When I started making a conscious attempt to be healthy a few months ago, I decided to also cut back on going out and drinking. I used to go out every single weekend and sometimes both Friday and Saturday nights, but now I limit myself to going out two or three times a month, one happy hour a week, and usually no more than two drinks at a time.

I thought I missed it, but this past weekend, I went out for a friend’s birthday and realized that I don’t. We went to four different places, Hofbrau Bierhaus for dinner and beer and then three others while bar hopping on the Lower East Side. By the time we got to the third, I realized I could have done without the last three. I was perfectly happy with the liter of beer and salad I got at the bierhaus and could have called it a night after that.

Christine and I at Hofbrau Bierhaus

Cut to my latest revelation: I am now officially a grandma.

I’m totally okay with that. The problem is that it’s hard to be social and hang out with friends without drinking. For most in their early 20′s, hanging out tends to revolve around drinking.

Christine, Belinda, and I

So with that being said, my goals for July (and I know I’m a bit late on this!) are:

1. Plan some get-togethers with my friends that don’t revolve solely around alcohol.
This is for my own benefit as well as theirs! While I love a nice glass of wine after a long week, I don’t think that the goal of every hangout needs to be: “Get drunk and have an awesome time!” And while I understand that everyone has different interests and philosophies, I think it’d be beneficial for some of my friends to cut back on their drinking too. Hopefully, my healthy habits can benefit them positively!

2. Make some new friends!
Not that there’s anything wrong with my friends right now, but most of them wouldn’t be up for a day spent kayaking on the Hudson if I brought it up out of the blue. I would love to put myself out there and make some active-minded friends similar to myself.

3. Volunteer!
I absolutely love volunteering. I miss having something I’m committed to outside of school/work. I’ve been trying to get involved with various organizations in the NYC area but not really following up enough to get serious. So one of my goals is to finally find some sort of volunteer opportunity to commit myself to for the rest of the year!

4. Take a class at my gym.
I don’t think I took a single class at my gym all month, even though I kept wanting to! I keep getting intimidated or changing my mind as I walk into the gym and deciding I just want to do something on my own. Time to suck it up and do it! I may try for Zumba tomorrow with my sister if her gym’s still open.

5. Keep a food/exercise journal.
I keep dropping on the ball on this once! Since I realized I’ve been having stomach problems, I wanted to try keeping some sort of food/exercise journal so that I have a record if I ever need to consult a nutritionist or dietitian. I just keep forgetting though! Boo. I’ll start tomorrow… For real this time.

6. Reduce my level of stress.
This last one is the hardest! I am naturally very easily stressed and I carry a lot of stress in my shoulders. I’ve written about how my stress levels negatively affect my health before. Now that I’ve acknowledged it, I need more follow through to actually reduce it! I have no idea how… but that’s what I’ll try to figure out this month!

To make this post slightly less boring, I’ll add some food photos from the past week!

My Rainbow of Hoboken roll at Ayame in Hoboken last Thursday:

Drunken noodles for lunch at Hi-So Thai on Monday:

Veggie enchiladas with salsa verde at Charrito’s yesterday:

My family and I are heading off to Applebee’s for dinner in a bit – my mom has a gift card, yay!

I’ve written before about how I have trouble stopping to smell the metaphorical roses. I’ve always known that I’m the type of person that needs to make a conscious effort to slow down. Otherwise, I end up doing too much and getting burnt out. It wasn’t until last week that I realized that I really need to make more of an effort to “smell the roses” though.

To give some background on this, I struggled with a few stress-related health issues in high school. It took a lot of work, but I eventually got rid of them… up until recently when they resurfaced. In the past month or two, I’ve noticed some changes in my body. Two of them have been discussed on this blog: sleep and stomach problems. The other one is a little too embarrassing for me to be comfortable mentioning online, but it also affected me in high school.

Last Tuesday, I went to my doctor’s office to ask about my recent health problems. She suggested that the the sleep problem may be due to light in my apartment in the morning, which I definitely agree with. She also mentioned that the stomach problem could be a problem with my diet, specifically eating too much fruit and vegetables! Shocking, I know. I know that getting too much fiber can cause digestion problems, but I really didn’t think that I was getting too much. She didn’t totally nix my idea that my stomach problems could be due to stress too, but she did suggest making some small modifications to my diet and seeing how that affects me. Lastly, she confirmed that my suspicions that my more embarrassing problem was caused by stress. She gave me a request form to get my bloodwork done to find out if there could be any hormone issues going on and also a recommendation for a dermatologist in the area. So we’ll see!

With that said, it’s become very clear to me that I need to work on reducing my stress levels and to help me do so, I’m setting some health-related June goals for myself!

Goals for June

- Go to yoga

My gym has yoga classes, but I almost never go. I always prefer to lift weights, run, or row, but I think this would be better for both my fitness in general and my mind. I think I may join in on Courtney’s June Yoga challenge to help me meet this goal, actually!

- Take rest days

This is something I have trouble with. Meg’s recent post about taking more rest days really hit a note with me. I definitely don’t take enough rest days, even when I feel my body needs it. Instead, I often just force myself to push through it, though I’ll know I’ll be better the next day if I do.

I also want to apply this to Sleep and Repeat! Since I started this blog, I’ve felt like I need to share every food-related photo or fitness-related experience I have, which I realized is actually kind of an absurd goal for me. I took a break from the blog this weekend because 1. I didn’t have much to share and 2. I had plans for a rest weekend following my doctor’s recommendations about my stress levels. So as much as I love sharing my life, I’m going to try and pull back and take “rest days” from the blog a little more often as well.

- Eat more balanced

I generally eat very healthy, but according to my doctor, I also need to work on eating more balanced in general. She suggested that I might be getting too many veggies and fruit, so I’m going to try and cut back a little on both and see if that helps my stomach issues.

- Improve my work-life balance

Last week, I worked two 11-hour days. Way too much! It’s not what I’m used to at all. I haven’t mentioned this before since I try to stay away from real-life talk on the blog, but my boss and I are changing groups and our new group manager is a crazy workaholic. I’m talking 6 am to 10 pm days. Insane, I know. I absolutely am not ready for that to happen to me. Luckily, I have the coolest boss ever and he is really understanding of it being my first year in a full-time job. Usually when he offers to let me leave early (early being a relative term to my usual 6 pm leave time), I turn him down. I’m not unwilling to work and I want to make a good impression, but one of my goals is to take him up on that offer a little more in the interest of finding a better work-life balance.

And I’m leaving the June goals at that for now.

Dinner

Tonight’s dinner was a new creation that I think I’ll be throwing together for quick dinners more often: a hummus egg wrap!

Ugly photo, I know. But trust me, it was delicious and super quick! I just slathered a whole wheat tortilla with red pepper hummus, then topped it with spinach, an egg (cooked in the microwave), and a sprinkle of goat cheese. It was literally done in five minutes! The perfect speedy after-work meal.

Just finishing up The Bachelorette and I can’t wait to see who gets booted! I’m loving Arie, Jef, and Sean. Obvious choices, I know. But what can I say, I’m a sucker for reality TV editing. If you’re watching, who are your favorites?

I’m playing TV catchup tonight! I’m especially excited for the Survivor finale and Celebrity Apprentice. What can I say, I’m a total sucker for crappy reality TV.

Anyway, I had some seriously yummy food today! And I just realized that I use the word “yummy” a lot on this blog. On top of “delicious” and “tasty.” Whoops. But what are you going to do when you write a food and fitness blog? I guess I need to brush up on my thesaurus use!

Now, here are two of my YUMMY eats from today!

Lunch

For lunch, I hopped over to Hi-So Thai with my boss and two work friends. It’s a great little Thai place with a pretty good lunch special and within walking distance from work. And therefore, the perfect lunch spot.

My boss and our friend Steve ordered their usual, the pineapple fried rice.

I ordered the drunken noodles with chicken, which were a little more oily than I would’ve liked, but super spicy and good! And the portion was a lot smaller than what you normally get at Thai restaurants, so I didn’t feel too guilty clearing my plate.

And our friend Brian ordered the chicken pad thai, which I didn’t manage to get a picture of.

Dinner

All I snacked on the afternoon was some fruit, which wasn’t quite substantial enough. I got home from work a little before 6:30 and was huuungry!

My mom is seriously incredible at Chinese cooking and she brought me some of her Chinese-style empanadas when my family came up for Mother’s Day dinner yesterday. I don’t actually know if they have a name in Chinese, but we just call them “bing,” which is sort of a blanket term for lots of pan-fried things. I think the technical translation would be “pancake” though.

On the side, I had some of my leftover roasted grape, walnut, and goat cheese quinoa. It was still good!

Inside these empanada-type things is egg, scallions, Chinese vermicelli, and some tiny dried shrimp. It was hard to get a good photo, but trust me, it was YUMMY! And yes, I’m now embracing my overuse of that word.

One of my goals for this year is to get my mom to teach me how to make some of the amazing things she does! Her Chinese breakfast bread and homemade scallion pancakes are famous among our family friends. And she doesn’t even use recipes for most of it – she just manages to experiment in the kitchen and get what she wants in one or two tries!

As for my own cooking journey, I actually didn’t really learn how to cook until last year when I lived off-campus my senior year of college. My mom has always been impatient and unfortunately, I inherited the trait from her. So her attempts to teach me how to cook were somewhat disastrous! But now that I know the basics and a little more, I’m hoping it’ll be easier for us to get along in the kitchen.

Sleep tight!