As the girls and I took a nice long walk this evening, I thought about what a great habit we have created. Instead of sitting inside, every day we take an hour to get outside and get moving. It’s not even something that we have to think about, it is just a habit.

Then I got thinking about all of the great habits that I have created in my life, like cooking meals, making my own snacks for the kids, practicing yoga regularly, recycling and taking my own bag when I go shopping. Still, there are many habits in my life that are not good. A few examples would be eating late at night, staying up too late, spending way too much time on the computer and not taking time to meditate. Those are just a few habits of mine that I would like to change.

I decided that I wanted to learn more about habits and how to break the bad ones, so I did a little research. Habit can be defined as a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. Our lives are really just made up of our formed habits, good and bad and most of what we do, we are doing unconsciously. We eat unconsciously, drive unconsciously, walk unconsciously and even (more often than we would like to) speak unconsciously. That is because these are all things that we do so frequently and repetitively, that they have become habits.

It is said that out of every 11,000 signals we receive from our senses, our brain only consciously processes 40. Most people get discouraged by their bad habits and feel hopeless to change because habits are difficult to break. However, that is actually really great news because it means that positive, healthy habits are also hard to break and we have the power to create good habits in our lives as well.

Make a list of the bad habits that you want to break and also the good ones that you want to create. Start slowly, by introducing new healthy, positive habits and within 30 days, you will see a radical transformation occur in your life. If you are thinking that it is too hard, then it will be. Instead of focusing so much on trying to break a bad habit, put your focus instead on the new, good habit that you want to create.

Here is a list of habits that I want to get into:

1. Drink a fresh vegetable juice everyday
2. Eat more raw fruits and vegetables/ have them ready and cut-up to snack on for the family
3. Spend more time with the girls, playing and having fun
4. Get to bed earlier/ stop eating before bed, so I can sleep better
5. Practice yoga at least 4 times a week
6. Read more books/spend less time on the computer
7. Make time to spend with my hubby
8. Write out my recipes and have them in a folder for when I need them, instead of just on the computer
9. Spend less time in my head and more time embracing and enjoying  every bit of life
10. Don’t be so serious. HAVE FUN!

For the past 2 weeks, I have been juicing every morning and trying to incorporate more raw foods into my diet and I have been feeling really good! Incorporating more raw foods into my diet has made me feel so amazing. I find that it really helps me to be more focused and feel lighter and more conscious. Eating more raw foods and trying more raw recipes is also something that I really want to do. Getting the girls to love snacking on raw vegetables as much as they love to snack on fruit is also a mission that I am on.

Really, we all eat a very healthy diet, this is just something that I would like to continue with and expand on. I realize that if they see me eating more veggies, then they will want to too and if I can get in the habit of having vegetables cut up and available for snacking, then it will make being healthy and incorporating more raw foods a lot more convenient.

Now on to tonight’s dinner. I decided to make something with the baby yellow potatoes we had in the fridge. It has been just me and the girls, since Craig is working evenings, so I decided on something that they love, potatoes. I paired the potatoes with another favorite food of theirs and created Chickpea Potato Salad!

Chickpea Potato Salad with Mustard-Dill Dressing

• 2 lbs baby yellow potatoes, cut in half
• 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 3 ribs of celery, chopped
• 1/3 cup red onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons fresh dill

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add the cut baby potatoes. Boil for 15-20 minutes, until fork tender. While the potatoes are boiling, whisk together the Dijon, red wine vinegar, olive oil and dill. Place the chopped celery and red onion together in a bowl with the Dijon sauce and add the rinsed chickpeas. Drain the potatoes, allow them to cool a little then add them to the bowl along with the sauce and chickpeas. Stir until combined.

This was another hit with the girls.

I served this with some frozen vegetables and a side Greek Salad.

Veggie Loaded!!!

Autumn ate her portioned out veggies in a measuring cup.

I just finished an hour of power yoga with Rodney Yee and am currently enjoying some Coconut Brownie Bites as a bed time snack, another raw food I am in love with.

There is no school tomorrow, so Autumn says that she gets to stay up late. Apparently she makes the rules. I guess we will watching Tinkerbell for the hundredth time.

Life is good. 🙂