"We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act,
but a habit."
~ Aristotle
Excellence, then, is not an act,
but a habit."
~ Aristotle
And so is, ummm, non-excellence? That would be failure, wouldn't it? Heh.When you think about it – and why would you think about it, anyway? – our daily lives are just one habit after another followed by another. The morning ablutions, the grab-and-go breakfast, the route you take to work, when you eat snacks/lunch/dinner, evening activities, getting the coffeemaker ready for the morning and, finally, doing whatever you do to soothe yourself to sleep each night. Me? I read.
Without those habits, life would be pretty chaotic. Habits help keeps us organized and on an even keel; they also help us get things done.
Since I don't work outside my home, my workout happens in the morning, and that's one habit I don't want to have to change. I like getting it over with and then getting on with the rest of my oh-so-boring day: laundry, anyone? How about cleaning floors? Or bathrooms?
Once the weather warms up a bit, I'll get back into the strength-training habit. Right now the garage is f-f-freezing and I'm just not interested in torturing myself. I think my fingers might freeze to the dumbbells. Seriously!
When I was a child, my mother had a weekly menu that she followed. I don't remember the days of the week, but I remember that once a week we had fried chicken, meat loaf, some kind of awful stew thing, sloppy joes, etc. I'd kind of like to get into that kind of habit. Maybe a two-week rotation. With Mr. Shrinking Knitter home 24/7, I'm cooking dinner every night and it's been kind of challenging to come up with something new! delicious! nutritious! every night. I need to make a note of the things we really like and come up with a plan.
Do any of you have a set meal plan for each day of the week, or was that a '50s thing?
10 comments:
and here I thought growing up with a set meal plan was the cause of my current no-habit chaotic life.
I'm trying to get in the habit of making set meal plans. Mainly so I can cut down on the groceries so I can afford all those fresh fruits and veggies.
Don't forget -- our mothers probably also did the laundry on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, and cleaning on Wednesday thing.
I did have either pot pies or fish sticks on Fridays but that was because we had to get up and drive over to the Eastern Shore to pick up produce to sell on Saturdays.
What I need to do is come up with a list of set meal plans too. I have this in my head for eating at restaurants so I can do this at home too. It probably would make shopping easier.
Ha, our only habit with meal plans right now is picking up Chinese on Friday nights. NOT a plan to emulate, my friend.
Here's to spring coming faster than it's supposed to. Personally, I'd welcome a little global warming in my neighborhood righ now (kidding).
Hope your weekend is a lovely one.
The only thing that was sure at our house was that we had fish on Fridays - Catholic you know.
P.S., love the visual with the nun's habit.
my dad didn't like leftovers so we had new meals every day. my mom came home from work every day on her lunch break to make lunch for her and my dad. he worked nights. when she was a stay at home mom for most of my life, we got hot lunches from home at school. sometimes my mom would bring us mcdonalds.
we were very spoiled.
I didn't grow up with a set meal plan, but there was definitely a lot of repetition. I don't use a meal plan now--what's in the frig depends on the sales at the grocery store. If chicken's on sale, that's what we have; if green beans are on sale, that's what we have.
This is an interesting post to me, because it's made me realize how little variety we eat (in preparation methods, not in ingredients), and it doesn't bother me. I don't mind if we have chicken and broccoli four times a week. Food has become a lot less "entertainment" than it used to be.
Since I've started on my weight loss plan this Jan 1st, I have become more organized and do have certain meals that I make weekly. For the first few weeks I tried ALOT of new recipes, so I can really rotate them every two weeks and have it seem like we aren't eating the same thing every week. It is easier to track your caloric intake easier too! Good Luck!
OK this will seem really OCD, but here's what I've done with my weekly food. First I sat down with all my recipe books and folders and picked out maybe 80 recipes which were fairly healthy. I got a stack of index cards and on each one wrote the recipe name, which book it was in with page number. Then I listed the ingredients (NOT the method - just use the recipe when you go to actually make it). I then categorised as meat, fish and veggie. Now I pick out 2-3 veggie, 1-2 meat and 1 fish per week for the weekly shop, write down the ingredients and go shop with that. I might get round to writing the nutritional breakdown on the back of the cards but so far haven't. Then I know I'm cooking something healthy, but not necessarily boring and repetitious. If we don't like a recipe or something goes wrong, we can note it on the card. Works for me.
I don't think that's OCD - that's a smart way to organize your meals. I used to be more into the recipes and planning when I was younger, maybe cooking is just automatic for me now. I'll tell you what's OCD: I used to have my recipes in HyperCard (an old Mac s/w you all have never heard of) and I wrote a little program that would print out the shopping list from the recipes I chose, in the order they appeared in the supermarket aisles. So I wouldn't have to backtrack.
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