A Healthier and Happier 2012

I am normally not a resolutions person coz the moment I keep them, I  know I will fizzle out in a few weeks time. So after many years of no new resolutions, something in me made me take one this New Years. (Actually the something and the roots of it is another post in itself). So on January 1 2012, I decided this will be the year I will start focusing on me and my family's health. We will change the way we eat for the better and change all our bad (read: lazy) habits for good. This will not only make us healthier but will also set a good example for our little daughter to follow in her life. It has been 8 months now and I feel good knowing that my relationship with food is only getting healthier and stronger each day. My best moments are when my 5 year old says to me "Mommy, I want to eat Panjiri" or "Give me more cucumber" or "I want to do yoga with you".

Here are some changes I have made towards a more healthier me:

• Completely cut out tea, coffee and sodas - basically all caffeinated beverages.
• Cut down drastically on refined sugar.
• Take a shot of wheatgrass every day.
• Include more raw vegetables in my diet (atleast one portion of salad each day).
• Include more dry fruits in our daily diet (atleast a handful of soaked almonds each day).
• Include more fruits in my daily diet (atleast twice a day).
• Bought a good juicer and started consuming vegetable / fruit juices (atleast once in 2 days).
• Switched from white rice to brown and/or red rice. 
• Switched from refined sugar to palm sugar and/or jaggery.
• Switched from plain wheat flour to multigrain flour.
• Started consuming organic food as much as possible.
• Resumed my yoga practice (after taking a break from it ever since lil N was born).

And you know what is the best change of all? We got a pet pup in May which has led to more exercise for us all :-) I love the mornings when I actually have time to do 30 minutes of yoga followed by taking the dog out for a run. Those mornings also include us meeting with his friends in the apartment complex. It is a complete body and mind therapy for both - the pup and me:-) Ah...I cannot describe how good I feel the rest of that day! You know the icing on the cake? While I am doing yoga at home, hubby dear is out dropping lil N to school and doing his morning brisk walk in a park near the school for an hour after that. So both of us are happy our workout for the day is over with. On weekend mornings all of us head out into the tennis court for a doggies play date where we meet up our dog owner friends (with their pets ofcourse) and all of us have a great time hanging out.

So I am sure it is not much of a surprise that this is the year we finally gave birth to our own venture towards spreading health - www.shophealthy.in as well as a new blog where I blog exclusively on health related topics - http://shophealthy.blogspot.in

So what do you all do to stay healthy and happy? Tell me more...I am curious to hear.  

For the Love of Mexican Food

Why do people take a seemingly straightforward spelling and twist it to the extent of confusing the rest? And then there are more who take the already twisted spelling, twist it some more and change the entire context??? Wanna know what I am rambling about? I will tell you what...

This past Saturday was my birthday (don't ask me which one). My hubby dear was generous enough to offer to take me to lunch wherever I wanted to go. And that itself is a huge offer considering going anywhere in Bangalore will take a minimum of 45 mins to an hour on a weekend. So I searched and surfed online, checked through all my options, checked with my heart on what it wanted to be fed and decided Mexican it is. I was really craving for some yummy juicy Enchiladas, Nachos and other such comfort bean filled food. On checking around, there seemed to be hardly any Mexican places in Bangalore. So there we were - our close friends, us and my cousin - standing near our cars at 12:30 still wondering where to go. We call some more friends and check with them. Only suggestions we got were Woodstok, Habanero and Chilis. Now given that we had already gone to Woodstok last year for my birthday and our friends had visited Habanero just a week ago, Chilis it was. So we called JustDial for their number and they sent me the landline number for the one on Old Airport Road. Incidentally, the friend who recommended it had been there a month ago and loved it. But the friends who were going with us were pretty confident that it has already closed down. So we called Chilis to make sure they are open and to book a table. They were not answering. So what would a person do next? As expected, I called JustDial to see if they have any other number for them. They did not. My next question to them was - so is there any other Chilis in Bangalore? Oh yes - in Whitefield - pat came the reply. So ofcourse we grabbed that number and called them to book a table for us right away and asked them for directions. The guy on the other line just gave me some silly landmarks without any directions from Koramangala. When I asked him the entire route, he said where are you coming from? And when I said Koramangala, he seemed a little surprised saying this is in Whitefield madam. I snapped back saying so what...just give me the damn directions! He did as told and hung up - without asking for my contact number or number of people for booking our table. I was a little surprised that he did not take my number etc. and was about to call him back but hubby calmed me down saying we'll get there soon - not a big deal.

So we finally set out all hungry for feasting on a Mexican spread...drove 21kms on the awful roads full of construction and traffic, from Koramangala to Whitefield, tracked down the landmarks he gave and finally an hour later, saw the Big Bazar he mentioned. Soon enough we pulled over coz our friend's car had pulled over before us and my hubby showed me on our left, a place called Chilly's. My first reaction - "Not this one dear...we need to go ahead, cross Big Bazaar." My cousin and hubby had to struggle to hold back their laughter at the reality that faced us and jumped out of the car to talk to our friends about Plan-B. Did you realize what just happened here? Read the spellings again. Turns out that this restaurant was an Andhra Style joint called Chilly's (not the American franchise called Chilis)!!!! And not an upscale or fast food place at that but kinda like your Shantisagars across town! Imagine the look of horror on my face and the anger I felt for JustDial!!! I could not believe we drove across town to find an Andhra style hole in the wall!!! I was still in denial and actually called them again from right outside their hotel to ask which cuisine is their food. And the guy seemingly irritated by now said Andhra style madam! As if I should have already known that!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrr. The only thing that partially saved us from me actually chewing down someone was that Habanero was not too far from this place. So off we went to Habanero for my birthday lunch. It was not the best Mexican I had tasted plus the bar was closed due to a dry day in the city (which we were not aware of) but atleast it was still Mexican. Sigh!!!

Just to cross check, I scanned through my JustDial SMS messages once more and noticed they had spelt the first one Chilis and the second one Chillys but we never noticed the difference coz they had promptly provided the second option in response to my query for another Mexican restaurant Chilis in town! Gosh - for the love of trademarks and spellings! Now you know what I meant in the opening line? If only no one had  twisted the original word "chilies" into Chilis, no one else would have come along to put another twist to it to call it Chilly's!!!   

Anyway...as they say...all is well that ends well. The day ended beautifully with a visit to the temple followed by a surprise party when we got home - something I had never even suspected. Completely managed by my hubby and dear friends. I mean, its not that we have not done this before but somehow our birthdays since N has been born have been pretty low key since the excitement is mostly saved up for the little one's birthdays now :-) Hence, this came as a total surprise to me.  My shock aside, the joy and surprise on lil N's face when we entered home after the temple and saw it full of people was priceless! She was soooo lit up and just could not stop asking me - "But mama, how did they enter our home?" :-)

All in all, the day was full of 2 surprises - one thanks to JustDial and Chillys (or should I say Chilis) and other thanks to my hubby and friends.