Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change: Week 5 Final Weekly Review and Overall Project Reflection

 It looks like this is the last week I’ll be keeping you all updated on my SMART goal of reducing my dairy consumption to no more than 1 serving (2 oz cheese, 1 cup milk, 1 yogurt, etc.) of dairy twice weekly. This last week went fairly smooth in terms of maintaining my efforts not to eat dairy (especially cheese!). The biggest challenges I’ve faced lately is simply being mindful of which foods have dairy in them. Lately I’ve been so busy that I’ve actually forgotten that I’m limiting my dairy consumption and I’ve had to remind myself just in the nick of time (especially when I go out to eat- dairy is in SO many of the best foods). 

Also, I’m still feeling a bit sad about cutting out such a large chunk of my normal diet, but I’ve been feeling a lot better and more confident about this lifestyle change now that I know I can stick with it for a while. Also, since I’ve been mostly dairy-less for a while now, I’ve noticed I feel a lot better and more healthy. It’s a great motivation to keep going, and I plan on continuing with this lifestyle change. 

Overall I think I would definitely recommend this lifestyle change to others. I won’t lie, I found this change to be pretty difficult simply because eating dairy was such a big part of my diet and I had a lot of eating habits to break in the process of cutting out dairy. As with any change though, I found it just took a bit of time and consistent effort, and with the support of a few friends I learned it was much easier to make progress towards my goal. I feel pretty good about the changes I’ve made, not only because I feel healthier now, but because I feel like I’m making less of an environmental impact by cutting down on my consumption of mass-produced dairy products. 

For those of you out there who might be interested in incorporating this lifestyle change into your own daily lives, here’s some tips and some info on what to expect/what I went through:

• Try to get someone to make the change with you- this helps you stay strong in the face of peer pressure (not eating dairy can be difficult when everyone around you makes dairyfull foods and eats them in front of you). 
• Pack a lunch/snacks before going to school/work- this ensures that you will be prepared with dairy-free food so you will be less tempted to buy or share foods that contain dairy (it can be difficult to make rational food choices when you’re STARVING at school, I’ve noticed). 
• Try to keep a steady supply of snacks (veggies, fruit, etc) and other dairy-free food at home- especially condiments. I found that using or trying out different condiments helped keep me from adding cheese to sandwiches, crackers, pasta, and other foods. 

Eco-chic Lifestyle Change: Week 4 Weekly update

I try to keep a supply of soymilk in my fridge so
my roommate and I don't drink or cook with milk.

This past week, I was surprisingly on track with my attempts at eco-chic lifestyle change. Despite all the mouth-watering dairy-laden Thanksgiving food, I was able to stick to my SMART guidelines.

Just a reminder of my SMART Goal: I will eat/drink no more than 1 serving of dairy (2 oz cheese, 1 cup milk, 1 yogurt, etc) twice a week. 

Considering that I was surrounded by dairy all weekend long, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. I did have some difficulty resisting the urge to eat cheese (as usual) but I solved this by asking my friends and family to help me out. I learned that it's really helpful to have a few people looking out for me and supporting my efforts. 

I really want to keep up with the progress I've made this week, so I searched for some tips on eating dairy free. eHow.com had some pretty good info which I I think will be helpful these next couple of weeks.

Wish me luck!

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

For this eye-opener, I decided to document my coffee drinking habits and my shift from one behavior to another. All photos were taken by Yours Truly.

This is the coffee shop here at UMD. Although I occasionally make my own, this is where I tend to buy most of my coffee, especially if I'm in a hurry or really tired.

I like buying coffee from school because they sell Peace Coffee! For those of you who don't know, Peace Coffee sells only organic/fair trade coffee and operates out of Minneapolis MN. They even have people deliver coffee on bikes! Needless to say I feel good about supporting this brand. But I could still be a bit more eco-friendly with my coffee-drinking habits.

This is an example of a disposable cup I buy and then throw away (or recycle) each time I buy coffee at school. Although you'll notice the cup says it's eco-friendly, it would still be better not to use these at all.

I noticed the school has a great selection of reusable coffee mugs in the school store. This seemed like it could help me on my quest to be a more eco-friendly coffee drinker.

Here's my nice new (sort of dirty) reusable coffee mug! This way, I'm not generating all the waste I was before each time I drank coffee from a disposable cup. This was a very environmentally conscious choice, if I do say so myself.

Thanks for checking out my photo essay! I hope it was eye-opening and informative. 

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change: Weekly Update

This week marks the third week of my attempts to meet my SMART goal. I've decided to make a slight change to this goal based on my recent progress or lack thereof.

The goal: that I will eat/drink no more than 1 serving (2 oz cheese, 1 cup milk, 1 yogurt, etc) of dairy once a week.

The new and improved goal: I will eat/drink no more than 1 serving (2 oz cheese, 1 cup milk, 1 yogurt, etc) of dairy TWICE a week.

I think this will be much more manageable for me in my efforts to cut dairy out of my diet. Despite my no dairy jar (which accumulated about seven dollars ) I still had trouble cutting cheese out of my diet. I think this was so difficult for me, partly because I felt bad turning down foods offered to me by other people. Also, it requires a bit of advanced planning to avoid diary completely, and last week was a very busy week so when I grabbed food on the go, I didn't give much thought to whether or not dairy was an ingredient.

I think these next weeks will be much better now that I've allowed myself to include 2 servings of dairy each week instead of just one. I feel much more relaxed and capable already. I still plan on using the no-dairy jar (it's helping me save money !).

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2: Weekly Update

Last week was the beginning of my attempts to achieve my SMART goal. The goal, which stated that I will eat/drink no more than 1 serving (2 oz cheese, 1 cup milk, 1 yogurt, etc) of dairy once a week, proved to be about as difficult as I thought it would be. Yeah, it was pretty tough. I might have slipped a couple of times here and there, mostly with cheese. For the most part I did really well and used salt, hot sauce, salsa and spices to provide more flavor in my attempts to avoid cheese. This made me feel a lot healthier but was difficult to keep up for very long, especially when eating with other people.

mmmm cheese

Luckily, I've devised a method to prevent this from happening again- For each time I eat dairy when I'm not supposed to, I will put one dollar in a "no-dairy jar". Hopefully this will give me some more motivation not to slip up.

I'd really like to continue this SMART goal and see the changes in my health as time goes on. Hopefully with the help of my friends and my trusty no-dairy jar I will make progress towards achieving my goal.

Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2 hosted by Amy@Amy in the Rain

New Header

Here's my new header- I hope you all like it! I made this fine work of art at picnik.com. It was easy to make and fun to use, I would definitely recommend trying it out.