In the world of mindful eating, dining out is my biggest challenge.

I love to eat out. I have always associated eating out with fun, a great date, a night out with friends. If I really wanted to diet big time, I would eschew eating out at all costs.

But honestly, I’m looking for a balance between “diet” and enjoying my lifestyle. That means I have to find a good way to dine out.

Take tonight, for instance. A co-worker of mine is leaving the company, and so the whole department is headed to happy hour tonight to see her off. I really like these people and I want to get to know them better, make friends, etc., so opting out of happy hour doesn’t seem like a good plan, for purely social reasons.

So how do I make sure that I don’t overdo it and wake up with a guilty conscience (and possibly a hangover) tomorrow?

I think the best way to approach these situations is once again, mindfulness. I know I’m going to be tempted by fancy cocktails and heavy food (the place we’re going is also an Italian restaurant), so I just have to prepare myself to make good choices. Scope out the bar’s website before hand, check out the menu, think of low-cal cocktails (like diet coke and bacardi) so I’m not caught by surprise and lured into a poor choice.

That happened to me on Sunday. The husband and I were out shopping for digital cameras and decided to stop at the deli of Wild Oats for lunch. Caught unawares, I picked the first sandwich off the deli menu that looked interesting. BAD idea. The sandwich ended up having breaded chicken, melted cheese, and pesto — it tasted awesome, but had WAY more calories than if I’d gone with a simple, and probably equaly tasty, smoked turkey.

SO! Making a plan. Checking it twice. Getting wasted with my work buddies.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Just got an email from Door to Door Organics that our first box will be here on Wednesday! Another benefit of this service? They tell you what’s going to be in the box so you can plan ahead (which we all know I love to do).

Mangos! Strawberries! PURPLE ASPARAGUS! Arugala and collard greens and carrots with tops! (It says “with tops.”)

I am SO EXCITED!

And, AND! We had two bunches of collard greens on the list (?) so I substituted one for yams because YOU CAN DO THAT! I can also order grass-fed buffalo meat, wild salmon, and fair trade coffee.

Did I mention SO EXCITED???

In the vein of mindful eating, do you know what 200 calories looks like?

via Apartment Therapy Kitchen

Wow! Dr. John’s Mini Gardens look REALLY cool and perfect for container gardeners like us with minimal space. If we hadn’t already bought a bunch of pots for our plants, I would be seriously considering this! *takes another look* *emails page to husband*

We’ve been trying to find a good CSA to join in our area, but we’ve been put off by a couple of factors. First, it’s a large sum of money for us to cough up (between $400–$600 for the season) all at once. In addition, we would have to drive to pick up the boxes every week, which wouldn’t be so terrible, but for the ones we were considering, the pick-up points are rather far away and at inconvenient times.

So, imagine my glee when, while reading 5280, I discovered a service called Door to Door Organics! It’s a similar sort of service, where you pay a weekly subscription fee and receive a box of organic produce. But the pros are numerous: you can receive mixed boxes of fruits and veggies (most CSAs we’ve found are entirely, or majority vegetables), you pay by the week, with no obligation to continue (so no large up-front cost), the service is year-round (CSAs only tend to run from mid-May through October), and the box is DELIVERED to your door!

While the food is seasonal and MOSTLY local, the only real drawback (if you can even call it that) we could find is that some of the produce is from other states. For example, this week, the boxes contain bananas — definitely not a Colorado crop. But when we thought about it, we decided that we were pretty likely to buy bananas (or apples, or whatever) anyway.

Deliveries in our area are on Wednesdays. Since we’ve already done our weekly shopping, we will probably try out this service next week. Stay tuned for a review!

What a great weekend we had! The weather was gorgeous (sorry to anyone in the Northeast!), and on Saturday we went to the Boulder Farmer’s Market. Apparently, that is like the hot spot of the world up here, because I saw one co-worker and his wife and found out today that another co-worker was there as well! (Note to self: remember not to look like crap when going to the farmer’s market!)

It was really fun, with all kinds of cool booths. Not a whole lot of produce yet, but we did end up buying some salad greens, carrots, a parsnip, some fresh mushrooms, some goat cheese, and some peanut butter! Lurrrrrvely.

After stowing our purchases, we took a nice walk along Boulder Creek, which runs right through the middle of town. We were hungry when we got back, so we went to the prepared foods area and got lunch! Such cool stuff. Brandon had an ENORMOUS gyro very drippy with yoghurt sauce, and I had chicken and veggie dumplings in a soy ginger sauce that were AMAZING. We shared a fresh lemonaide and sat on the grass in the sun to eat. That’s when we saw the “Step It Up” National Climate Action Day parade go by, complete with a polar bear in water wings! There were people from the Sierra Club and lots of other eco-action groups set up to talk to you about changes you can make. (We felt smug, knowing all our power now comes from the wind!)

I thought the other very cool thing about the Market is that it’s designated a “trash-free zone” — instead of trash cans, they have recepticals for compostibles and recyclables. No trash! Very cool.