the environment. And it’s so easy.
 Note: I'm far from nutrition expert and I didn't read much so far about healthy good. All this is based on my experiences and what helped me to change my daily eating habits.

Consequences of my changed eating habits:

1. I have unlimited amounts of energy. I used to feel really tired around 10PM after a busy day and I thought it was normal. Well, it's not. Now I don't get tired and i can still do sth productive after 10 PM, which gives me 1-2 extra hours of productive time a day.
   
   
2. I love everything I eat. I never eat anything I have trouble eating or I’m not excited about eating it. All of the dishes I make or eat are super-delicious and I always ask myself: what would I like to eat the most at the moment? I started to listen to my body.
   
   
3. I take care of the environment. Avoiding animal products, such as meat, brings a great deal of environmental care, since production of cow meat is no. 1 polluter on our planet. Don’t believe me? Watch cowspiracy. 
4. I decreased my chances of getting cancer or having a stroke. Watch this amazing documentary called forks over knives and form your own opinion about this topic. To sum up: you’ll live longer and healthier life, if you avoid animal products (meat, dairy, eggs). 
   
   
5. I learned how to cook so many new things. My imagination was quite limited, when it came to cooking. I considered cooking a huge waste of time; shopping for food, cooking, cleaning etc and we have to repeat this process 3 times a day … Now I also see advantages of cooking.  If you cook for yourself, you know exactly what you put in your body. You can make awesome dishes that suit your taste and you make people around you happy. You save a lot of money by not eating in restaurants all the time. 
   
   

   6. I’m sure my general health has improved. I didn’t do any test or sth like that, but I changed content of my fridge a lot. I’m sure it’s done good to me.

   7. I’ve lost some weight and I feel more confident. I didn’t lose much in kilos, but I lost some cm all around my body. It’s a combination of bootcamp workout and constant moving. Whenever I know I will not be able to go to a training I plan, when will I be able to move. At least I try to do is walk for 30 minutes - it can mean walking to a meeting or to a city centre instead of driving. Or going hiking during the weekend etc. After I’ve been doing it for a while, I actually get kind of nervous, if I don’t do any sports at all for a day.
   Regarding loosing weight, I had some failed attempts to do in last few years. The only method by which I lost some weight so far, was Paleo (basically you only eat meat and vegetables). It was horrible. I did it few times for two months and I hated it all along: I couldn't listen to my body, I had all this limitations and all my favourite food was off limits. When I thought of having lunch, I wasn't excited at all. What I'm trying to say is, listen to your body and observe what works and what does not. And above that, it's not about which diet will work for you. It's about the whole approach towards eating and sports - it's about your lifestyle and your daily habits.
    
My limited beliefs and excuses regarding food, cooking & health I had: 
1. Cooking is a waste of time.
You can cook some amazing things in 10 minutes and this is how you give yourself a healthy meal. As a time managment freak, I also optimize it as much as possible. I cook more food than needed at the moment - I can always eat the same dish later in the day or week or Jost can eat it. If I cook with Alenka, we talk during cooking. If I cook alone, I watch/listen to TED talks during cooking. I often do other housekeeping stuff during cooking, like doing my laundry, cleaning etc.


2. I can’t eat healthy, since I’m too busy.
I always had an excuse for not eating healthy and it was, that I’m just too busy. In my time-management perspective, eating was a waste of time, so I need to eliminate the time I spend on eating. That of course means, fast food. It’s not like I was eating pizza and burgers all the time. But I did compromise, I never took time for breakfast, so the easiest thing to do was take a fruit yoghurt and drink it on the way. I was eating out a lot, in different restaurants and I often ordered pasta. Sauce was often unhealthy too - creamy, with a lot of empty calories. I was also eating unhealthy snacks. For example, I was in a hurry and I thought  - well, the only thing I can do at the moment is to go to a bakery and buy sth there, I’ll eat it on the way. 
That’s bullshit. I can either buy a fruit, like banana or apple, or low fat yoghurt. I can bring the food with me, when I leave home in the morning and take sth healthy from my fridge. And regarding eating in restaurants, you can always try to order sth healthier. You can also try to bring home cooked food to your work place once a week and change your routine a bit.


3. It’s so expensive to eat healthy food.
It could be a bit more expensive, depends on what you eat. You can save money by eating healthy too. Meat is expensive, right? Vegetables are mostly quite cheap, right? Carrots, tomatoes, courgettes, chickpeas, salad, lentils …? As it goes for whole grain pasta, it is 10-20 % more expensive than the regular one. I think it’s definitely worth investing.


4. You’re so limited if you eat only vegetables all the time.
I always thought that eating only vegetables in boring that that there are like 3 different dishes you can make. Of course, that’s so not true. Besides the classics potatoes, rice or pasta you have such a wide range of other (healthier) carbs: lentils, chickpeas, beans, all different kinds of cereal (buckwheat, quinoa, couscous …).


5. I need to go to another grocery store to buy healthy stuff.
Of course I didn’t know where to buy healthy stuff - I never took two minutes to google it. When I changed my diet, I still kept on old habit of going to the same grocery store. I just buy different things there now. More vegetables and fruit, whole grain carbs like pasta or rice, oat cereals and chia seeds for breakfast, natural low-fat yoghurt, oat, rice or coconut milk instead of cow milk, lots of lentils, chickpeas etc. I also did some research on superfoods and I bought some things on malinca.si and in DM now, but it’s not necessary.


To sum up, here are basic concrete actions, that can improve your health and eating habits. If you're missing an explanation on why is X better than Y, google it. :)


1. Stop with sour cream or cream for sauce. Start using coconut milk, you can also add soy sauce if you don’t like a coconuty taste. I buy coconut milk in Asia shop.


2. Start eating oat cereals with different seeds (sesame, chia, flax seed) for breakfast. It is so much healthier than pre-prepared musli mix, even if it says fitness on the box. It’s also incredibly cheap and it takes 2 minutes to prepare breakfast.


3. Start buying whole grain pasta, couscous, rice or other carbs. It tastes great or almost the same to me. The point is in the sauce anyway. Since we're talking about carbs, be careful about the quantity - switch your regular plate for a smaller bowl.


4. Use coconut fat/oil for cooking. Throw away your sunflower oil, if you have it. Besides coconut oil, I have olive and pumpking oil at home - for making a salad.


5. Get rid of the sugar. Do you actually need it? I don’t use sugar anywhere and I don’t miss it at all. You can be forgiven, if you are baking christmas cookies or making a cake, but even in this case you can make a non-cooked version of it, where you don’t need to use sugar. You can find some great recipes here (in slovene).


6. Use as little animal products as possible. Why? Watch documentary Forks over knives and you’ll get the answer. Meat, cow milk and eggs are very harmful to our health and by limiting or cancelling them from your fridge, you increase your chances of never getting cancer or other diseases.


7. Use as little animal products as possible, since it's really violent towards animals. Watch a video with Melanie Joy, that talks about reasons for eating meat. I never felt bad for eating chicken, cow or pig meat. At least not bad enough to stop it. After watching this video, combined with arguments from Cowspiracy and Forks over knives, I think I'm finally ready to give up the meat. So, now you have 3 reasons to limit your meat consumption: increase your health, help decrease environmental damage and stop supporting the industry of violence towards animals.


I’m not suggesting that you can change your eating habits in a day. But we can all try with small steps and change one thing at the time. Maybe you can buy coconut oil tomorrow. And then start with oat cereal breakfast next week. And try cooking new vegeterian or vegan dish next week. And so on. Another strategy would be bo go shopping, try this for 2 weeks with all the suggested changes and observe the changes in your level of energy, your body etc.


Some examples of the what I ate in the last two months, to give you some more concrete ideas:


a) sugar corner (when you get an urge to eat sugar, there's a way to skip chocholate or cookies)



 blueberries with cacao, coconut & seeds on top

 yoghurt with blueberries and honey

 banana, blueberries and cacao, kiwi, tapioca, flex seeds


b) main dishes corner

whole grain pasta with mangold and roasted onion & coconut milk sauce



 whole grain pasta with young peas & tomato in soy sauce, green salad with feta cheese, chickpeas and pumpkin seeds



 white cheese with young green beands, spinach and onions & home made hummus (chickpeas & tahini mixed with added curry and lemon juice)



 great snack choice: avocado with a piece of home-made wallnut bread

green salad with feta cheese & lentils with onion, carrots, courgetts & coconut milk sauce


I hope this blogs makes you reflect on your daily eating habits. That is makes you want to watch 3 videos/documentaries mentioned. And that you might adopt at least one new thing in your daily diet. I'm sure that for many of you, there was nothing new in my blog. Congrats, you're already breathing a healthy lifestyle. Help others to adopt it too and share this post, if you find it helpful.