Refocusing

Hi blog friends! Is everyone recovered from Thanksgiving? I hope so. The past couple of days have given me an opportunity to examine my life and some issues that I'm having. I won't go into too much detail, but one of these issues has to do with this blog. I started MelissaNibbles in an effort to meet other people that were health and fitness minded and to focus on leading a more balanced life. Like the header says, "a healthy lifestyle of balance and fun." Unfortunately, I don't feel like that part has happened. To be honest, the blog has caused me to become more focused on my food intake and workouts than I've been in a long time. I'm constantly comparing my workouts to other bloggers, pushing myself to run more miles than my body is ready for, lift too much weight, and overtrain. My workouts aren't fun for me anymore. I don't take the classes I'd like to at my gym because I don't think they're blogworthy. It's silly, I know this, but it is what it is. I've found a lot of fun and interesting recipes in the blogworld, but I've become restrictive in my food choices. I limit bread, sugar, and almost everything else it feels like. I feel guilty if my meals aren't 100% nutritious because I don't want people judging me. I'm afraid people will wonder, "What the hell is she writing a healthy living blog for? She doesn't eat healthy." I know it may not be true, but sometimes it's a lot of pressure. Especially when I get negative emails or comments. I want to correct this behavior before I end up going back to old habits.

From this point forward, I'm going to concentrate on the "balance and fun" part. I might not be running X amount of miles everyday because I might choose to do something else. I might choose not to work out at all. I'm going to stop counting calories and eat what I feel like eating. If I gain weight, so be it. I can always lose it if I need to. I'm afraid if I don't do concentrate on these things, I'm going to be living a very unhappy life. I want to enjoy living. I hope you'll continue reading and not be offended if I eat something that might have high fructose corn syrup in it (the horror!) every now and then. I just feel like it's time to focus on what this blog was supposed to be about in the first place. My healthy eating philosophy is still focused on local, organic, wholesome ingredients. I love food, I just want to love food AND life!

Okay, now that that crap is out of the way, let me backtrack to yesterday. I was busy most of the day, but did make some yummy food. For lunch, I made a little tasting plate with a sample I received from Somersaults Snack Co. I'll be posting a full review in a few days after I've tried the rest of the samples. Yesterday, I tried the sea salt flavored Somersaults in a little tasting plate with carrots, lemon zest hummus, and a few tortilla triangles.


This was a great lunch! The sea salt flavor is pretty salty, but duh...that's in the name. They're made of whole grains and sunflower seeds, taste similar to a pretzel, but sweeter. So good! Perfect to snack on during my ladytimes ;) I can't wait to try the other flavors.

I wanted something light for dinner because of all the Thanksgiving goodies I had the day before. I also wanted something cheesy. Broccoli slaw "pasta" it was.


I mixed the slaw with grilled portobello mushrooms, a garlic and herb flavored Laughing Cow, and topped with mozzarella cheese. I served the slaw with a Quorn Chik'N Cutlet. Hit the spot!

A few hours after dinner I had a vanilla Chobani with 1/4 cup Kashi GoLean Crunch and chocolate chips mixed in. I don't have a picture because I ate it in bed at 11:30 while watching Friends. Sorry.

Enjoy your Saturday everyone. I think I might head out to see the new Wes Anderson movie, "Fantastic Mr. Fox." I hope the Twilight kids aren't taking up all the parking spots. I don't want to walk a mile to the movies again. Have a fun day!