To me there is nothing worse, nothing more tragic, nothing more disappointing than not being able to eat the food I love. Exaggeration....maybe? But even so, the life of a dieter is not an easy one and I've given into temptation several times. And then my diet is ruined, my plans for a healthier self are thrown in the trash and after a few months of gorging my favorite snacks, candies, fast foods, I decide to start from square one.
This time, however, I tried to devise a plan that would work for me and help transform my lifestyle, not just my physical appearance. I've been slowly (very slowly) expelling bad foods from my diet and after this weekend, plan on eradicating them altogether. My plan consists of these few things:
1) Cooking meals on the weekend to eat during the week
2) Research healthy recipes
3) Eating only veggies and fruits as snacks between meals
4) Eating consistently every day
The first "doctrine" of my plan is self explanatory. I used to do this on my previous diets and cooking large meals once a week and then eating them each day works for me. The second is quite easy as well, since I have a few websites I turn to for recipes with nutritional values and serving sizes documented. A few places I recommend are Pinterest (because it's practically a photo-site encyclopedia), Skinnytaste.com (which I may have mentioned prior) and Ziplist (which is linked to Skinnytaste). Skinnytaste recipes can be downloaded and then viewed on the Ziplist app, so you can save the recipes which interest you and look them up later on when you plan on making them. Also, Ziplist is great because plenty of other recipe sites use the app as well. You can browse through categories of recipes on Ziplist and save them to your personalized page. It will then show you what you need to buy at the grocery store for each recipe.
My snacks vary throughout the day and often I'm just shoving a protein bar down my throat or stuffing my face with low calorie chips, crackers, etc. First of all, I want to lessen my carb intake and believe that cutting out super carb snacks would do it. Second, I rarely eat veggies or fruits with my meals, so in order to get that nutrition, in a naturally low calorie food, it's great to cut up some peppers and eat them for a snack before lunch instead of 10 Ritz crackers and two cheese sticks (because I'm never satisfied with just crackers). And last, but not least, eating consistently everyday is a true struggle for me. Almost always I eat breakfast around the same time in the morning, but after that, who even knows! There are times when I don't eat until 3pm or 4pm. There are other times when I eat breakfast at 8:30am, then a snack at 10am then another snack at 11:30am, then lunch at 1pm, then another snack at 3pm and then dinner. Eating too often and eating barely anything are two extremes that I jump back and forth between unintentionally. I believe if I remain consistent and eat my snacks, lunch and dinner around the same time each day, my metabolism and body would very much appreciate it.
So, wish me luck! My advice to anyone trying to diet is that you should set yourself parameters, be strict about them and if you put in the effort, you will most definitely see a difference!
Friday, September 13, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Literary Conference
Hey All!
So this weekend I attended Slice Literary Conference in Brooklyn. To be honest, it was one of my first literary conferences. I attended plenty of writing workshops, but never a conference which held panel discussions with agents, editors and authors. It was a great experience and I learned MUCH about the publishing world. Here are the top three pieces of advice the professionals gave us:
1) Be involved in social media: Whether it's a blog (such as this), a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Tumblr, etc., it's important to have an active Internet presence. In this way a writer can build a readership or at least a following prior to publishing their novel.
2) Envision your own goal or idea of success: There was a specific panel about what "success" means to writers, but I found that this message was brought up throughout the entire conference. Success is truly subjective and it always helps that writers set goals for themselves and do all they can to accomplish them. Don't look to the agent or the editor to make your dream happen. Instead, view them as helpful appendages and continue striving for your vision of success. For instance, my dream would be to complete and publish the novel I am currently working on. In order to do this I will need the assistance from professionals, but I won't strictly depend on them to tell me how I need to be successful and I let anyone force changes to (meaning HUGE transformations, not edits) my work or my goals.
3) Be willing to adapt: In each panel, everyone discussed the editing process. Some beginning writers fail to realize that the editing process prior to publication is in fact quite constant. If you have an agent, they will more than likely send you edits before approaching editors. In turn, once an editor picks up your novel for publication they will also send edits. This could be anything from further character development to complete overhauls of structure. Writers must accept that these edits are in the interest of them as well as the books they care so much about. Not everything must or should be changed, but to be open minded about suggestions and changes is very important when getting ready to publish a novel or book of any kind.
Here are a few pictures of what the attendees were given by Slice:
If you're a writer of any kind I definitely suggest finding groups, conferences, workshops to attend that will allow you to meet people, gain knowledge and hone your work. Every time I attend workshops or conferences my writing improves and my drive to be a legitimate author increases.
So this weekend I attended Slice Literary Conference in Brooklyn. To be honest, it was one of my first literary conferences. I attended plenty of writing workshops, but never a conference which held panel discussions with agents, editors and authors. It was a great experience and I learned MUCH about the publishing world. Here are the top three pieces of advice the professionals gave us:
1) Be involved in social media: Whether it's a blog (such as this), a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Tumblr, etc., it's important to have an active Internet presence. In this way a writer can build a readership or at least a following prior to publishing their novel.
2) Envision your own goal or idea of success: There was a specific panel about what "success" means to writers, but I found that this message was brought up throughout the entire conference. Success is truly subjective and it always helps that writers set goals for themselves and do all they can to accomplish them. Don't look to the agent or the editor to make your dream happen. Instead, view them as helpful appendages and continue striving for your vision of success. For instance, my dream would be to complete and publish the novel I am currently working on. In order to do this I will need the assistance from professionals, but I won't strictly depend on them to tell me how I need to be successful and I let anyone force changes to (meaning HUGE transformations, not edits) my work or my goals.
3) Be willing to adapt: In each panel, everyone discussed the editing process. Some beginning writers fail to realize that the editing process prior to publication is in fact quite constant. If you have an agent, they will more than likely send you edits before approaching editors. In turn, once an editor picks up your novel for publication they will also send edits. This could be anything from further character development to complete overhauls of structure. Writers must accept that these edits are in the interest of them as well as the books they care so much about. Not everything must or should be changed, but to be open minded about suggestions and changes is very important when getting ready to publish a novel or book of any kind.
Here are a few pictures of what the attendees were given by Slice:
The first day attendees were given this great canvas bag.
Inside was a hard cover copy of Patricia Engel's new novel, which I am very excited to read! I never thought that I would be given a free brand new novel just because I attended a literary conference. I attended a two week long summer intensive workshop at NYU and the coordinators had us buy the books of the authors to be instructing us (even after paying the thousands of dollars to attend)!
Along with the novel, Slice gave us a free copy of their literary journal as well as a copy of Poets & Writers magazine. I am quite excited to read Slice's issue, since I'm sure it contains many talented writers. I am familiar with Poets & Writers, having subscribed before, so it will be nice to delve into their articles about authors and updates about the publishing industry.
If you're a writer of any kind I definitely suggest finding groups, conferences, workshops to attend that will allow you to meet people, gain knowledge and hone your work. Every time I attend workshops or conferences my writing improves and my drive to be a legitimate author increases.
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