8 Weeks to a Better Me: Eating Healthy

This weeks goal for the 8 Weeks to a Better Me challenge is to eat healthier.

When I read that, I thought, 'Hmm...I already eat pretty healthy!' and figured I'd just skip this week. I got up to start dinner, which was chicken stir fry. As I was putting the rice into the rice cooker, it hit me: there are many many little things that I could change, such as what type of rice I eat!

When I went gluten free, Vince and I ate a LOT of white rice. We couldn't really afford healthier rice like brown rice, but I really didn't know how to cook anything else! So we ate a lot of rice dishes. When we moved into our new house we had some awesome neighbors and they ate a lot of really good food. One thing they introduced us to was wild rice. For a while we ate that a lot, but again, it just got too expensive! 

Now we are in a position where we can 'splurge' on things like food. So this leads me into some of my goals. Well, I should say our goals because Vince wants to do them with me! He's training for a bike race in a month and is always happier to eat healthy. So here's our goals:

{1} Substitue either brown rice or wild rice from here on out. We will never use white rice in a dish again! {except when we make sushi...} I would also like to try at least 2 new rice dishes that I've never made before.

{2} Drink only tea, water or fruit/veggie smoothies. Vince will also still drink some beer, but I won't have anything except mainly tea and water. I drink massive amounts of water already, but over the past couple months I've also gotten in the habit of drinking a can of soda a day. I've been having that instead of my usual candy bar, but it's a habit I need to kick. It makes me feel better when I do a workout after work anyways! The main thing Vince is going to cut of though is coffee. For a long time he drank black tea, but over the past couple months he started drinking coffee again. He said he loves black tea though and will be just as happy with that and I will be happy drinking my daily strawberry smoothie.

{3} Eat anything for breakfast in the morning. I am in such a horrible habit of waking up 15 minutes before I need to leave for work, which means I don't eat anything for breakfast. I've heard it's the most important meal of the day, so this is what I would really like my morning to look like:

-wake up at 7 am.

-take my time getting ready for work {shower, hair, etc}

-start breakfast at 7:30am. 

-eat breakfast slowly {preferably outside} while reading blogs or a book.

-leave for work at 7:50am.

What I plan on eating for breakfast is simple things like yogurt with gluten free granola, bananas, toast, smoothie, and other small stuff like that. I'm not used to eating in the morning and tend to feel a little sick after eating, so I want to start off slow and simple!

So there you have it, three awesome goals for better eating. I hope I can stick to them just as well as I stuck to last weeks goals!

I think I'm going to start off my healthy week with a couscous {edit: QUINOA! Not couscous. Duh, it's not GF!} and spinach meal. I just bought a behemoth sized bag of spinach for my smoothies because it was so cheap, but I don't know if it will be good for very long! I'm thinking of this recipe, this recipe, or this recipe.
{Oh, and while searching for recipes I came across my new favorite blog titled "Domesticated Hippie Shit: Just Another Hippie Poser in the Suburbs". I love it! If only they didn't stop blogging in 2007. Their recipe sounds good as well!}

Any good recipes that you recommend?

Do you have any healthy eating goals?