#35 - Keep a food journal and write what I eat everyday for a month (32/101)

I think a lot about what food goes into my body and how it affects it. I can tell a difference when I am having a healthy week, when I haven't had my green smoothie in a few days, when I am full and when I still want dessert. When I was in college about five years ago my body began to go through a ton of changes and I could tell that I needed to be more conscious about what I ate. I have a healthy metabolism but I couldn't eat a whole cookie cake like I used to be able to, but instead just a slice. I decided I wanted to watch what I was eating in a healthy and sustainable way so for a while I wrote down everything I ate without changing any of my habits. After a couple months of writing down everything I consumed, I started to recognize trends in my diet and from there, made small changes. For example, I noticed I was not drinking nearly enough water so began to fill up a water bottle on my way to class everyday. I noticed I was eating out at too many restaurants so began to go to the grocery story to buy a weeks worth of groceries and plan out my meals. I noticed I ate way more carbs than vegetables at meals so made an effort to eat double the amount of vegetables as carbs at a meal. After a while, I stopped writing down what I was eating because I began to think about my eating unconsciously and a lot of these healthier habits stuck.

Now a few years out of school, I decided to keep a food journal to see how I was doing and if any new trends emerged. Along with a few colleagues, I spent the last month writing down everything I ate and drank. I was pleased to see that I was drinking a lot of weather, eating a lot of good food, exercising regularly and more but also noticed a few trends that I can think about and be more intentional in my food choices. For example, every time I got on a plane I had a glass of ginger ale (which ended up being 6 ginger ales in the last month). I did not realize I was drinking so much soda so now can think about what I order on a plane instead of always choosing a ginger ale. I loved doing this exercise because it helped me think about leading a healthy lifestyle and intentionally thinking about what I consume so I can make choices about what goes into my body.

#12 - Read a new book prior to the movie being released; then go see the movie (31/101).

For those of you that know me, you'll know that I am a book worm. I love reading so a lot of the items on my 101 things in 1001 day list include reading. For list item #12, I decided to couple the written and visual storytelling elements to learn a story both from a book and a movie. I enjoy creating images, scenes and visuals in my own head when reading and love being able to see how others make written stories into visual storytelling when adapting books into movies. I like to see how the images, scenes and visuals I have created in my head differ or resemble the ones that get created in the actual movies.

When I was looking at a list of books being turned into movies, I was really excited to see the "I am Malala" movie coming out and thought it was the perfect time to read the book and watch the movie. The book was great - a true story about a girl fighting for the right for education who was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan. The book explored everything that led up to the shooting and some of what has come afterwards. It is remarkable to read a story from the youngest nobel peace prize winner and it was great to see the movie as well. Malala is a role model for young girls throughout the world and makes readers and viewers believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire and ignite change in the world for the better. I think Malala will continue to be a symbol for human rights, freedom and inspiring change in our world.