A Perfect Day of Eating

What does a perfect day of eating look and taste like to me?

For breakfast, snack-time, lunch, and dinner, I incorporate a plethora of colorful vegetables (spanning from broccoli, kale, spinach, to squash and bean-sprouts), a nice slab of meat (fish, chicken, beef, lamb), and a source of healthy fat (coconut oil, fish-oil, macadamia-nut oil, olive oil, bone marrow, nuts, seeds, grass-fed butter) into every meal. All this stuff is delicious to me and simple to prepare.

I am a strong advocate of a logical concept that emphasizes the idea that we were meant to eat fresh and naturally grown/harvested foods with minimal amounts of tinkering and processing. Food just tastes better in its natural form, why complicate things? If you’re one to shy away from the produce aisle of a grocery, it would behoove you to start eating some of foods mentioned above; try it for a week and see how you feel. I guarantee you will feel a great improvement in your overall well-being and see gains in your exercise routines.

Consider these simple steps:

1. Avoid foods on grocery shelves that contain ingredients you can’t spell or pronounce.

2. Choose fruits and vegetables that are colorful; these veggies are vitamin and mineral-rich.

3. If you’re really hungry, load up on vegetables since they tend to be low in caloric-value and contain water; these will fill you up.

4. If you do not consume fish often due to high-mercury levels, substitute fish like tuna, mackerel, sea-bass, and swordfish with fish that are lower on the food-chain. These include whiting, whitefish, sardines, anchovies. For the most part, these fish are caught in the wild because of their high levels of population.

5. Include a source of protein into every meal to increase your metabolic-rate; burn fat.

Breakfast: Frittata with three organic eggs and sauteed kale, olive oil, garlic

Snack: Baby carrots and cucumber with Tuna Salad with red onions, spicy mustard, cracked peppercorn, yogurt coleslaw and coconut butter

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Dinner: Grilled wild-caught tilapia and red onions marinated with soy and balsamic dressing, half an organic avocado, olive salsa, and fresh spinach mix

A calm before during the storm

...find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore some dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life.

-Lawrence K. Fish

New York City means a lot to me. Being an avid city wayfarer and having New York so close to home, I have always been keen to observe the city's people and surroundings that produce the uniqueness of New York that we all fall in love with. One of the greatest Metropolitan capitals of the World, New York City, never ceases to amaze me with its jungle-like atmosphere and asymmetrical city-line profile that seems altogether faultless and true. There is no doubt that New York City's designation as the 'City That Never Sleeps', is right-on-target.

Recently I moved into a new apartment in downtown Manhattan with my brother. I feel a whole new world has opened up for me; a new future with fresh job experience, people to meet, and a place to call my home. I am blessed and extremely grateful to be where I am right now. Working a part-time job as a cashier and server at a restaurant, I come into contact with a myriad of New York City's inhabitants and visitors. I am no stranger to the nervous and uneasy energy that seems to exude from many of the people who I engage with each day.

As I reflect on my experiences with these individuals who seem restless and worried, I recognize that we all experience certain levels of anxiety and worry from time to time. We all get a bit fidgety when an uncomfortable thought enters our minds and all of us have our personal fears. When I'm feeling out of character and distracted, I like to take several deep breaths, gather my thoughts, and pinpoint the reasons for these feelings. Am I tired? Did I eat right? Am I over-worked? Is there a toxic relationship in my life that is negatively affecting my mood? Once this mental-awareness kicks in, I am instantly more aware of my own thoughts. This is my way of proactively changing my negative thoughts into positive ones.

You may be asking yourself now, "Why the hell does this blog sound like self-help book?"

I really hate to sound like a therapist in this post and I, for one, am in no position to be giving out advice on how to calm down. This is one experience in my daily life that I've been aware of, reflected on, and wanted to write about for awhile.

What's for lunch?

Marinated and grilled balsamic-soy jumbo shrimp with asparagus stalks, broccoli stalks, and yellow bell peppers, accompanied with some coconut oil, chunks of pineapple, and avocado. 

(the sweet-salty contrast, pretty fuckin' great)

-MJ

Food for LIFE

So I wanted to start off my blog by talking about food. If you've lived on this earth long enough and have eaten more than twenty different types of foods, you should already have concluded that:


'you are what you eat'


I don't mean it literally in the sense that one is a blueberry if one only eats only blueberries. I am merely emphasizing that the decisions we make to eat one particular food over another is a conscious one and if you make poor food decisions, these decisions will reflect poorly on your health. Vice-versa, if one chooses to eat foods that are minimally processed, nutrient-rich, and 'grow out of the ground' (I will get to this later), one will reap the multitudinous health benefits that food offers us. If at anytime you are reading this blog and you are interested in learning, feel free to contact me. Advice is freely-given.


Strolling through Union Square the other day, I decided to check out the Trader Joe's on 14th street and the wine store (my new favorite go-to place for wine, 3 bottles of red-wine for $22). Below is a sample shopping list, I confess that I have a 'healthy' obsession with bananas and avocados. I usually have one of both a day, eating half of each in one sitting. If your avocados need some freshening-up, squirt some lemon juice over them.


My simple and FRESH shopping list:


6 organic avocados
a bundle of bananas
sunflower seeds
grape tomatoes
a bag organic carrots and cucumbers
2% Greek yogurt
Salmon and turkey

Bananas are full of Vitamin A, B6, and iron. Also great for muscle building fuel.

Avocados are good sources of fat with fiber, potassium, vitamin powerhouse. Ladies, these are great for your skin so eat up.

Ready, Set, GO

Hello World and readers! Welcome to my blog about everything. Read, think, relate, question, and engage with me. I will be blogging my reflections of day-to-day life experiences and about my pursuit of personal health and physical well-being through sense and practice.


I am starting this blog because recently I've made a new promise to myself. I want to start writing and living in good-faith. What does this mean? No more lieing to myself or to others, no pretentiousness. I would like to see how long I can be completely honest to myself and to the people that are in my life. The name of my blog emphasizes my intention to recount the life-changing stories and experiences that have shaped my life and taught me to look at the world with open eyes and more importantly, an open heart.


Bona Fide (adj) - Authentic, genuine. The concept of 'good faith' denotes sincere, honest intention or belief, regardless of the outcome of an action.


Sad or happy, in love or out of love, in limbo or moving forward, I will be blogging about the raw thoughts and feelings that make me truly feel like I am experiencing the roller coaster ride that we call LIFE. I write, live, and speak with the intention of understanding the world around me with the guidance of past experiences and people that have progressively shaped my life and made me who I am today.